lt_safe_house | (no subject)

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Date/Time: 20 May, early evening
Location: Lobby, and wherever this takes us
Summary: Let the new plot commence

A taxi came to a halt in front of the manor. The driver looked at his passenger with concern. “Sir, are you sure you don’t want me to take you to a--?” he started to ask.
The man in his back seat interrupted him hoarsely. “Yes!” he snapped. “Here.” He dug some folded bills from his pocket and shoved them into the driver’s hand before he pushed open the door and got out of the car.
The driver stared at the money, both because of the bloody fingerprints left on it and because the man had much overpaid him.

The nameless stranger he had brought here was already moving towards the building. His gait was lurching, and he kept his right arm pressed close to his side, covering a spot where blood seeped steadily through his tightly buttoned jacket with his hand.
He barely made it up the few steps that led to the door, and stumbled into the lobby. For a moment, he stood at the door and looked around, his breath rattling and labored. Anyone looking at him had to see that he was in pain and at the limits of his strength, hardly able to remain upright. The traces of a recent beating were livid in his face. Judging by the scraped knuckles of his hands, he had at least managed to get in a few good punches of his own.

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Rose made sure to stay next to the stranger and Raphael, taking hold of the stranger's legs to make sure he didn't move away again. Her hold was strong, but she was careful not to injure the man any further with her werewolf strength.

"Can I do anything else to help, sir?" she asked Mr. von Arkon.

"Actually, Rose..." I have to try... "In my room, top drawers behind the shirts there is a tiny bottle with a gold label. Can you bring it to me? Make sure the lid stays screwed shut so you don't accidently inhale it." That was his way of telling Rose Don't use your nose to find it.

Loki had been about to enter the lobby, but what he saw through the first crack of the opening door was quite enough to turn him freeze and stay where he was. He would not be press-ganged into helping out there. Still, curiosity kept him rooted in place, safely hidden and secure from discovery. Now if that wasn't something he could tell that Anathema girl...

Rose listened and nodded. She'd make sure to breath carefully and certainly not inhale in the direct vicinity of that bottle. Though she wasn't sure why her friend would have something dangerous in his room.

She ran up the stairs to the first floor and into Raphael's room and pulled the top drawer open, rummaging through the shirts in there until she felt something hard beneath her fingertips.

Grabbing the bottle, only casting one quick look at it to make sure it had a gold label, she hastened back downstairs to hand Raphael the requested bottle.

Still using an arm to keep the man pinned he nodded his thanks to Rose and carefully unscrewed the tiny cap. Quickly he put a cloth over it, then moved the cloth-covered bottle just at the edge of the man's face. The dampened fumes should be enough to calm him down without knocking him out completely. He needed to stay conscious, but Atlan is right, he's only going to hurt himself flailing around like this...

The man's movements grew weaker and stilled even before Raphael's bottle came close to him. His head fell heavily back against the angel.

Atlan reached out to touch the man's neck. He looked up at Raphael and shook his head.

"Too late," he said. "He's dead."

Raphael's insides chilled to ice. Swallowing his horror he quickly capped the bottle, awkwardly wrapping the rag around it and tossing it aside.

He lost the pulse.

The man had lost his pulse.

In one fluid movement he quickly laid him back down, his own heart pounding in his ears and drowning out everything around him, including Atan's words.

"You are the Healer of God!"

"Can you feel their faith in you? Their love for you?"

Breathe... Breathe, please just breathe! Father, please!

Everything around him faded away. Atlan, Rose, Trilby, Loki... If they spoke to him he was unable to hear it as he desperately tried to revive the man's heartbeat.

One... Two...

"I'm not an angel! I'm not an angel anymore!"

"Who did this to you, Raphael? Tell me. Who cut off your wings?"

"...I'm not an angel!"

The echoes shrieked in the depths of his mind, bloody fingers working to massage the heart to bring it back to life. Every moment that flicked by seemed like hours. Please... Please... Father, please! He felt his vision blur but forced those infernal tears back; this man needed help! It was the time to help, to heal, not cry like a simpering child!

It had probably been an eternity later by the time he realized the life he had tried to save simply left its broken shell.

He was gone.

Raphael clenched his eyes shut, fisting his hands on the man's still chest. Long clumps of hair hung in front of his stricken face like streams of blood.

He was gone.

Atlan sat back and put his cell activator back on.

"You did what you could," he told Raphael. "We couldn't have saved him, no matter what."

Rose stiffened. Dead? The word echoed in her mind. They had tried to help this man, had done their best and now he was dead. It made her sad that they couldn't help the poor man, and it frightened her at the same time. What now? At home, the pack would try to deal with everything that endangered their safety, their secret. But she didn't have a pack here and she didn't know how people would react.

Would someone call the police? Would the police dig around in people's backgrounds?

He knew there were voices speaking around him but didnt seem to hear. As if in a numb trance he began to search the pockets. Maybe if he found the ID he could contact the family. Gabriel could help with that.

