abraxaslogs | blood from an empty prayer, watch the devil smile [open]

Many are heading to Nott for helping the local populace.

Lucifer's going for the singular person.

He convinces Wilhelm to 'tag along' with a subtle "it'll help Kell but you'll hate it, too" but the downside of them all being similar types of emotional creatures is that sympathetic kindness will not go over well when you're really at the bottom of your barrel.

So it's the visceral method.

He has Wilhelm lead the way through the streets considering the fact that... Lucifer has never visited after the two moved. Better late than never, right?

A knock. And then a sigh.

And then, even if the door ISN'T locked, a Knock, the loud sound of a knocking emanating impossibly clear through the home. If it was locked, it definitely is not now, the spell overriding the door, and Lucifer steps in to search for Kell.

He will bodily heave him up from whatever location or position he's in like he's no more than a ragdoll.

There are layers upon layers of wards on this house, some overt, blasting their presence as deterrent, some hidden, slowly woven over days and weeks into the very bricks of the house. Only a few are Abraxan, most of them are Kell's own.

As Lucifer approaches it becomes more and more clear, none are activated. The door are sensibly locked, but it's a physical lock, it has no chance against Lucifer's magic.

Kell is upstairs, seemingly fully engrossed by task of sorting papers on Rhy's desk. He looking suspiciously calm and collected, a little pale, but that's it. There are signs, but visible only to those who know him very well. A certain almost mechanical rigidity has crept into his motions. Warmth and ease that seeped through his defenses as they slowly started to lower over the course of months and months here, is gone now.

"Please wait downstairs, I'll come to assist you shortly."

He doesn't even look back at the person who entered the room, unmoved by the fact that they came in spite of locked door. As if he doesn't even remember.

Lucifer says they're going to Nott, so...Wilhelm follows him to Nott. Mind you, not without a barrage of questions and, when Lucifer refuses to give specifics, puppy-eyed pouts. Nevertheless, he leads the way to Rhy and Kell's house — no, just Kell's house now.

It doesn't seem real that Rhy is gone. He was one of the first people Wilhelm met in this world. He'd worked his way up in the esteem of the crown to gain real sway in the affairs of this town, and he was prepared to use his position for good. Now...he's just gone.

However jarred Wilhelm is by Rhy's sudden disappearance, he knows that Kell must be feeling it tenfold. He knows what it's like to lose a brother. Granted, Rhy isn't dead, but being literal worlds away from someone you love echoes that ache.

Before they set out, he had half a mind to dissuade Lucifer from bothering Kell during this difficult time. The more he thinks about it, though, the surer he is that Kell could benefit from a distraction. A reminder that he's not alone. In the wake of Erik's death, Wilhelm had shut himself away and at the same time desperately wanted someone, anyone, to reach out to him.

His approach is gentler than Lucifer's.

"Hey, Kell. We just wanted to...see if you're okay."

Yes, we. He cuts a look to Lucifer, warning him not to contradict the plural pronoun usage.

He shoots a withering look right back at Wilhelm, even if the statement isn't completely off base.

He does want to see if Kell is okay, though he already knew the answer to that going into this. And Lucifer, who is also putting up layers upon layers of masks when he himself is not okay--for his own reasons--knows all about acting like he's fine. Kell can have the most World Class, Flawless deception.

But they both know him.

Very well.

"You should get out of the house," Lucifer says.

Kell doesn't move, then he turns around slowly. When he does, he ignores Wilhelm completely, choosing to stare at Lucifer instead.

"Now, you come?"

He shakes his head. Before either of them can respond or react, he turns around going back to the stack of paper on the desk.

"No. I have work."

His voice is like his face, expressionless, but to Wilhelm and Lucifer, he could as well be screaming his lungs out.

Wilhelm already knew the answer too: of course Kell is hurting in the wake of his brother's sudden absence. (He's not sure what else to call it. Where do people go when they aren't here anymore? Home seems to be the logical conclusion, but Wilhelm has seen no ironclad evidence that proves this popular assumption.) So maybe it would be more accurate to say that they've come because they know Kell isn't okay, and they hope to help him feel better.

Well, he hopes to help Kell feel better. Lucifer hopes to enact some secret plan that apparently nobody will like.

Kell's hollow expression and cold words don't shock him, but they do cut. He doesn't take it personally — he just hates seeling his friend like this. Wringing his hands behind his back, he tries again.

"It can't hurt to take a break. Please, Kell, we're worried about you."

Yes, we again. Deal with it, Lucifer.

Edited 2024-03-25 21:59 (UTC)

Kell's incredulity lands, Lucifer's lips twitching in brief irritation before pulling further back in an unkind facimile of a smile.

"Oh," he trills, "I'm sorry that you think you have a choice here. You've already had so much control taken from you, what's one more?" He'd prefer to just fly them out of here, but while his own steadiness has improved, the ways of this world continue to weigh down on him.

