paradisalost | [Thread] Surfacing

Entry tags:

[Thread] Surfacing

Who: Ruby (

h_townshend)
What: Ruby sniffs out a person she hasn't sniffed in a while
When: Friday, early afternoon
Where: The roof of the castle
Rating: Standard PG-13 rating since Henry's in it and his mun has a potty mouth XD

The last day had passed as if he were underwater, or in a particularly vivid but surreal dream. He'd exhausted himself the other day, no doubt about that, and ever since then he'd been feeling the effects of it. People in the castle seemed to move in random jerks and starts, one second moving languidly and lazily, the next jumping ahead though he hadn't even seen them move. Whole sections of the day seemed to be missing, while others he could remember with almost startling precision.

He thought that for a while there someone might've been talking to him. The fog in his head wouldn't even let him process the thought right away, though, and replying had been out of the question. Another time he thought there was a boy looking at him--actually at him, not just through him--but by the time he'd thought to try to react the boy was gone. Had he just vanished, or was Henry so out of it that he hadn't seen him leave?

Or was he even there in the first place?

Finally he'd resigned himself to sitting on the roof again. It was a decent enough place to be alone, and he was most assuredly that.

He sat there all night, as he wasn't able to sleep anymore, staring out at the city and the landscape below Cair Paradisa. For a while he tried thinking, about this or that, but aside from a few pleasant memories of the last real encounter he'd had with another person all he ended up thinking about was the Other World. Eileen. The Victims. He didn't want to think about them, the pain was still too fresh. Those memories were ones he could've done without for the rest of his life. They kept intruding, though, worming their way into his thoughts without being asked.

Gradually, however, the thoughts slowed and eventually ceased. By midnight he was simply sitting out on a peak of the roof, far out from where a normal person would feel comfortable climbing to, staring out at the world blankly.

Henry sat this way for a long time, almost completely unaware of his surroundings. Existing and nothing more.

When his body finally returned sometime around eleven o'clock Friday morning he barely noticed. He wouldn't have noticed at all, really, except for the fact that for a brief moment in time he'd forgotten how to breathe.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Ruby stretched her little paws out over her journal. Nothing interesting had been going on recently but she supposed that was good. After Even's death there wasn't a whole lot of 'interesting' she felt she'd be able to take. So her journal had become more or less a bed to lay on in the sunshine.
She looked up at Vexen who was working over some of his boring science shit, as usual. She smiled fondly at his back then stretched hard, wiggling her little toes and taking in a deep breath of air as she did so. She smelled it immediately but allowed herself to curl her paws underneath her chest again before she really pondered it.

So strange. What was that? It was so familiar... She raised her nose up and sniffed a couple more times. Oh. Really,now?

Ruby stood up and peeked out the window, still sniffing as she did so. She looked over her shoulder at Vexen's back again. "Pup, I'm goin out," she said simply, as usual. Ruby didn't often say much more than that when she was leaving the room.

She stretched out her wings and hopped off of the window sill. He was outside somewhere...where? Up? The roof maybe? She snorted to herself. What did she mean, 'maybe'? He couldn't fly, if he was up of course he was on the roof.

She pulled her wings up then forced them down with all the strength she could, shooting herself straight upward. It only took a couple of wingstrokes like this to carry her tiny body to the roof at which point she spread them out to glide over the roof, looking around. It only took her a moment or two to find Henry sitting on his precarious little perch on a peek.

She hovered silently behind him for a few moments pondering how to say something to him without startling him so badly he fell. After a few moments of pondering she decided that it wasn't a huge deal if he did fall. She could just change forms and catch him. Hopefully he didn't get pee on her fur. That had SUCKED. Freakin Dist.

Ruby landed next to him on the roof, staring out over the grounds for a few moments before saying "You been out here for long?"

The only thing that could really be said to set that night, and his last moments of incorporeality this morning, apart from now would be the fact that his stomach was aching a little. Once the breathing started back up again it proceeded like clockwork, with almost no effort on his part. The stomachache, though...he'd been heading to lunch a week ago, hadn't he? Only he'd never actually made it....

It was mostly just an annoying little itch at the back of his mind, really. The majority of his consciousness was focused on staring, on existing. On nothing. More a complete lack of focus than anything.

