#ch: zadkiel chayyim

[avoidingcertaindoom]

Whumptober Days 2 and 3

No. 2: TRUST ISSUES Amusement Park | Role Reversal | “You got away with the crime while the knife’s in my back.” (Charlotte Sands, Rollercoaster) No. 3: SET UP FOR FAILURE Fingerprints | Wrongfully Arrested | "I warned you.”

~~~

Click. Click. Click click click click--

The nurse was probably going to take the PCA pump away at this rate. It wasn't like he thought the medication was endlessly draining into his IV at every button press, the nurse at the time was very clear that it was a limited dosage for a limited time. He didn't even get that much out of the analgesia, it almost made him feel worse before it did any improvement. 

But as his vision swam, skewed first by pain, then sedation, all on top of the wobbly uncertainty of having to focus from one side, something about the sound was satisfying. It also gave that hand something to do that wasn't scratching at or under the bandages tight on the right side of his face.

Click click click--

The door made its own click as it opened, and Zadkiel swung his head over to see who it was before flinching back so hard the bed jolted with him.

Why the fuck--

“Zack?”

…he should have expected it to be his father. And perhaps the revelation ought to have made him relax. Instead he tried at the button again,  only to frown and hold it up to his eye to examine.

Ezekiel sat on the right side of the bed, which may well have been back on the other side of the wall for all the visibility it gave. Zadkiel didn't know if he was more annoyed with the possibility that his father couldn't be arsed to come on the side he could be seen, or that he was putting it on Zadkiel to make the effort. “Does it hurt? Should I get someone?”

“No.” The button was stuck, or loose, or something. He tried tapping at it harder to dislodge it and only succeeded in cracking the plastic.

“Are you sure? I can--”

“It's fine.” It wasn't fine. He broke the stupid thing. He dropped it onto the scratchy blanket and stared up at the fuzzy lines on the ceiling. The heart monitor was still on an uptick from Ezekiel's arrival, alarming annoyingly. He wondered if a nurse would mute it for him if he paged to ask.

His father cleared his throat. “If you're sure you're fine, some investigators have called ahead to speak to you.”

“Speak to me?” He finally turned his head, only to focus on the wallpaper patterns instead as just looking at him made his chest tight. “About what?”

“About---it's better if they explain.” There wasn't even an attempt to meet Zadkiel's eye.

The heart monitor got even louder. “Well I'm not speaking to them.”

“Zack--”

“No. I don't even care. Ephraim can go fuck himself and so can--”

The door opened and they both glanced to see a nurse hurry in, trailing two men with badges behind her. She went straight to the monitor with a brief introduction of the investigators while they stood at the foot of the bed.

“Is he ready to speak with us?” One asked Ezekiel.

Zadkiel didn't give him a chance to reply. “Not happening. Bye now.”

“It's just a few questions,” the other tried to say reassuringly. 

The nurse tsked, examining the damaged PCA unit. “You should have given our team the heads up then, his current medications have him in no state.”

“You gave him more drugs?” The response was disbelieving.

Zadkiel blinked. “More?”

“We were told you were under the influence on arrival to the emergency department.”

“Under the-- I don't do drugs?”

The first investigator cocked an eyebrow. “So you're saying you were completely sober?”

“I--” His throat clicked and he shut his mouth, trying to process and not wanting to bother anyway. The silence was already nauseating.

“Well? The other party had reason to believe you had taken something.”

“Ephraim could have been mistaken,” Ezekiel tried, but Zadkiel had to cut him off. Had to speak before the words in his throat turned to bile.

“I had a drink or a few, I was out with friends.” Fair weather friends anyway, he didn't think they'd be keen on being sought out for bullshit like this. “What of it? I wasn't drunk.”

The nurse muttered something under her breath before shaking her head and placing a gently hand on his shoulder. “That was then, this is now.” She turned to the investigators. “Are you done? He needs his rest and none of this sounds too urgent to wait on.”

“Surely he can answer a few more--”

“I said no to start with! Piss off already.” His hands were shaky and his eyes--eye, stung. The spot where his right eye used to be didn't sting so much as burn, trying to match the other in forming tears from something that his uncle had either destroyed in the altercation being discussed or that had to be removed with the rest of the mess left behind. Even under the haze of anesthesia he felt it, like a twist of a knife. He shut the eye that remained and dug the heel of his palm into it, trying to alleviate the pressure set to crack his skull.

“Fine. You got your chance to cooperate. Zadkiel Erminio Chayyim, you are under arrest.”

“What?” 

A new click this time, and coldness around the wrist of the arm almost as torn up as the right side of his face.

His hand dropped just enough to open his fingers and gawk as the investigator closed the other end of the handcuffs around the railing of the hospital bed.

“This has got to be a mistake! Let me call Ephraim, he can--”

Ezekiel's stammering was cut off sharply. “He came down to press the charges this morning. Your boy did a real number on him.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?!” Zadkiel was breathing so hard it felt like he would either throw up or pass out. “Look at me! I should be pressing charges--”

“Self defense isn't a crime.” The investigator turned to face the nurse, who'd frozen in place while she tried to keep up with what was happening. “You'll have to let us know if he moves rooms, or when to collect him at discharge. We want no chance of flight risk.”

“This has to be a misunderstanding,” Ezekiel insisted, struggling to come up with some more reasonable explanation. “It was-was just an argument, a bad one, no one--”

“Get out.”

All eyes turned to Zadkiel. His fingers had closed again and he was pressing down as though he was trying to rid himself of that eye as well. “I'm not going anywhere, clearly, so just get the hell out of my room.”

“Please, just let me try to fix--”

“I said get the fuck out already!”

The nurse finally unfroze and proceeded to usher all visitors out of the room, promising to come back and do something about the cuffs before shutting the door.

Zadkiel stared up at the ceiling, tears leaking down his cheek on one side while the other continued to ache endlessly. “Self defense” and “just an argument”? Why was he forced to bother with honesty when no one listened? No, when no one had the sense to see and acknowledge what was right in front of them?

He couldn't turn over easily between the handcuffs and all the cuts and scrapes on his arm, so he wound up tugging a pillow into his good arm from under him. He held it over his face, blinding himself to the world, and promptly started to scream.

[avoidingcertaindoom]

OC Questions Tag

Thanks to @romances-not-tragedies for the tag! I'm gonna go with Zadkiel from my Immortal Coil project, he doesn't get nearly enough love

5 words to physically describe your OC:

Tall (to point of alarm), tan, scarred, awkward, long

Who inspired your OC?:

Literally I mashed together the personality of two of my closest friends at the time and dialed it up to 111. He's intended to give off the vibe that he's so overwhelmingly dramatic and silly that any of the intimidation from his height is forgotten, as well as so loud and extra that ignoring him is a challenge.

Give me a song to define your OC:

A Queda by Gloria Groove? I discovered it by accident but it really does display the right amount of attention seeking and self deprecatory behaviour and suits him remarkably.

If I met your OC on the street, how would they greet me?:

He would mistake me for his friend Arty (long story) and probably ask who's with the dog back home.

(No one is. Everyone thought they settled it with someone else)

Can your OC be your best friend? Why?:

Absolutely. He's so much to deal with but he's really ride or die in the end and I know he'd be there for me.

1 adjective and 1 noun to describe your OC:

Theatrical slag

Tagging; @afusiek @mitchell-nihil @owlsandwich @skyderman and feel free to consider this an open tag!

[avoidingcertaindoom]

Pridewrite P5~ Occult

Takes place almost a decade ago for my OC timelines, so Shirki* is technically a pre/mid transition character who's since socially transitioned as transmasc and named themself Enoby. As of the time of this fic they use they/them and go by their middle name.

~

"Quiet, quiet…"

Shirki went up to assure their aunt that yes, everything was fine, they were telling spooky stories and she absolutely didn't need to worry, the basement was fine for a sleepover…

Meanwhile, Delia enlisted Zadkiel's help in arranging candles around their set up and allowed him to light it with a holder he'd lifted from his parents shabbat drawer, hand waving the questions about if it was necessarily "respectful" since they had spares.

"You're absolutely sure it's nothing to use them to summon the dead?"

"I'll bury them in salt or something afterwards. You want these lit or no?"

She rolled her eyes and focused on the other task at hand, polishing the main event of the night; a smooth wooden board with careful black lettering.

