sirenspull_logs | Deathly comes softly...

Entry tags:

Deathly comes softly...

Who: Anyone near or in the Phantomhive Estate (Sector 6)
When: Around 1:00 AM, December 1st.
Where: The Phantomhive Estate (specifically the library)
Summary: Godstiel decided the abomination had to go and while Oz went softly, Jack had other ideas. This is the aftermath when the library is in ruins and Oz's body is found. It can be assumed that the destruction of the library and later bird rage was visible/audible from the street for people to rush in and investigate. Household shenanigans may or may not include the following: raging bird syndrome, abuse of dead bodies, tears, darkness monsters invading the mansion, and various other miscellaneous things.

Warnings: See the above shenanigans. General abuse, normal hideousness and minor description of gore. Will add to the warnings as or if squicks are used.

The library is in a shambles, books strewn everywhere and half torn to pieces. Salvaging it will be a nightmare but no more so is the body sprawled across the floor, a slowly trickling pool of blood seeping from underneath. Godstiel had been wounded, but not nearly fast enough to save the boy.

He was dead, and his lifeless eyes stared out into the darkness, waiting to be devoured.

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[He gasps sharply as he turns to look upwards at the familiar, ominous sight of the Mad Hatter. Raven responds in kind by screeching and waiting for its master's command, but Gilbert is in no state to give anything sensible. All he knows is that whoever has done this - no matter what the reason - that person will die. This power that he's worked so hard to gain in order to protect the one thing that he cares about, he'll harness it all to destroy whatever is in his way.

The Hatter is a threat.

No matter if it's Break, or anyone else, whoever stands in my way is a threat.

And a threat has to be...]

AAAAGH!

[He leans over and curls his body protectively around his master's as Raven breathes blue flames at the Hatter.]

[ What Hatter would like to do is destroy Raven completely, he exists to deny existence...

HA! HA! HA!

It's so tempting to give in, to succumb to Hatter's laughter and nihilism... ]

Come away, come now.

[ He presses forward (Hatter's cloak shields him from the blue flame), reaching for Gilbert's shoulder. ]

Stop acting like a spoiled brat! Or you'll destroy everything you've got left - even your own daughter!

He's dead! This place killed him!

[He pauses to gasp for breath as Raven struggles against the Hatter's power, chains rattling.]

I don't care - what I have to destroy!

[And if he manages to actually grab hold of that shoulder, he'll soon find himself with a gun pointed directly at his chest.]

[ Pull the trigger, pull it, pull it, pull it, pull it! Because he's going to die in this place, he can feel it, he's going to die pointlessly, it might as well be now--

...

--who's being a spoiled brat now? ]

Shut up, Gilbert. Honestly.

[ He can move faster than Gilbert can pull the trigger, so he does, dodging out of the way, with his cane thrust at Gilbert's midsection, as hard as he can. ]

[It's not the first time that he's pointed his weapon at Break, but this time is different. This time there's nothing left to go back to, no promise of hope or light. The creeping darkness outside may as well crawl inside their home and turn the entire thing to ash for all Gilbert cares.

The wind picks up as Raven grows weaker, and without Gil's full concentration the Chain begins to fade beneath the overwhelming negation of the Hatter. Gil's finger sweats on the trigger, but just as he had before, he hesitates. Though his head aches and his distant memories cry out kill! kill! he only stares into the single eye of his superior and questions this reality. This world isn't real...this moment can't be real.

But what's wrong with not being real?

The minute that he dodges, Gil also instinctively attempts to maneuver around him, but just as he had before, he's caught with a cane to his gut and the breath is instantly stolen from his lungs. The gun clatters to the ground, Raven disappears in a flurry of thick black feathers, and Gilbert collapses to the ground to gasp uselessly at Break's feet.]

[ In this moment, now that Gilbert is at his feet and no longer a danger to himself or his household, Break gazes at Oz's lifeless form. He remembers how coldly he had wondered aloud, that day, whose time would run out first...

In then end, what you may find is not always hope.

Somehow, between that day and this one, Oz had become... amusing, irritating, surprising... endearing? This boy should have been no more than a tool to him, a means to an end. And yet...

In this moment, Break grieves.

But it doesn't last more than a moment, because it can't. Though Raven is gone, the windows have blown out and the books are aflame. Fire and Darkness monsters might be too much, even for Gilbert's astonishing healing ability - particularly now, when he's lost all hope. ]

Get up. Let's go.

[ He speaks with a clipped voice, with authority, even as his heart is sinking. Because there is no way Gilbert will leave his master's body. Well - perhaps he'll just drag Gilbert away, as he did in Sablier, choking him with his cane, he has just enough strength to do this, Mad Hatter's toxic energy is still coursing in his veins, extinguishing all pain (that will come later).