If he heard Ruby at first it didn't register on his face. Even after the dragon had spoken he continued to stare out at nothing in particular, eyes vacant, breathing light and rhythmic.

People didn't talk to him anymore. They talked to each other, to themselves, to everyone else around him. They went about their business, and he moved through the center of it all without disturbing a thing. So whatever he'd heard was just another one of those sounds. The sounds of everything passing him by.

Ruby didn't really respond to Henry's lack of response. She just stared out over the grounds silently for a little bit more time before glancing slowly over at him. She narrowed her eyes in confusion for a moment then raised her paw toward him. She withdrew it. Then looked out over the grounds again. Her form shifting with a pop. In her place sat a very lovely and tiny girl with long pink hair. She'd finally figured out how to change forms with clothing attached. She was pretty proud of herself. Nall had always been able to do it and had never shared his secret. Back home she hadn't really cared to teach herself but here she used this form a good deal.

She turned her head to look at him in her human form then reached out with her hand and touched his arm softly. "Henry.." she said gently.

Lana had told her only that Henry was alone. She'd seemed very upset about it but when Ruby had inquired she'd just shook her head and said 'he can't be alone, he shouldn't have to be.'
Ruby hadn't really understood why but she imagined that something about Henry would make him disturbed fairly deeply by this experience. Best be more gentle than her usual manner.

Henry reacted to the touch on his arm as though he'd been splashed with cold water. For the first time since becoming corporeal again his body did something other than just breathing and staring.

It had been how long since he'd been touched, though? A week? It felt more like an eternity. Even those little touches he'd managed, writing in fog and phantom kisses, hadn't felt like this. This was solid, and real, and--

The moment that Ruby's hand landed on his arm Henry gasped, just a little, his chest rising visibly as he sharply inhaled. It was rather like watching a diver surface after a long period underwater.

His breathing became shallower, quicker. For a moment or two more he continued to stare out at nothing, and his eyes didn't focus exactly, but it was obvious that somewhere deep inside something was working. Gears were finally beginning to turn.

His green eyes darted downward and to the side opposite Ruby, still not really looking at anything...but at least there was movement. Life. They centered again, briefly, and then began to turn slowly toward the girl on his other side. The one who'd touched him.

Touched.

Ruby tensed but didn't remove her hand from Henry. She didn't need him falling off the roof. No. Pee on the fur was a no.

When it became clear that he wasn't going to fall Ruby began to pet his arm softly. He looked almost horrified in a way, that he could feel her touch. But she knew otherwise. She couldn't imagine not being able to physically touch anything for a week but she could get enough of an idea to understand his reaction to it.

As he turned and looked at her she smiled very softly at him, looking directly into his eyes. She figured doing that was the best way to let him know that it was really real.

"Welcome back, Henry," she said with a smile.

...I....

...who....

...I know that voice. Where...where do I know that voice from....?

I...who...my arm, she's...she's touching my arm.

My arm...? I have...oh God.... I'm...I'm....

Why can't I...so hard to....

Henry's breath remained a bit too quick as his eyes finally began to focus again. They still retained a certain vacant quality about them, though it was more just a sense of being lost--very lost. In all of his life, in all of that hellish time in the Other World, even being thrown into the castle, Henry had never been so lost.

He blinked slowly at the girl, eyebrows crinkling just a tiny bit as he tried to figure out who exactly she was. Even if he'd actually seen her before, even if he knew her very well it might've taken a while, but Henry had never actually laid eyes on Ruby's human form before. The struggle to recall or puzzle through who he was looking at was the first real, coherent thought process that had gone through his mind in almost a full day.

Her voice was almost exactly the same in this form though, barring a slight acoustic difference. That familiarity sparked something in Henry's worn and frayed mind.

Green eyes blinked at her again. His eyes finally fixed on hers, and though they still looked haunted they were actually seeing her.

"...Ruby?" he asked in a small voice.

Ruby watched the confusion pass over his face without saying a word. Best to let him work it out on his own. No need to force it. They had all the time in the world for him to figure it out.

