#⚔️.peranarkia

[punishingangel]

❛ just a few more stitches and you’ll be as good as new. ❜

an assortment of dialogue prompts

Azrael sat cross-legged next to Anarky, muscles rigid. If anyone else had insisted they tend his wounds, he'd have snatched his arm away before their fingers could brush his bicep. Why shouldn't he now, in the hands of someone who'd tried to kill him before? It wasn't trust, no, he'd barely spoken to them since the threat.

Perhaps it was the same as with Robin, a desire to apologize in the one way he knew how: by doing. His face was fixed firmly away from theirs, but he could feel Lonnie's focus burning holes in his skin.

Or maybe that was the needle threading through his flesh.

[punishingangel]

❛ books mean more to me than people anyway. ❜

an assortment of dialogue prompts

Jean-Paul's shoulders relax, his hands stuffed in the pockets of his jacket. He smiles slightly and quirks a brow. It's an even mix of doubt and amusement.

"You don't mean that," he states, as if he knows for certain. Given first impressions, maybe he does. "But I won't deny it. Well… sometimes, anyway."

[punishingangel]

nurse. Lonnie gives JPV company in the hospital?

loud & deafening silence

Working at West Mercy Hospital was nice. The busted fluorescent lights on the third floor inpatient wing had become a strange, liminal comfort. The soft drone of machinery and the smell of staff room coffee were a symbol of stable mundanity; a reminder that, though a "normal" life was something Jean-Paul had given up, he could still enjoy the pleasures of living like a person. His coworkers — the type of middle-aged women and bright-eyed young men attuned to the same gossip — were a welcome change from his usual crowd, and being needed by his patients felt good. Of course, helping was his calling as a man of faith. It was something he’d nurtured for years and uniquely his. It was more important than his night work, or so he liked to think.

Sometimes.

Being a patient himself, however, was different. Always had been. Memories flashed and coalesced: the sheen of a silver syringe in the dark, piercing veins in his arm and injecting him with something that made his 10-year-old belly turn flips. Strangers shining lights in his eyes, raking their own over his vulnerable parts — his beating heart, his jugular vein, the softness of his abdomen. Poking, pushing, and prodding at someone who, half the time, felt half-corporeal. And then he was dying, numbers and figures spelling out his mortality. He could fend for himself, he could heal faster than any man. Being at the mercy of a doctor made him feel as though his body could be harmed.

It had taken him a bite to the leg to find out that whatever had caused his blood disease had chewed up the strands of DNA that helped close his wounds. It was a bad bite, oozing and fresh, with pain enough to render Azrael unconscious. He'd crawled to Brian Bryan's door leaving a shiny, crimson trail, and he had no power to fight back when he was loaded into his friend's van. At least Brian had the decency to unmask and redress them. Now, there was Jean-Paul, registered nurse, in a bed he had sprayed down just last week. A scratchy blanket covered all but his head, arms, and leg, which was elevated and wrapped tightly in gauze. He couldn't sleep.

Inaction was maddening. It was painful to remain in the same four positions, in the same room, for hours. Then, it was torturous to move. His books helped for a time but quickly lost their magic. Visits from Brian and his coworkers and Leslie were nice until they weren't. The more Jean-Paul gazed out his window, the more some part of him longed to be sweeping through the city streets. It was agony to remain here when secret sin beckoned for Azrael's blade. He focused on the same twinkling signs, honing in on the bat signal shining in the sky.

A brighter flash, bursting next to his bed, made him jump and rattle the contents of his tray table. As his vision returned and came into focus on the red-cloaked figure in its place, his mouth hung dumbly open.

“You —!”