[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]

He stands there for a moment, making a big deal of considering it. "Hm. Cake and being looked after by hot soccer moms or retreating to the far corners of Chicago to lick my wounds and sulk. Gee. There's a tough choice."

He is going to take advantage of the fact that Murphy probably won't try to hurt him while he's injured. Oh how he will take advantage of it.

And now he's going to follow her inside with a shrug. "All right. You win."

[whateverthemess.livejournal.com]

Murphy closes her eyes, the tiny quiver a smile on the edge of her lips. "I did not miss you, for the record."

She leads him through the lobby and down a hall lined with dressing rooms to one close to the end. There are a few staring faces, whispers, people lurking behind their doors and looking at the stranger. Murphy touches the shoulder of one of the nearest, who promptly tries to look like she wasn't staring at that guy Hawkes kept seeing her with. "Bandages, please. One of the first aid kits, plus needle and suture thread, just in case."

"Are you okay?"

The worry leaves a tiny warm spot glowing in Murphy's chest. She smiles. "I'm fine. Quickly, please."

She holds her door open. "If you need a chaperone, I can happily find one," she says dryly, turning her attention back to Gabriel.

The room itself is small but comfortable, the furniture all mismatched and battered, the linens equally patchworked. Nothing like home, even though its starting to feel like one in its own right.

[painhumbles.livejournal.com]

"Liar," he says, following behind her like an irritatingly smug, bleeding puppy. "You pined. How long's it been, anyway?"

Dudes who stare get stared at right back with vaguely intimidating, yet still unbearably smug, expressions. Yeah, that's right, punkass. You keep walking.

"What would I need a chaperone for?" He scoffs, walking in and flopping down on the nearest thing suitable for flopping on, which happens to be a chair. "So you know where I am at all times, you lovesick thing?"

If he keeps that up, people are going to start accusing him of protesting too much. At this moment, however, it's just to keep her from thinking too hard about where he's been, who he might have killed, and what Apocalypse he's not doing a bang-up job bringing down.

[whateverthemess.livejournal.com]

"Almost a month." She hangs her coat on a hook near the door.

She turns back around and flicks her wrist, pointing at the ceiling. "Shirt. And not a word about it. I can't bandage your clothes."

Murphy's just mostly ignoring you, Gabriel. Also, she doesn't expect you to not say a word about it, but hey. It was worth a shot.

[painhumbles.livejournal.com]

Aww. And he had a retort for that and everything. He makes an annoyed pfft sound and off goes the shirt. "You realize this is all gonna be a moot point in an hour or two. I'm just humorin' you, 'cause it's less annoying than watchin' you fidget around for a couple of hours while I bleed."

It's not like he's the one lying dead in a warehouse somewhere with a stab wound in his chest. Geez.

[whateverthemess.livejournal.com]

Still ignoring you, Gabriel, lalalalaaa. The woman comes back, tapping on the door and delivering the requested supplies to Murphy before fleeing again. The lines around Murphy's mouth and eyes tighten when she sees the beating he's taken, though most of her attention is fixed on the ugly, slow-bleeding gash on his side. The question is out before she realizes she's asking. "Who did this to you?"

Murphy winces. There's not a lot that could. "Never mind."

[painhumbles.livejournal.com]

He frowns, not quite threatening- more warning than anything. "Word of advice, Murph? If it can hurt me, you can't handle it." And that's all the answer he's going to give on the subject. He raises an arm to look at the gash, frowning at it like one might frown at something weird that's trying to crawl up your leg as opposed to a wound that would be fatal on any other person.

"Huh," he notes, far too casually. "I thought somethin' felt weird after that fourth stained glass window."

He could be kidding. He's probably not.

[whateverthemess.livejournal.com]

She gets down on her knees next to the chair, hissing as she gets a closer look. Pink tissue, dark exposed muscle, the slow dribble of blood. Way too slow for something that deep and fresh. It doesn't even have the pink ring of telltale infection around his intact skin. Murphy touches the flesh next to the gash gently. "It really doesn't hurt?"

[painhumbles.livejournal.com]

"Uh. There's a hole in my side. Yeah, it hurts." The snark will continue until... Forever. It never goes away. It's how you know Gabriel is conscious. That said, he lowers his voice to a less snarky tone, "I've had worse, believe me. Like I said, it'll heal."