She let the smile fade mostly from her face though the corners of her mouth were still slightly pulled up and her eyes were warm and kind. Ruby rarely had a gentle look about her. She was almost always severe. Even in her human form she had an intenseness... but right now... for the second time that week... her features were soft and inviting.

Her face broke into a smile at the sound of her name. She grinned at him then reached up and tapped the bottom of his chin. "Bingo," she said with a wink. "We missed you, Burns."

There, another touch.

He couldn't just be imagining this, could he? Had he somehow lost it so completely that he was starting to hallucinate? And hallucinate touch?

Henry startled a little at the tap on his chin, though not nearly as badly as he had when she'd laid a hand on his arm. Instead he merely blinked. Burns? What...why did she...she hasn't called me Burns in--

The memory came back, floating up toward the surface of his thoughts. It had been during the little prank war between himself and Crowley, when Crowley had taken out all of the inner workings of his bathroom doorknob and then put glue on the knob. Henry had stood there yelling out at his journal for quite a while before Ruby and Kaylee had come to the "rescue," melting the glue off of his hand and busting the door down.

Burns.... Henry lifted a hand and sure enough there was the mark. It was very faint, almost invisible unless you knew where to look--a large circular pinkish spot covering the majority of his palm. Just a slight discoloration, really. Another to add to the collection.

Henry looked back up at Ruby, still holding his hand palm upward. "What...where...?" It wasn't that he'd actually forgotten anything, it was more the fact that his thoughts had been so muddled lately he had almost no conception of his present situation. He had been rather distraught when he'd climbed out here, after all, and things had only gone downhill from that point.

It looked like they were on the roof of something. The castle? Why were they on the roof of the castle?

Ruby watched him start. Still not a whole lot of desirable response but at least he'd moved, acknowledged that she'd spoken. She watched him look at his palm and smiled a little at the faint pink mark that rested there. The part of Ruby that had felt bad about burning him had long since ceased to bother her. It had just been a burn. It hadn't been serious and chances were that the discoloration would fade in the next year or two. It was almost too bad. Scars were reminders. They didn't always have to remind you of suffering. The situation with the doornob? Remembering that would begin a chain reaction of good memories involving Girlfriend. It was a shame that it would fade so quickly.

Ruby met his gaze again when he returned to looking at her. 'What where?' well at least it was the start of something a bit more conversational than his initial 'Ruby?'

She slid her hand into his open palm then stood, leaning over. She was standing precariously on the edge of the roof but she wasn't in the least bit worried about it.
"C'mon, Burns. Let's get you away from this edge. Then we'll talk."

This edge...? Henry finally looked, really looked, at where they were, their immediate surroundings. His eyes widened and he inhaled again, holding the breath once he'd taken it.

He may not have had an explicit fear of heights, but they were too damn close to the edge for comfort regardless. That kind of a fall would shatter just about every bone in a human's body. Henry's larger hand gripped Ruby's a little tighter--though even unconsciously he seemed to hold back a little, not wanting to crush the smaller hand in his (no matter how impossible that would be given that the "person" was actually a dragon). Though Ruby was standing, Henry settled for scooting backward on his rear for a moment, using his free hand to shuffle himself back and away from that dizzying drop.

When he was finally back a good two or three paces he stopped--mostly because there wasn't much room left to go before they reached the top of the peak and started to descend again. The corner of the roof they were on was well out of the way, out at the very edge of the castle, and from the look of things it would take a fairly circuitous and tricky climb to get here.

So why the hell were they here?

Henry remained seated, being able to hold Ruby's hand easily enough from that position considering the size difference between the two of them. He glanced back up at the girl, a mixture of confusion and that same lost look still in his eyes.

"Ruby...why are we on the roof?" he asked quietly.

Ruby smiled and allowed herself to be carted farther up the peek by the hand as Henry shuffled backward in a slightly panicked manner. That was good. It meant he was beginning to come a little farther on his journey back to reality.

Ruby knelt down in a sort of uneven manner allowing herself to remain comfortable on the roof. She let her hand rest in Henry's though. No reason to take it back. The man hadn't felt the touch of another living creature in days. The least she could do was let him hold her hand. She had been pondering hugging him but she hadn't really decided whether she wanted to or not. Hugging was more Lana's thing than Ruby's but if he looked like he needed one enough she would do it.

