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It was happening again. That tight ball of pressure building in his head. Growing and making his eyes blur. The pain sharp and blinding. The feeling fades as Emily rubs a hand across his shoulders. The stress in his chest disappearing like a breath of air. She has been doing that frequently. He’s not stupid, he knows what she’s doing. Knows exactly what her and sera are worried about. Even if they think they are hiding it from him. But he knows. And he doesn’t care. How can he? When every time he starts to spiral, Peter is there to distract and Emily is there with her forced joy to chase away his grief and anxiety’s. It’s hard to care when you relax into the warm fuzzies and nothing matters anymore. But also the alternative isn’t something he was looking forward to dealing with.
It really is just cruel fate that the brain damage carried over into afterlife.
He’s a highly anxious being naturally. It’s honestly a terrible joke that His brain also can’t handle the simplest of stresses. And it’s annoying at most and terrifying the rest of the time.
And now his dad is dead and everyone is to on edge to let him deal with it. To scared of the fall out. He just wishes they would actually talk to him about it rather than taking the situation into their own hands. They think he doesn’t know. He does but it’s to distant and out of his reach just like every other emotion locked in his chest.
Then sera decided he needed a distraction so emily didn’t need to constantly smother his emotions. Gave him his father’s command and everything. He didn’t think he was ready but with tensions on the rise he didn’t really get to decide that either. Didn’t get to decide anything for himself other than his opinion on what they should do.
It felt like it only took moments for everything to fall apart. Hell declaring war, sera telling lute to wait on the sidelines until she was needed. The poor thing more of a mess than Abel should be. Emily went down there to help, and sera panicked letting them both go and get her. But lute was to blinded by bloodlust.
Everyone was screaming and yelling his name. He remembers em yell at him to please calm down but he couldn’t. To much to much to much
There was fighting but he couldn’t barely see through the blurred shakiness over taking his vision. His head was killing him. His nose started running, leaking but it was too warm. Nose bleed. This was bad. This was so unbelievably bad.
He needed to stop lute - stop the fight - so everyone could focus on stopping the weapon and to do that he needed to pull it together. But he was never commanding soul. To bad life was a bitch and that meant that he had to make just as much sacrifices as everyone else was today to resolve conflict. Emily’s wing was as good as Burnt toast for fucks sake! He could do this one thing. He could help.
His heart was pounding, brain throbbing as he stood on shaky knees made of jello. He knew deep down that lute only responds to demands that command respect. To authority. His father was good At that kind of stuff. That’s what made them so different. What made Adam not like his own son. To mild mannered. Too much of a peace keeper. The opposite of a violent creature.
It’s part of why Cain hated him.
He gathered as much of Adam’s remembered intensity and unleashed it on lute. Ordering her to stand down and go home. For a moment he expected her to ignore him or curse him out. But for some reason she listened to him. Bowed her head to him in shame and listened. He would have been shocked if the pain wasn’t so bad. He held it together long enough to see lute walk through the portal. Abel didn’t even have the energy to follow. It took everything he had just to stay standing as long as he could. He looked across the field - where everyone was banding together to stop the weapon. He wasn’t sure what was going to happen after this. But he was glad that he got to see everyone work together.
The world tilted harshly as static filled his senses. An earthy mineral taste coating his mouth as his angelic blood filled it. It tasted so much different than the iron red blood from when he was human getting his scull bashed in and squished like a grape under his brothers hand. It was almost sweeter than he remembered.
Black and white creeped in from the edges of blurred vision like ink dropped into water and spreading in tendrils of gloom. He thought he heard yelling but every sound was warped beyond comprehension. He tried to blink but he felt control slip right out of his fingers effortlessly. He barely registered his knees locking and him falling. Wings snapping tight like a live electric wire just touched a nerve. It felt violent. He couldn’t breath, his chest locked into place. He knew without a doubt he was choking in wet uncontrollable gasps that were ragged and involuntary. Golden dense blood spilled from his nose in a steady streams, pooling beneath his cheek, metallic and syrup-thick as it smeared across soil. More glowing gold leaked, foaming from his mouth. Violent spasms overtaking every single part of him.
And then he was gone.
———
Emily could only watch in horror as Abel went pale. Holding firm just long enough to send lute home before the stress became too much for his fragile brain. She knew it- she knew it would be to much. She knew eventually something like this would happen but she had tried so so hard to keep her friend from suffering.
And now she can only stand by in watch in divided attention as she tried to focus on using what magic she could on the weapon or else everyone would die, and watching Abel fall pray to an injury that will never leave him. One that could kill him just as much as the weapon could.
She tried calling out to him, voice braking partway through from strain and worry. But he had already fallen to his knees, eyes hazing over brightly then rolling in the back of his head as he fell on his side and violently convulsed. His fingers curled like claws frozen in time scraping against rock and rough ground till his knuckles bled every time his limbs flailed about. Each false breath a choking drowning gasp of unattainable air. Angelic bloody foam climbing up his throat and spilling past his lips.
She could only watch as it didn’t let up in the slightest. Could only watch helplessly as everyone around her helping threw panicked questions her way demanding to know what was happening.
It hurt deep inside to watch him suffer after she had spent so long trying to prevent such a fate convinced the grief of losing his father would be the cause.
Finally with team effort, the weapon was neutralized. And she didn’t waste any time sprinting over to the still seizing angel who had been trapped in the throws for at least 2 minutes and still going strong with no signs of it letting up. Charlie ran behind her, skidding to a halt as they reached Abel’s side and placed a hand on her shoulder
“What do we do?!”
“I-“ she choked on her words, voice thick
“I don’t know” she sobbed “we need to try to keep him on his side, we can’t- don’t let him choke”
Charlie nodded to her, eyes just as wet with barely kept in check emotions then ran around to his other side to help maneuver the angel to his side and to adjust his large heavy wings from getting pinned under him and instead getting smacked in the face with the large fluffy appendage as the muscles spasm and making her momentarily see stars.
Emily’s voice shook nearly as violently as Abel’s body as she tried to give reassurances that only fell on deaf ears.
The sound of a body smacking repeatedly into the ground the only thing either could focus on as he kept arching and trembling like a rubber band on the verge of snapping after being pulled to tight. Feathers flew about like sparks as they were dislodged from the force of them beating against the rocks around him. It was like someone filled his nerves with electricity and turned up the voltage.
He was approaching 4 minutes.
“Emily, it’s - it’s not stopping” Charlie said to high pitched and panic filled
“I know,” Emily whispered “I know, I know, I know—please—Abel, please—”
All she could do was pray.
Abel’s body jerked particularly hard, wings smacking into Charlie yet again, nearly enough to knock her over. She jumped back up quickly and went back to doing what she could to help
“What the fuck is happening?!”
“His…” Emily cleared her throat. Eyes blurred with tears as she sobbed“his brain. His neural pathways got damaged from when he died. I tried to hold it off as long as I could but I couldn’t stop it before it started this time! This is my fault”
Charlie’s eyes snapped up and met hers, gaze intense. Fit for a princess. “don’t you dare. This is NOT your fault, it’s no one’s ok? He’s gonna be fine”
With one last aggressive twitch, his body finally relaxed. Faint tremors continued but the seizure had finally stopped. Ragged exhales and inhaling was music to their ears and they both sagged in relief.
A few seconds passed, both holding their breath as groggy eyes blinked. He was really out of it, but he was alive and technically awake and that’s all they could ask for.
Charlie looked off to the side and saw her dad crawling out of the wreckage and ran off in his direction, leaving Emily to sit with Abel.
There was one thing stuck in her head.
She can’t risk this ever happening again.
She needs to talk to sera. Because things need to change