He'd like to ignore the giant bloodletting elephant in the room, if everyone's okay with that.

[whateverthemess.livejournal.com]

Murphy shakes her head and opens up the kit. Good damn thing there's a big-ass bottle of saline in there. She soaks a cloth pad and starts cleaning the wound, precisely and carefully. She's done this kind of thing a lot. Squall all you want, Gabriel, it would itch her to just cover it up without cleaning it first, even if it would heal on its own, and she can't just leave it... oozing all over.

It would bug her, okay?

[painhumbles.livejournal.com]

YOU'RE THE ONE WHO INSISTED THE SHIRT HAD TO COME OFF, MURPHY. GOD.

He just rolls his eyes and resists the urge to cringe. Healing factor and general awesome god stuff aside, he isn't actually impervious to pain and that stuff stings.

"Sooo," he drawls to take his mind off the irrational urge to hiss like a wounded cat. "A month, huh? Did I miss anything?"

[whateverthemess.livejournal.com]

"Nothing." She grits the word out, her hand still steady as she finishes cleaning away the dried blood. It's going again now, though still not nearly as much as a wound of this kind normally would. She flushes it out, swipes away the runoff, and sits back. She's frowning, both at the wound and at her lack of information.

"If Michael's kidnapping people again, he's doing it very quietly. I've had people watching him as much as possible, but except for Hawkes and Vansen, they aren't trained to this kind of thing, and I need those two here. I should really stitch this shut."

[painhumbles.livejournal.com]

Gabriel flops his head back and shifts a bit. Right. That explains everything. She hasn't caught the little white-blooded freak yet, she feels useless, and so she's mothering the first thing she actually can deal with.

"You're transferring, Murphy," he says, half drawling and half sing-songing.

[whateverthemess.livejournal.com]

"What?" She jerks back, scowling. "Excuse me, Freud, but you were oozing all over my chair."

She digs out a bandage of the appropriate size and gently tapes it into place, her face showing clear discomfort with the idea of just covering up a wound that size. "It's unprofessional to leave it open."

[painhumbles.livejournal.com]

"Okay, fine," he says, shifting, rolling his eyes a bit. "It'll heal weird if you put stitches in it. Does that make you feel better?"

He shifts again. He's still high on something like adrenaline, which is probably for the best, because the crash is gonna hurt like hell. Angels are warriors- they're meant to be able to fight. He hasn't done it in so long, it just feels like he's woken up old muscles that are sore, but aching to be used more.

"It was three months, by the way," he adds, tone a bit softer. "For me."

[whateverthemess.livejournal.com]

She smooths the bandage tape into place, not looking at him. She's not sure how to. He got dragged away, stripped of his power, then dragged back and...

"I'm sorry." She wants to hug him. She wants to fix this. Murphy gets to her feet. "I didn't want to ask."

[painhumbles.livejournal.com]

"I appreciate that you didn't," he says and actually sounds like he means it, "But if you're gonna get all savior complex on me, you oughta know that there's nothin' you coulda done about any of this... Oh wait. That doesn't help."

He grabs her hand, almost without thinking and when he speaks, he sounds a little desperate, "I killed one of my brothers. Okay?"

Yeah, not something he wanted to drag out in the open, but neither of them are very fun when they're angsty and he's not fit to be dropping anyone in a tropical paradise until this all goes away right now.

[whateverthemess.livejournal.com]

She tugs him forward into a hug without pulling her hand away. Murphy's known him for all of a week and he's telling her something like that--which means he doesn't have anyone else to tell. There's nothing. Nothing she could say, do--there's just nothing. This is it.

[painhumbles.livejournal.com]

He stiffens a bit. Okay. This has never happened before. ...Not like this anyway. You hang around Woodstock, some naked chick with flowers in her hair is probably going to hug you in the name of peace and free love, and you never know what's actually going on in those orgies, but, um... Actually getting a friendly hug from someone? Yeah, that's unheard of, especially since it feels like a sympathetic one.