At his question she glanced back at the rest of the roof and worked out the strangled and precarious path it would have taken a creature that couldn't fly to make it out to the peek. She pursed her lips. Not really terribly wise for a human to try it...
She looked back at him. "Why you're out here? I have no idea. Maybe you we watching the sun rise....or maybe you were pouting, the roof is a good place for that. Or you could have been thinking."
She gave him a little smile, "I'm on the roof because I smelled you for the first time in a week and figured I should come say hello."

The fog in Henry's brain had been acting as a sort of barrier for him, simultaneously making it harder to reason or recognize certain things but also shielding him from many of the sharper emotions that his loss had brought out. Unfortunately for him the fog was starting to clear the more he spoke to Ruby. As it cleared the full reality of the last week of his life was beginning to settle in.

First time in a week....

...couldn't smell me? I was...I was here, I was....

Confusion gave way gradually to horror. No wonder he'd been so startled when she touched his arm, he'd been a goddamn ghost for the last week.

Vivid memories of his hands passing right through solid objects came back to him. Screaming at his friends to no avail, despite the fact that they were within whispering distance--just like in the apartment.

Most of all, he remembered the terrible feeling of being completely and utterly alone. The emotion was so strong that even now, with Ruby, it threatened to overwhelm him.

Henry groaned and dropped his head into his free hand, unwilling or unable to pull his other away from Ruby right at the moment. His eyes closed and he drew his knees up closer to his chest, propping his elbow up on one leg and resting his forehead in his palm. "Oh God...."

Ruby had sort of been expecting a conversational response. He'd asked her a question. She'd answered in a vaguely amusing sort of way. His turn next to say something intelligible....but she'd been wrong.

She watched the confusion in his eyes begin to rapidly clear up. Ah, so it was all coming to him, then? Oh dear, she'd thought he'd sort of figured it out before he asked his question but apparently she'd been wrong. She sort of took a mental step back and waited for the freak out that was sure to follow.

She wondered how Henry would react. Sadness, anger, numb resolution? She watched his expression change and took in his scent. Ah, sadness and horror won out.
Ruby's lips thinned. Generally she'd have sat back silently and let him have a private moment of horror, anguish, all that stuff that was squirting around in his head. Humans had SUCH reactions to things. Usually they were just throwing little human tantrums but this was all pretty genuine. Lana was right. He couldn't be alone. Ruby wondered why somewhere in her head but in the rest of it she didn't really particularly care. It didn't matter anyway. What mattered is that SOMETHING was going on in there that was causing this sort of heavy emotion.

She watched him with his face in his hand then decided on a course of action. Ruby turned and using her free hand pulled his palm gently but firmly from his face. She tilted his head back up to look at her than caressed his cheek in a strangely maternal fashion for Ruby. Without another word she moved forward, slipping her hand out of his and putting her arms around him. She was little but she was warm and strong which tended to be comforting. She let her fingers wander comfortingly through Henry's hair, holding him just tightly enough to be secure but not too tightly in a way that may upset him more or even hurt him.

The horror in Henry's eyes was very much real--more real and immediate than most of what he'd felt or experienced in quite a while.

The man's larger form curled around Ruby, his arms wrapping tightly around her smaller frame and clinging as if his life depended on it.

That loneliness, all of that remembered pain from the Other World and that damned apartment, everything from both the last week and the last few months had all coalesced in his mind into a single raw feeling rather like an open wound on his psyche. Fear, paranoia, claustrophobia, loneliness, failure, fatigue...so many different yet similarly aspected emotions collided to become this thing that he was experiencing, this hurt that was tearing at his insides.

His breathing became faster again, and his body shook ever so slightly against Ruby's. It was over, wasn't it? Only how could it be over when he still felt like this? He couldn't push the hurt away, either, repress it as he was supposed to. It was too big to wrap his mind around right now.

He'd never wanted to break down on anyone else again, not the way he'd done with Lana, but Ruby was here and real and warm and he couldn't help but hug her back. Thankfully there weren't any tears this time.

Ruby remained pressed against him with her arms around him securely. She didn't move significantly through the entire embrace. When he began to breathe hard and shake Ruby tightened her hold on him to remind him that he was there and he was safe ...or if nothing else to keep his attention on her arms rather than hyperventilating.