He bends down, swinging his cane around, intending to catch Gilbert just beneath the chin. ]

[Depleted of oxygen, Gilbert wonders for a moment if that's what Oz felt before he'd died. Regardless of how the person had even gotten in, how did they do it? Did they stab him? Choke him? What sort of horrors had Gilbert let happen due to his ignorance and insufficiency? What gave him the right to regain breath, to feel pain, to attempt to focus his hazy vision on the smokey ceiling above? To see a world that Oz couldn't...

This isn't the way that things end, it's not!]

Nggah! [He gasps as he's pulled upwards by the throat, hands reaching up to grab for the cane and try to peel it away from his neck as he continues choking, stumbling on weak legs.]

Break! Stop! Oz is--!

[ Pull. Pull. Tug. It's too much for Break's ruined lungs, the effort and the smoke. Well, there's nothing for it - he'll borrow a bit more of Hatter's strength (though he'll pay for it, with interest, later). ]

Noisy... ha! Noisy....

[ But even if he does manage to pull Gilbert to safety, what then? With his master dead, Gilbert will be an empty shell of a man, a living corpse... ]

[ ...unless...

Gilbert's inexplicable capacity for hope had sustained him for ten years. It had quelled his hatred and given him strength to persevere. And so... ]

Oz will be baaaaaaaaaack. Think how he'll mock you for being so dramatic!

Aggh!

[He screams, restrained and choked, and attempts to plant his feet to keep Break from hauling him out of the room any further. He tries to summon Raven again as well, despite the painful strain that it puts on his body, but the Chain is too damaged to reappear aside from a few more stray feathers.]

Let go! He's still - I can't leave him there!

[Gone for good or not, he's still lying dead and bloodied back there on the ground.]

[AND THEN--!

Moments later, a kid in a billowing white cape, donning a silver masquerade mask and wielding the unholy child of a cricket bat and a broadsword, clambers onto the scene. Heroically.

The initial explosion had been impossible to miss, even from a block away, though it'd taken Allen some time to actually make it inside. And he had no idea what to expect; only that it looked bad from where he was standing, and quite likely worse for anyone who might've been caught inside. Hence, his sudden appearance.

But he hadn't anticipated that it'd be these two—]

You have to get out!

[It's an order barked at Gilbert. Break's clearly got the right idea, but why the hell is Gil digging his heels in for? The room's on fire, what are you doing.]

[ W H A T

Break gapes, unable to form words, his thoughts somewhere between:

"what kind of stupid hero runs INTO a burning building?"

and

"is that a cape???" ]

[ But even once he's collected his thoughts, he remains unable to form words, because Allen's grand entrance has distracted him thoroughly, enough that Hatter's mad influence begins to wane. The enormous hat begins to fade...

But without his chain's energy sustaining him, he's now got to pay for the power he'd used suppressing so powerful a creature as Raven.

His grip on Gilbert falters. He coughs. ]

[He can feel the Hatter fade, feel Break's grip on him loosen, he can even hear Allen's voice, but none of it reaches him completely. His only thoughts are back there with Oz, cold and ruined and covered in blood.

Once again, he grips Break's cane and shoves back against him, trying to get him to let go.]

I said I'm not leaving him there!

[If this was any other time, he would ask about the giant hat.

Right now, he rushes at them both (reattaching his sword as he moves), because Break appears ill and Gil's still not budging. He's quite prepared to drag them bodily from the room.

But he stops short before he can grab them.] Him?

There's someone else!? [His head swivels round to face the smoke and flames.]

[ Now that he's gotten over the initial surprise of Allen's grand entrance, an expedient solution presents itself. He lets go of Gilbert, bringing his cane around, and stepping lightly out of the way just as Gilbert shoves back. ]

Allen! Save Gilbert!

[ And then he's running at full speed past Allen, into the center of the library. One last push. He hasn't the strength to keep fighting Gilbert; but he can pick up someone past the ability to resist him: Oz's body. And where that body goes, Gilbert will follow. Hopefully.

He scoops up the boy's lifeless form, amid the flames, tossing it over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. There's no time to be sentimental. ]

Hurry!

[ Out he goes, past the ruined wall into the garden and the Darkness, hoping that he's calculated correctly: that Allen is, indeed, a hero. ]

[As soon as Break is gone, Gilbert once again drops down to his knees and coughs air back into his lungs. The Pull makes using Raven all the more difficult, but this is the first time that he's had the Mad Hatter fight back to this degree. He'd overpowered him once, but this time his concentration is too broken, he's not fighting for a purpose. He's not even sure why he called his Chain out to begin with; the killer is long since gone.

Desperation of an empty man, madness locked away in his soul bursting out painfully in blue flame and broken glass.