And part of him, the snarky Trickster God who spurns anything that isn't hedonistic or slightly vicious, wants him to push her away and mock her for putting her sympathies somewhere she shouldn't, because like he really needs anyone to care about him. The other part, the nearly-fallen archangel who nearly got himself killed by and then had to kill one of his own brothers tonight, only to wind up back in this place and powerless again... That part of him doesn't want to let go. Because he doesn't have anyone to tell. He can't shout at the Winchesters and Castiel and Anna for driving him out of hiding and into a war he never wanetd to fight. They're not here. The only person who is here is a woman he's known for all of a week, which is such a piddly, pathetic stretch of time for a being that can count moments before the earth was ever formed.

So rather than push her away, he just stays there, not quite hugging her back, although he does faceplant into her shoulder a bit. He'll be back to normal in a minute. Right now, he needs this.

[whateverthemess.livejournal.com]

She presses a hand into his hair, the way she would with Dresden or one of her brothers, her nephews, the victims still standing after their first brush with the supernatural. There's no murmured assurances, just the silent message that there's something solid to lean on. Finite and fallible as it might be.

Murphy's the one who moves first, shifting back just a little to look him in the face. She squeezes his hand and lets go. She could probably wait, hold him until he pulls away, but if she does the chances of him letting her touch him again--particularly for comfort's sake--are probably not good. "Feel like some cake?" Her voice is much quieter and more grave than the question warrants. "At least the bandage will keep it from falling out between your ribs."

[painhumbles.livejournal.com]

Gabriel's expression lingers at quietly desperate for a second or two after she pulls away- that moment between wanting to cry and being too much of a macho asshole to do it. Then he closes his eyes, exhales, and looks up at her with a half-cocked brow like she just said that stupidest thing he's ever heard.

"Oh, you're a riot, Murphy. You get put through six walls and four stained glass windows and then see who's laughing." Even though she's not actually laughing. Shh.

He tries to stand up and then promptly sits back down. Yep. Standing right now doesn't feel right- apparently, he used the last of his adrenaline getting up here. "...Actually, if anyone tries to do that to you, call me and I'll return the favor, 'cause that shit stings."

[whateverthemess.livejournal.com]

The warmth that breaks over her face, the tired little half-smile and the slight cant of her head--really? really?--is an expression Dresden probably recognizes quite well. She loves him. All his stupid, eons-old bravado, all his dickish commentary, all the broken strength that keeps him from falling apart.

Aparently, Karrin Murphy has a type.

"I'll try to remember that before my spine breaks on the second wall."

She uses his knee to get back on her feet, taking the chance to give him an extra squeeze before she straightens. "I'll be right back."

[painhumbles.livejournal.com]

He flails his foot out to hook it under an ottoman and drag it over. Yes, he could snap an ottoman into existence, but he's not feeling any heavy duty power work right now and it's just as easy to drag it over. ...Okay, no it's not, but whatever. "Just don't get into any fights with Biblical archangels and we'll be covered, 'cause if you die, I'll be really pissed at you."

He stares at his knee for a few moments after she leaves and then groans as he hoists himself up to get into a more comfortable position with his feet propped up. "You're gettin' soft, Gabe," he mutters to himself, "and I don't think it looks all that good on you."

Not much he can do about it though, other than stop lurking around Murphy like a kid looking for a date to prom, but she's about the only damn person in this universe that doesn't grate on his nerves. Fucking humans.

[whateverthemess.livejournal.com]

When Murphy returns, it is with a whole cake on a tray... and a fork. Two forks, actually, but she figured it would be a waste to dirty up plates when he'll as likely plow through the whole thing anyway. She sets the tray on the table next to her chair, sitting herself down on the part of the ottoman not occupied by his feet. She has to shove a few books out of the way--history texts, mostly, and a criminology text focusing on the habits and backgrounds of delusional psychopaths.

...Murphy does not fixate. What are you talking about. "It's chocolate." She digs her own fork in to take a chunk out of the edge, holding his out. "Do you have a preference for something else?"

[painhumbles.livejournal.com]

"If it has sugar in it, I'll eat it," Gabriel says, matter-of-factly, accepting the fork and digging in it. As a matter of fact, chocolate is his favorite. He takes a chunk off the edge, himself, and digs in, suddenly remembering that he hasn't eaten in ages. That damn apocalypse will take a lot out of you.

And he notices your crime books, Murphy. The fact that he is choosing not to comment on them just means that he's resigned himself to the fact that you're gonna keep getting headaches over this until your brain explodes.

"Let's be honest for a second here, Murph," he announces, half-thoughtful. "You didn't think I was comin' back, didja?"