There were a few bills of small value. Some pieces of torn paper, one that appeared to be from a book. His fingers touched what he thought was a wallet and pulling it out he realized it was a British passport. Quickly opening it he saw the name.

Martin Cole.

He was no longer a nameless face and he felt his chest swell. The man may have lived alone or maybe he had a wife waiting for him. Did he have children? A job?

"I'm so sorry..." He found himself whispering.

"I'm not an angel anymore!"

"You are the Healer of God! One of the Seven that stand before the Throne!"

"I'm not an angel!"

How could you let this happen, Father? He clenched his eyes shut, shrugging out of the over-jacket of his robe and using it to cover the body. His stomach felt sick. He felt betrayed. How could Father do this? Create him as a Healer and then take it away?

"I'm not an angel anymore!"

"...can you feel their faith in you? Their love for you?"

He wrapped his arms numbly around himself, softly whispering ritual prayers in the angelic tongue as Faith and Doubt began their war for their place within him.

"I'm not an angel anymore!"

"You are the Healer of God!"

"Can you feel their faith...?"

"I'm not an angel anymore!"

His vision blurred and he clenched his teeth as if in pain. This isn't fair!

Somewhere in the fury of the storm, he remembers. He remembers the warmth and the Love he felt within that church in Venice. He remembers Gabriel's desperation to help him. He remembers... a promise...

I have to... I have to have Faith...

I will have Faith...

Father... Please forgive me... I will have Faith...

In the very next moment he was enveloped in a bright green light.

A bright green light ripped Rose out of her musings and she turned to face the light - and saw Raphael. Yelping, she tried to reach him, to pull him out of whatever that light was...

In the corner of his mind he can see a small patch of cast-away flowers. He can see a hand carefully plucking free a dead leaf.

"It doesn't deserve to die!"

"It can't die! It can't die!"

"...can you feel their love for you...?"

The light that surrounds him is warm, and he feels his eyes tearing up. He'd missed this and now that he had it he held on to it. "I'm sorry I Doubted Your Will, Father..." He spoke in th Angelican Tongue, the man beneath his hands still limp and lifeless, and he prayed for the man's soul.

Something began to tear through his shoulders, not painful enough to cry out but enough to be annoying. Two tiny tufts of red feathers began to poke out, the edges dusted in gold.

There were also hints of blue, though he couldn't see anything beyond the light that surrounded him.

Rose held on tight to her friend, feeling a change in his posture, a bit of tension in him. She clung to him hoping that whatever was happening it would end soon.

The light seemed to explode and then suck into him like that of a sea anemonie. It was as if he could breathe for the first time in millennia (or had he just always held his breath?)

In the next moment he dropped like a lump, partially on top of the body.

Rose went down with her friend, refusing to let go of him. The next moment she started gently shaking Raphael, hoping he was alright, hoping he'd get up and tell her everything way okay. What had happened?

"Raphael? Raphael, can you hear me?"

Atlan watched the scene play out with a slightly raised eyebrow and a strange quirk to his lips. This was certainly interesting.

The girl was understandably upset, but knowing what to look for, he could see slight movement that betrayed life in the being that had just collapsed on top of the dead man.

More to soothe the girl than anyhting else, he reached out for the red-hea with one hand to check his pulse.

He warmth... Love... Gentleness...

He sees his older brother, visibly disturbed at the sight of the cast away wings, no longer fiery, no longer a flame...

Grey.

Like ash.

I'm so sorry, Gabriel... I'm so sorry for everything...

But still, there is something inside of him. That gaping hole is gone, replaced by a soft, pulsing song... Holy holy holy is the Lord God almighty... It seemed to beat around him, like a slowly reviving heartbeat.

Rose clung to her friend, still shaking him slightly, a distressed whine breaking from her throat before she could force it down again. She didn't want to lose Raphael, couldn't lose him!

Pleading eyes fixed on Mr. di Arcone.

"Please, sir, can you do anything to help him? I don't know what's wrong with him, but I can't wake him up and... please!"

The whine was apparent in her voice and her eyes were begging the man for help.

"Rose..." His voice was raspy and his fist still clutched the things he had found, but he reached over with another shaking hand and touched her face. He felt as if he were waking up for the first time, maybe since his Creation. His heartbeat thrummed within him, pulsing, singing that Holy holy holy is the Lord God Almighty...

Raphael slowly moved to sit up, blinking as he looked up at them, blodd smudging his cheek and clothes. "We need to get someone who can help us with this." He smiled softly at his friend, taking her hand in a reassuring gesture. Thank you...

Rose rubbed her face against the palm of Raphael's hand, sighing softly. Her friend was alive! But then she frowned at the dead man.

"But who will be able to help us? The police will ask questions..."

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Sorry, didn't want to interrupt!

Thats okay! I didn't want to talk around you :3

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