Slowly, he rises back to his feet and stumbles forward over the wreckage towards Break's voice. He only barely catches sight of the man with Oz over his shoulder before he disappears outside, and barely even notices Allen at all.

There's nothing else to do but follow.]

Oz...

[Allen's heart drops like lead when he catches sight of the boy-- the body. He hardly hears what Break is shouting at him.

Allen had been too late.

He'd been too late, and when he looks at Gil and he knows... he knows that expression. He understands why not even a fire would've convinced him to leave, now.

...Though the fire is definitely convincing Allen to leave. He swallows down the rising bile in his throat, and reaches out to grab Gilbert. The man's already gotten up to go, but Allen will take it upon himself to get him out of the building faster. And via a route that doesn't involve stumbling vaguely in the direction of flaming ruins.]

[ Racing across the lawn, he hurtles over a little fence and then to an outbuilding a short distance from the main house, far enough to be safe from fire. He thought of the place at once, because he's come here many times before, though under far happier circumstances.

COUGH. COUGH.

There are Darkness-reinforced doors on the building. It's not locked, just intricately bolted. Shifting his light burden on his shoulder, his fingers clutch at the mechanism. It's dark; but he knows it so well, he doesn't need to see, which is a good thing indeed because his vision is swimming.

COUGH.

Finally the door springs open. Are Allen and Gilbert behind him? He doesn't know. He can't hear them, over the sounds of his ragged breathing and the monsters howling just beyond the door. He staggers inside and sinks to his knees, Oz's body still across his shoulder.

The inhabitants of this outbuilding are probably surprised (and displeased) to see Break at this hour, but say nothing; they wiggle their little noses in dismay. ]

[As soon as Allen grabs his arm, his first instinct is to struggle away, but weakened as he is he couldn't run faster than his friend is dragging him along even if he wanted to. Though he does make a half-hearted attempt to yank his arm away, they're both running the same direction, towards the same destination.

Behind them, there's a demon seeing to the putting out the flames before they can consume too much of the house, but this is also a fact that goes unnoticed by Gilbert.

He doesn't say a word, but the way that he's struggling for breath, it's clear that it's not entirely from the smoke and the fight. His expression is one of a desperate, empty man; someone who has lost everything and is just barely holding tight to the reality of it all. By the time they reach the building with the rabbit hutches, he's begun to lean against Allen for support.]

[The fire, Gilbert, Oz...

He pulls harder on his friend, teeth grit as he follows after Break. He has to focus on getting out of the Darkness, first. Make sure Gilbert and Break are safe... everything else should come next.

Supporting Gil's weight is no problem. He could carry him if he had to.

They make it to the hutches a few moments after Break did, and although he has excellent night vision, Allen still fumbles in the dark to open in. He wishes his hands would stop shaking; but Gilbert just sounds broken and a boy is dead on the other side of the door.

He wasn't exactly expecting rabbits to be on the other side as well, but that's near the bottom of his priorities right now. He practically throws Gilbert inside once he can.]

[ For most contractors, even Legal ones, use of one's Chain is exhausting. The strength of a Chain's power is borrowed, and must be paid for. Thus is Break kneeling down, his eyes half-open, oblivion about to overtake him.

And yet he has to wait, to see if-- ]

Gilbert.

[ He recognizes the form that Allen (hero indeed) has tossed inside. Gilbert might be broken, but he is at least safe from the fire, saved from himself. Break's head lolls against the rabbit hutches; his grip loosens on Oz's body.

COUGH!

Red blood spatters, from his ruined lungs. He collapses, insensible. ]

[With that final push forward, Gilbert stumbles exhausted towards both of the fallen men, his superior who he's watched succumb to his Chain before, and his master whose body still remains still no matter how desperately he's been silently begging him to move again. He also collapses down to his knees, crawls along the ground and moves to gently take Oz out of Break's arms. He sees the blood on the man's face, but the only blood that he truly sees right now through his tunneled vision is Oz's.

He clutches Oz to his chest, hunched over so far that his forehead would touch the floor if his master weren't blocking the way. And still, he doesn't say a word through his strained and frantic gulps of breath.]

[Allen slams the door shut, but stays outside himself, turning towards the house— but the flames aren't spreading. The fire is being taken care of...

And he can hear that final, wet cough through the door, so he's back inside the outbuilding a second later, crouching by Break's side. His heart's somewhere in his throat, eyes watering.]

Break. [He grabs the man's arm, pressing fingers to his wrist. He lets out a thin breath when he finds a pulse.

(And he glances towards Gilbert, but only for a second. There's nothing he can do; Gilbert needs this moment, he tells himself, and he can't bring himself to look.)]

Break. [He gives his shoulder a shake, desperate. He doesn't know what's wrong, how's he supposed to help...]

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