It'd be easier to get Kell out of the area before he turns into the volatile firecracker Lucifer named these two to be, but Lucifer kind of wishes Kell would get up and fight right here and now. Reveal some spark, still there.

Kell turns around slowly. He ignores Wilhelm completely. To acknowledge him and his worry would equal to succumb to despair he's trying stave off by all this non-sensical activity. He's more hindrance than help at the hospital, yet not a soul said a single unkind word to him. They all treat him like as he was fragile like an autumn leaft, all shrivelled and desiccated. They are not wrong.

Even his sorry attempt of shuffling through Rhy's personal papers is less actual organizing and more desperately trying to conjure even the faintest echo of Rhy's presence by contact with material things he touched not so long ago.

"Is this somehow funny to you?"

A clear provocation. Kell is looking for a fight. He needs an outlet for his rage and his sorrow. There's so much of either of them that there's an equal chance he'd explode or crumble into dust.

As the tension thickens to something flammable, ready to ignite, Wilhelm shrinks into the background. A habit he hasn't unlearned yet, it requires no movement. He just stands on the spot and makes himself smaller — it has to do with the hunch of his shoulders, the fold of his arms across his chest.

Chewing on his thumbnail, he glances between Lucifer's knife of a smile and Kell's hollow eyes.

Sorry, Wilhelm. Really. He warned that the kid would hate this, but not this part.

"It's hysterical," he says without inflection.

Sorry Wilhelm.

"You want to attack me? Let's do it outside." He steps towards Kell. "There's a nice good field. You're familiar with it." They put out a fire there. He tilts his head. "But do you really want to destroy anything that might be his from here?"

It's his last real emotional strike that might get Kell to leave willingly, on his own power.

If Kell resists, Lucifer will cross the rest of the distance and throw the man over his shoulder like a sack of flour and this will get nasty.

(And probably look like a kidnapping. But eh. That's besides the point. Like Nott isn't distracted enough to notice or care about a Summoned Issue.)

Do you really want to make Wilhelm complicit in Kidnapping, Kell?

"Of course not. Don't be ridiculous."

As fast as his ire ignites, as fast it dies out. All resolve crumbling into dust. There's no point. Rhy wouldn't want them to fight. Not where people can see them.

"I'd rather avoid a spectacle no one needs."

With Rhy gone and Lyle Vela having to petition to crown for help. Things already don't look good for Nott. Kell is not going to be the one making it worse.

"What do you want?"

When the cold fury burns out in Kell, the tension starts to lift from Wilhelm's shoulders, but the ache remains. He was the same way in the wake of Erik's death. Anger and sadness took turns spilling out of him, his mood shifting like clouds in a storm. He couldn't understand how he could have so much crashing inside of him but at the same time feel so empty.

He slices another glare Lucifer's way, warning him to back off now that Kell seems to accept their presence. That's the same too: the way his brother's name could be used as a cudgel against him. This, at least, might be to Kell's benefit, unlike the impossibly heavy crown Wilhelm's parents had forced on him.

"Lucifer won't tell me, but it's some kind of training exercise," he says, tentatively moving closer to Kell. "Apparently we're going to hate it, but...maybe it will give you a chance to yell and let everything out."

Kell shrugs. Whatever. That's probably as much support as he can expect from Lucifer. Not that he asked for any. And that's while ignoring the fact that it was Lucifer who found his semi-frozen ass out the in the mountains. Not alone, but still he was there. And he was being utterly unfair fawning after Kyle when the man dug him out from under the avalanche, but not extending the same gratitude to Lucifer who'd most likely rip apart anyone or anything that planned to hurt either him or Wilhelm. As he actually did with the boars.

They all behave really weird around each other. Sometimes Kell wonders if being an ungrateful asshole is not his fatal flaw. He thinks about it more after Ikorr fiasco. They should have sided with the Lunae...it was the right thing to do. It's too late now.

"Fine. Where are we going?"

"Somewhere familiar," he explains, just a bit of his relief showing at Kell cracking. He wasn't expecting much from Kell, either, but this is enough. Just get him out and the rest will come together, one way or another.

He gives Wilhelm a look as he turns which is alarmingly grateful. His presence as a mediator for Lucifer was a joke when he became a representative, but there is a ring of truth to it. Lucifer's more likely to resist and grind his heels in when Istredd tries to get him to do something he doesn't want to, but Wilhelm?

Eh.

He leads them out of Nott, along the farmlands that had once been aflame, before he Wilhelm was more than a pawn and before he acknowledged Kell as anything other than fodder. There's a house in the distant, charred and crumbled over.

He likely could have chosen another field.

There is no protection from the wind here.

That means no one can hear how much they may rage at him.

He points at Wilhelm. "You need to learn how to create a spark and hold a flame while in water." He points and looks at Kell. "You need to learn how to multitask in combat." So what happened on their trip does not happen again. So that maybe Lucifer doesn't have to experience it again.

What water Wilhelm may ask.

Whatever belligerent outbursts either boys might have with him and this and his assignments are ignored as Lucifer begins what may or may not be a familiar Ancient Thornean incantation--the very one that called up a rainstorm to dose the flames of this field.

Kell perfectly recognizes the land and the ruins. There's not a shred of doubt in his mind that the choice of the place is intentional. Whatever Lucifer plans is a mystery though. That very quickly resolves itself, but whatever complaint he might have voiced is drowned by a deluge that follows Lucifer's incantation.

"Fuck you! I can perfectly multitask just fine! "

You try to hold back a blaze from devouring you all because someone hasn't learned to properly control his element from that first fucking fiasco all those months ago! And made me take over!

Which is something he does not yell into the rain, even if the urge is strong. Because its not true, and cruel, and Wilhelm doesn't deserve to get shanked with the shrapnel of his anger at Lucifer and his utter lack of understanding, nay, deliberate denial to even try to understand Kell's condition. Which sucks! And he needs help not more bullying!

But he doesn't have time to think a lot about it, doesn't he? It's the whole point that he doesn't.

The look of gratitude Lucifer shares with him as he turns back toward the door might make up for whatever ordeal he has planned for them. As ominous as the archangel makes it sound, Wilhelm trusts that he would never intentionally endanger him or Kell. Ater a year and a half of sunrise training sessions with Kyle, he's less prone to complaining too.

The trek out of town is quiet. Kell is all dark clouds and sullen glares. Wilhelm knows there's nothing he can say to lift his mood, so he says nothing. He just shadows his side in silent support. Lucifer, thankfully, refrains from further poking at the remaining Maresh brother now that they've gotten him out of the house.

The charred skeleton of the old farmhouse, looming as a memorial over the stubby new growth of the field, still possesses the power to make everything in him go still. And then tight, his stomach pulling into knots, his heart pinching. He swallows. He will not panic. Closing his eyes, he pictures the blaze that's burned into his memory shrinking to a harmless ball of flame that fits in the palm of his hand. It's his to command.

When Lucifer unleashes the incantation, Wilhelm is ready. He reaches for his fire, and it sparks across his fingers. The rain sizzles against it, and it sputters, but he wills it to keep burning. He hasn't had to concentrate this hard in a long time, not since Istredd helped push him through his mental block. As such, he can only spare a glance toward Kell to see how he's faring.

It's not that he hasn't tried to understand--he does, to a point. It's that he understands too well, and he thinks the only way they're going to come out of the other side of this is to give Kell a different target, one that he can burst out and rage against, instead of the world, instead of Nott.

This is their safest option, and if Wilhelm gets something out from it, then good.

Spell complete and his own concentration holding, he draws his blade from a sheath tucked behind his back, nicks it across a finger to drop the illusion hiding it from view--he'll play a little fair--and tosses it up and down cleanly, catching it like an idle circus performer, clear, devil may care, cocksure attitude.

"All I hear is words from a child," Lucifer berates, targeted. "I won't make you two fight each other, though the temptation is there." He won't be able to safely control that though. He won't be able to control this, either, but he'll heal. Eventually. "Come at me," this he snarls at both of them, an open invitation, but his eyes are deadlocked to Kell. Burst, like Yennefer. Stop screaming locked up in your head at get out. "Show me what your rage actually looks like."

Lucifer has given Kell all the weapons he needed when he summoned the rain. He does not rage with the intensity of a fire. That's Wilhelm's thing. That was Rhy's thing. Instead, he reaches for ice. He makes every single drop of the deluge pouring from above into a blade, the frost spreading in a growing circle from him towards Lucifer.

That's a lot of water, and it strains his focus to its very limit, but none like Lucifer is able to cajole him with such a surgical precision. No one, not even himself, can steer himself of easily by words alone. Though, it's not in the words. The devil is in the delivery.

The anger points Kell's mind in one direction and one direction only, to a point where he seems to forget Wilhelm is even there. So he'd better keep his fire burning brightly.

It's been a long time since his rage burned for Lucifer. Back then, he would have come at the archangel with fists swinging at the provocation come at me.

Now, Wilhelm pours his will into the fire hissing in his hand. He still kindles the flames with memories that smolder and fester, but the faces he fixes in his mind change. When he first began learning how to spark his fire, he used to replay August's half-assed sorry, as if that could take back the video after it had already played millions of times. He used to envision his mother lecturing him about duty and legacy, but refusing to protect her only remaining son.

Sometimes he still does, but more often he pictures the impassive masks of Josselyn's acolytes. He closes his eyes, reaching deep for all of the things that burn inside of him, the hot coals he has swallowed. The flame in his palm fights against the deluge, stretching one moment and shrinking away the next.

His goal is to grow it big enough that he can hurl it at Lucifer. Or maybe he'll lean into chaos and toss it at Kell, to give him a simpler target to aim his hurt fury at.

blood from an empty prayer, watch the devil smile [open]

Wilhelm + Kell / Nott / Closed

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;_; lost notification for this one....

there there

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