She remained that way with him for quite some time in complete silence. Let him work things through his mind. She was startled that there were no tears to be honest. Humans seemed to be so prone to them over the smallest of things but even after something traumatic this human wasn't being reduced to them. Strange. Maybe even a little unhealthy.

She ran her hand over his hair gently as she held him. After a long span of silence Ruby readjusted her position slightly so her cheek was more or less resting against his. "You're alright, Henry. You're okay," she murmured softly. It seemed obvious to her and to anyone else around but to Henry? It was possible that he had to be reminded.
Somewhere deep down she wanted to explain to him that he was safe in more detail. She wanted to tell him that she'd protect him and wouldn't let any harm come to him but she knew better. She knew better than to tell that to a human. Not again, anyway. So she kept it simple. He was okay. He was alive and unharmed and back in the presence of people that cared about him and for the moment it was all that mattered.

Unfortunately this was one of those hurts that was going to take a while to fade. Fresh as it was, and strong as it was, a few soothing words and a hug just weren't going to make things all better, no matter how well-intentioned they were.

"You're alright, Henry. You're okay."

Was he?

Eileen wasn't okay, was she? He'd failed her, he'd watched her die. He'd failed all the others, too. Each one of them died in turn, leaving him alone to wander once again.

Alone, just as he'd been in the apartment. Really it had just been an extension of his life--locked away from everyone, alone, unseen and unheard. Immaterial. Inconsequential. Passing through life like a spectator, barely making a ripple.

If this had been the castle's doing, this world's doing...whatever it was, it had seen straight into his heart and pulled out the one thing he feared most of all.

Himself. Alone. Forever.

Henry closed his eyes and moved just a little so that the upper part of his face was resting against Ruby's hair. A more rational Henry might've argued that he wasn't alone, that he had friends and he had someone who loved him, and that should count for a lot, but there was very little about Henry right now that could be considered "rational."

Ruby continued to hold him for quite some time longer in silence. He didn't say anything, just withdrew into himself. She could sense certain things about his emotions but nothing specific. She assumed he must be drawing in to think on things that were bothering him...or something. An internal emo session maybe. Who knew. All she knew is that she'd been holding this human for a significant span of time and he hadn't improved or worsened. Stuck in one place, eh? Well she certainly wasn't going to be able to fix that.

She liked Henry and all but she didn't really consider the two of them more than new friends or good acquaintances. She wasn't his best friend, girlfriend, wife, mother, sister. This really wasn't her place. Ruby, without warning, began to shift forms. Her human form swirled strangely though her grip on his body didn't lessen.

Her arms turned into enormous claws and the rest of her huge body formed from there. With no warning whatsoever Ruby scooped him up securely in that one claw and launched herself into the air. She flew over the castle to the flattest, easiest to reach place on the roof. She circled a couple of times, contemplating how to land in a way that wouldn't squash her unwilling passenger. Finally chose to land reared up on her back legs. She hopped along a couple of times, her wings outspread for balance until she managed to steady herself. She then dropped to her free front paw and set Henry down very gently. She lowered her head down to his level and jabbed the roof near his feet with a claw. "You stay here," she ordered firmly.

She then launched herself into the air and spread her wings on the downward arc of a large, graceful back dive toward her window. She would write in the journal for Crowley. Ruby wasn't going to be able to help any longer. She'd done what she could.

Even the inner turmoil Henry was experiencing, so many different emotions vying for attention and dominance in his overworked and frazzled mind, couldn't drown out the very simple and very overwhelming fact that Henry was being toted through the air above the castle in the claw of a dragon.

Definitely a first.

Hopefully a last as well.

When she set him back down on the roof moments later Henry's eyes were wide, his lips slightly parted in surprise. Had that...did she...holy....

More out of shock than anything Henry did as he was told, folding himself into a cross-legged sitting position on the roof right where he was. For the moment, anyway, it seemed as though the dragon had jerked him out of whatever funk he was in.

Unfortunately, once she was gone he was alone again. Alone.

This temporary peace wasn't going to last for long.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Thread] Surfacing

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject