http://nyochhavar.livejournal.com/ ([identity profile] nyochhavar.livejournal.com) wrote in [community profile] paradisalost2011-12-29 03:12 pm

Recollection

Who: Abel Nightroad and Lilith Sahl
What: Regaining their Paradisa memories
Where: Floor Six
Warnings: I don't think any will apply, possible eye bleed from tl;dr? EDIT: Now there are warnings for marital nudey times.

In truth, Lilith had been in two minds about the 'travellers' that had come to Paris over Christmas. On the one hand, she had been exceptionally grateful to see Nanako again, the small girl who she knew in her heart that they had loved as much as if she had been one of their own children. However, on the other hand, she had been disquieted by the knowledge that she had forgotten someone so important to her... several someones, and that they were apparently embroiled in some world of magic and uncertainty.

It had raised all sorts of questions about her reality... her world. Was she who she believed she was? Were the feelings she had for Abel real? Was she a doctor? Was she insane and imagining all of this? She didn't want to believe that her life was a lie, it tore at her heart to even consider it. Yet to forget people and events which had been equally important was just as distressing, and she honestly didn't know which way to turn for the best.

It was harder on Abel than it had been on her, she knows her precious silly boy bottles these things up and tortures himself with them. Especially after Christmas, he had become different somehow... he could never hide from her, not properly, but she hadn't pursued what was bothering him, as she trusted him to come to her when he was ready. Patience. Though even her limitless patience was being tested to the limits here, with this confusion and mystery.

Always at the back of her mind, growing stronger for the past few days, was a niggle, a sensation that if she could just concentrate then she would understand. Memories just out of reach, hiding from her and evaporating like water under a hot lamp. It was frustrating, almost frightening, and yet it was a comfort to know she was not going through it alone. Nor was it just Abel, there seemed to be a few of their friends and neighbours who were experiencing this tug from deep inside.

Troubled beneath the serene exterior, she had not slept easily that night, as though she could hear an internal ticking countdown to... something. And that something was clear when she woke. Opening her eyes before Abel, as was usual, she found herself looking at a stone ceiling in a room that was decorated unfamiliarly... or at least, it was only unfamiliar for a moment. But then the colours and patterns took shape in her memory, this was the style of the Vatican from Abel's ti...me...

Vatican.

War.

Crusnik.

It all came tumbling back in a dizzying whirl of memories, a confused jumble that made her physically double over as though she had been punched in the gut. A life in captivity, an angry-eyed boy with a bruised heart, a smiling youth with a horrible future, a small green-eyed and bitter girl. A war, Armageddon... the pain of facing her family over a battlefield, and the peace of knowing Abel's eyes would open with her final sacrifice. She had... she... And then here, this place, a second chance. She had seen her precious Abel's pain of centuries and tried to ease it, and they had married here as well.

There are tears on her cheeks, mingled grief and happiness, as she let her life wash back over her and settle where it belonged. Reaching out a slightly trembling hand, she laid it gently on Abel's shoulder where he was still sleeping beside her and shook him. Would he remember when he woke too? Her heart ached for the pain and guilt that would no doubt take residence in his heart again, for the horrific grief and loss he would feel with recollection, and yet there were good things there too... and she would be beside him the whole time.

[identity profile] custodismundi.livejournal.com 2011-12-30 05:44 pm (UTC)(link)
Abel takes a deep breath.

Indeed, it's going something like this in his head:

The guillotine... is over him, a dreadful, looming sign of a man's last stop on the road of life. Abel's being forced down on his knees before it, roughly; the gravel biting into bare skin a sharp but irritation that seems so tedious to pay any mind before he faces his death.

His head is forced roughly downward, throat touching the splintered wood to mark the spot of decapitation. His redheaded captor fists a handful of his hair to move him proper place, and all he can see is the bloodstained dirt. The dirt, which is what his life amounts to, in the end.

The sun is low in the sky he can no longer look upon. It matters not. He will not be granted the comforts of Heaven, above those clouds -- but instead his soul is destined to travel in the direction his eyes are cast. Down, downward... marked for death and facing it with grace as his cruel and heartless executioner stands over him and prepares the blade with expectant gold eyes.

Abel takes a breath... a slow breath. In... and then out again, eyes closing to block out his dismal last and final sights until there is nothing left but the backs of his eyelids. He will not beg for mercy. He has no last words.

All that is left... is the end.

He hears the creak of the old mechanism of death, the finality of the blade shifting above him. He feels no fear, only a grim sense of resignation... She, of all people, deserves to be the one to pull the lever and end it all. She is his final judge and deliverer to his destiny.

There is a SHINK-- blade slides down--


And thus, Abel Nightroad begins flailing in a most attractive version of the chicken dance in ducky boxers a man was ever likely to perform for his wife in the history of mankind.

[identity profile] custodismundi.livejournal.com 2011-12-30 05:59 pm (UTC)(link)
And so, the last little tiny whispers of pride are gone forever. Stomped into the ground. Dead. Mortified into ash. Oblivion. Decimated.

DEAD.

Oh good Lord... the things he does for love... (Thank you, Courage.)

He is so red it seems like all the blood in his body should surely be in his face, crouching down to hug his head when she finally gives it up and is satisfied, instead, to roll on the bed in a laugh-puddle. G... God. He is going to sincerely die of mortification, fisting silver hair in embarrassment oh God save his soul....

"Are you happy now?!" Comes the muffled voice from his position of woe. This is the last time he plays chicken with her.

...And that includes the chicken dancing.

[identity profile] custodismundi.livejournal.com 2011-12-30 06:14 pm (UTC)(link)
He won't admit that the sound of her laughter was well worth the price; there was nothing better in the world... especially when he was the source of it. It made this little niggle of warm and fuzzy affection tug in his chest... satisfied and content. All the rest could wait; now... he was happiest to indulge the strongest desire he had -- to be with her. To make her smile.

But he didn't have to say as much.

He shrinks further, groaning low and in utter anguish. HOW COULD YOU.

"But the difference... is that I would never ask such a terrible sacrifice from the woman I love with all my heart--! That simply isn't chivalrous at all..."

1/... something idek

[identity profile] custodismundi.livejournal.com 2011-12-30 06:25 pm (UTC)(link)
He is half-tempted to petulantly deny lifting his head to look at her -- because really, he's personally affronted!!! by her insistence that he do this ridiculousness and now he's never going to stop being red (despite the fact that now it's done, his embarrassment is fading), but...

Abel finally, tentatively, obeys. "There's nothing you can say, Lilith, that will--"

[identity profile] custodismundi.livejournal.com 2011-12-30 06:25 pm (UTC)(link)
"..."

[identity profile] custodismundi.livejournal.com 2011-12-30 06:26 pm (UTC)(link)
...Dot dot... dot...

[identity profile] custodismundi.livejournal.com 2011-12-30 06:27 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh my god this is really a thing that's. Happening.

This is really a thing that's happening.

This is really a thing that's happening, right now.

[identity profile] custodismundi.livejournal.com 2011-12-30 06:28 pm (UTC)(link)
Wait she put them on inside out he can see the tag THAT IS NOT IMPORTANT--

done

[identity profile] custodismundi.livejournal.com 2011-12-30 06:32 pm (UTC)(link)
He's abruptly choking-- on laughter, burying his face in his knees to stifle the sound and trying to shrink further -- this time, not in humiliation, but...

Oh lord. She's-- ridiculous, he can't even look at her; what is she doing?! Oh man; his eyes are tearing up, and every time he tries to lift his head to tell her to stop or else he really might rupture an internal organ he catches sight of her anew and it just makes it worse and there is the small issue of being able to breathe and--

...He ends up similarly as Lilith, a melted puddle on the floor, a ball of human goo clutching his sides and laughing breathlessly to the point it sounded a bit more like wheezing at this point. He's flopping a hand at her in surrender, trying and failing to communicate that she should take them off-- he's getting second hand embarrassment just thinking about it anymore. L-Lord...