The planchette it had come with had been discarded in favor of a small loop of metal Shirki was currently spinning between their fingers, and as they finally came down from assuaging their aunt's worries they flopped down on the empty sleeping bag to watch them prepare. "If your parents don't want blasphemed candle sticks I'll take them."

"Not in Yesenia's house you won't."

"Oh so your parents can have cool cursed shit but my aunt's too good for it?"

"Yes, duh."

Delia flicked Zadkiel's ear and pinched the candle in the holder out. "Anyway, shall we?"

Careful to leave the standing candles undisturbed, they all sat around the Ouija board and each placed their hands on the metal loop, and Delia spoke in a low, steady voice to call out to any spirits present that would be so kind as to answer them. And then they waited. And waited.

Zadkiel rattled the loop. “Hello? It’s a yes or no question--”

“Hush.”

“What, it’s not exactly--”

“You shook out ‘hush’.” Shirki replied, nonchalant.

Delia chuckled. “Even the board doesn’t want to hear you talk.”

“It’s a coincidence!” He protested. “You ask it a question, see what it says to you.”

Still snickering, she drummed her fingers over the loop while she tried to think of something. “Hmmm… Will I marry a beautiful girl someday?”

The circlet rattled again, all three side eyeing each other to see who’d own up to the movement, but after shaking over the stenciled letters it slid smoothly to no. Now it was Zadkiel’s turn to laugh and Delia swore at him and stubbornly crossed her arms. 

Shirki rolled their eyes. “I might skip on mine, I don’t exactly want to be dragged by dead people.”

“Oh please, you’ve got to figure something out, no?” Zakiel asked.

They scoffed. “Even if I wanted to, I don’t really think I’m gonna get anything sure out of a game board.”

“Oh? What would impress you then?”

Shirki lifted their hands off, nudging Zadkiel’s knee to get him to do the same. “Now ask something.”

“It doing nothing would impress you?” Delia asked, tilting her head. 

“It doing anything would.” They confirmed. “The metal thingy is your dad’s right? It ought to do something.”

Veritably unimpressed, Delia propped up her good leg and leaned against her knee. “Of course, smart ass spirits are definitely to make a spectacle for you.”

Zadkiel opened his mouth to give his own two cents, but before he could share the candles guttered, bathing the trio in blinking lights before erupting in a unified shower of sparks that fell onto and caused the board to begin smoking.

Shirki lurched forward and dumped a glass of ice water on the board, and as it went out so did the candles, pitching the basement in darkness.

“...You had to open your big mouth.”

“I didn’t even do anything this time!”

“I mean Mx. ‘Anything would impress me’.”

“Oh. Yeah Shirki--”

“Oh, be quiet.” Flipping on a torch, Shirki examined the board, noting that while they hadn’t seemed so bad initially the board was littered with deep scorch marks, though not anywhere near the resting loop. Charred wood made itself evident around letters ‘B’, ‘E’, ‘N’, ‘O’, and ‘Y’. 

Zadkiel traced them out himself. “Are they saying there's bones in here? I thought that was an American thing.”

“Boney with a ‘Y’,” Delia corrected, then frowned and looked down. “Actually that doesn’t make any more sense? The hell…”

“Obviously it’s ‘No Bye’.” Shirki snorted and clicked off the torch. “Smart ass spirits, guess you were right Delia.”

Zadkiel poked at the board. “Are we not gonna focus on them trying to burn down the building though? At all?”

Laying back down, Shirki scooted their sleeping bag further back from the board. “Why?”

“Like. At least get out the salt. Iron. Something.”

“It can wait til morning.” 

Huffing, Zadkiel dismantled the candlesticks himself and shoved them-- along with as much of the board as he could manage, into the deep freezer plugged in near the staircase. For good measure he left his magen david on the handle, not sure how that would work but figuring it couldn’t hurt anything else.

Delia mumbled something sounding awfully sarcastic, but she was drifting off to sleep so quickly she fumbled off her prosthetic leg and clumsily set it next to her sleeping bag before her head hit the pillow. Not sharing her sudden drop of adrenaline, Shirki propped up their head on the side of their cot closest to Zadkiel and stared while he got himself down to sleep.

“Think I can pull it out in the morning and ask for name ideas?”

“I’ll give you a full list of names if we can just bury it in the dumpster first thing.”

“Can we buy a new one?”

“Goodnight--”