He loves this woman far too much for his own good. Things like this... well, they only make him love her more.

[identity profile] custodismundi.livejournal.com 2011-12-30 06:46 pm (UTC)(link)
As much as Abel would love to comment that the next time, she should be wearing a similar amount of clothing (or, perhaps, a similar LACK of) -- he is barely able to catch his breath, melted and boneless where he's laying on the floor in a rather pathetic state of exhaustion.

Being Lilith's husband is tiring. And it's not for the reason most married couples would be 'tired' in the bedroom.

"Y... you're..."

So... silly, wife. He wiggles his fingers in an effort to convey she should come to him, since there's no way in hell he's moving right now. Ohhh his ribs... woman, you're a beautiful torture.

[identity profile] custodismundi.livejournal.com 2011-12-30 06:55 pm (UTC)(link)
He exerts the effort to sit up just far enough to wind his arms around her and tug her down with him -- because clearly the floor is as good a place as any to capture her as far as he's concerned, still laughing though it's died down to something more of a chuckle, now, as he nuzzles her with amused fondness.

"...you're terrible, you know that?"

[identity profile] custodismundi.livejournal.com 2011-12-30 07:00 pm (UTC)(link)
"Horrible. Horrendous. It was terrible, and do you know why?"

He tucks her head under his chin, fingers already comfortably settling into the old habit of running through her hair again.

"The form of the dance was all off! The contours of your body were totally lost under all those clothes. The boxers are there to, ah, accentuate your natural movement... but the effect is lost when you put them on over your sari, you know?" He tisk-tisks, chidingly. "I'll give it a D minus."

[identity profile] custodismundi.livejournal.com 2011-12-30 07:10 pm (UTC)(link)
"There, there..." He pats her shoulder gently in consolation of this obviously grievous crime, wearing a look of serenity. Oh, yes, he is the saintly and sagely husband comforting his wife whose heart is full of grief. Yes.

"There's always next time, hm? And don't you worry. I don't take it personally... not everyone can do the chicken dance as wonderfully as me, Lilith."

1/2 SCREAM LILITH

[identity profile] custodismundi.livejournal.com 2011-12-30 07:38 pm (UTC)(link)
--oh.

...Oh, uh-- w... wait a minute, here he...

He didn't mean, that uh-- she... should, um--

When she draws away, he's about to open up his mouth to protest -- he was quite enjoying their little impromptu cuddling session, even if it were on the floor, and... ah. His words stop short when he sees her reaching for and quickly beginning to, with haste, slip out of her... s... sari.

Abruptly, the heat in her cheeks is mirrored in his own -- and he's sitting upright, looking a little bewildered and taken off his guard. She's suddenly... bereft of any clothing at all, all bare skin and...

Ah.

2/2

[identity profile] custodismundi.livejournal.com 2011-12-30 07:39 pm (UTC)(link)
He finds himself reaching out to take her wrist carefully before she could get her fingers around the fabric she'd discarded, earlier... and his eyes find hers despite how pink his face has gone. The look in them is more serious... less silly amusement, but no less love.

"..."

[identity profile] custodismundi.livejournal.com 2011-12-30 07:57 pm (UTC)(link)
There are years worth of nights he had spent beside her coupled with the memories of missing her for thousands more; in the end, whether it is the time he spent mourning the hole she left in him when she had gone, or was at his side...

The end result is always the same. He loves her... and it is both of these things, these different worlds that culminate, somehow, into one that have pretenses of a silly humor being abandoned. Much as he liked their games of play... much as half of him believes it had never been apart from her... the ache of the other half was far stronger in its need and wants.

So... he lightly tugs her by that wrist... toward him, reaching out with his free hand to wind his arm around her waist and pull her down to him from the small of her back.

He would have loved for the world they left behind to have been real... but it was not. This, on the other hand... was, and he could give the parts of him that had never known that bliss new memories to cover the old. He could still be happy... he could be really happy, here with her.

This seemed like a good start.