Loved to Death (Closed for Lily)

[Bluemage]

Felix Castman tapped at the counter, his eyes watching the people in the small shop. He had found himself surrounded by these geeks every day and had thought that was acceptable. Really, he wasn't sure why he had wanted to work here anymore. He had thought that he'd be doing fine here. He thought that when he had found himself surrounded by fellow geeks and nerds that he'd be accepted, and given his position in the comic book store as clerk, he might even be viewed with at least some sense of revere. Instead the nerds and geeks who came in here were disappointed to see him because it meant that they weren't going to be able to hit on Laura, the attractive punk rocker girl who worked cash every other day.

He remembered when he had first started work at "The Platinum Age", the comic book store that he worked at. Things had been so wonderful when he had first started work here. He got as much work as he wanted, and then the girl had shown up. It had seemed like normal for the first few weeks, and then slowly the world that he had thought was so nice and wonderful had begun to change. Charlie, his boss, and the owner of the comic shop had realized quickly that having a girl behind the counter brought in more lonely loser customers who would spend money. It meant that they would be able to keep up with their competition, the chain store that was at the other end of town.

His work schedule had drastically changed with the new girl. Soon enough he was only able to get work every other day, and then he was only working two days out of the week...and last week he had been told that he was going to be let go...in fact, this was his last day. As of tomorrow he was going to be joining the ranks of the unemployed. What fun...

He sighed softly as someone came to the counter, purchasing their weekly comics. He silently looked over the covers, punching the prices into the register. There had been a time when he would have talked with the people in the store. There had been a time when he would have made suggestions on other things that they could have read that they may have enjoyed. There had been a time for all of that, but it wasn't right now. It wasn't today.

He had spent his time behind the counter. His day was up, and so was his job. He had made his way out of the store and into the street as Charlie had made his way in to oversee a card tournament. The cool evening air felt refreshing against his skin, probably mostly because of the fact that it had rained earlier in the day and the air still had the cool rainy feeling to it. The puddles in the street reflected the last glimmers of the setting sun. Felix brought his hands up, adjusting the collar of his blue mechanic's jacket, not caring much that the name that was embroidered on it's front was not his own, but that of someone who was apparently named 'Joe'. Truly original.

He had considered heading back to his apartment, taking this time to rest up so that he could approach tomorrow refreshed and revitalized, and use that newfound energy to try and find a new job. That didn't really sound like what he wanted to do deep inside though. He wanted to go hang out with someone. As much as it pained him to not have a job anymore, it was a refreshing release to not have to go to the comic store where his skills would be unappreciated and people would look at him with eyes filled with disappointment because of his gender. What he really wanted to do was go over to Tom's, order a pizza, and enjoy some booze while they played a first person shooter. That was most definitely his best plan. His girlfriend was out at whatever it was that she normally did on Friday night when he was busy overseeing the card tournament.

The journey to Tom's had been a cold and lonely one. The wind had bit into him through his jacket and had made him bury his fingers deep inside of the pockets of the jacket to keep them from getting cold. His black hair had collected mist from the very light rain that had been falling, keeping everything damp without actually offering enough rainfall for anyone who considered themselves the least bit macho to be bothered with an umbrella. It had caused his hair to stick to his brow and fall before his emerald green eyes a little bit, which was just as well, since Felix thought it was appropriate that he look this way just after he had been canned from his crappy job.

As Felix had made his way up the driveway, his eyes had moved over the numbers that were screwed into the brick next to the metal garage door, the brass numbers 157 seeming to glow for a moment as they caught the first light from the flickering street lamp a few houses down the street that was in dire need of some form of service. This was the place where he had spent many a summer day hanging out, the place where he had gone to unwind when the rest of his life made no sense. It was the house of his best friend Tom, and a house that he was in possession of a spare key for.

He pushed the small steel key into the large brass slot, turned it, and then stepped in. He knew that he was coming over unannounced, but Tom had never cared about such things before, and he was sure if there was anyone who was going to understand, it was sure to be him. He had decided that this was the shoulder that he was going to cry on over losing his job. Tom would laugh about it, they would talk about what a shitty job it was anyway, and then they'd make jokes for the rest of the evening, until he decided to head home. Tom would insist that he stay over because he was too drunk to be on the streets which were most likely going to be much too dark by the time he was finished being consoled.

That had been the plan at the very least. When he had entered the house he had heard muffled sounds. It sounded very much like a struggle. Felix's mind immediately went over how he was going to go about this. He moved stealthily, or as stealthily as a man wearing a damp jacket, wearing a pair of sneakers that were running low on tread could move. Making it down the hallway and to the stairs was easy. Heading down them towards the basement and the sounds, which now sounded less like a struggle and more like the noises of lovemaking was a bit more difficult. Now that he had a better picture of what was going on, he wasn't really sure that he should be interfering, but something in the back of his mind told him that this was something that he'd regret walking away from without investigating fully. Upon reaching the turn in the steps his world froze...and then shattered into a million of icy pieces.

Tom's basement was his pride and joy. It was his den. His man-hole if you could call it that and still be straight. He had his big tv, his gaming platforms, a nice futon (as nice as a futon could be), and a pool table. It was a place that was perfect for spending afternoons if one was unemployed, or a slacker, and really, it was just a very nice recreation room. Right now, bent over the pool table was Felix's girlfriend, her blouse unbuttoned and pulled to either side, and her bra pushed down, allowing her naked breasts to rub against the felt surface of it's top as his best friend, Tom, rocked his hips back and forth, pounding into her like there was no tomorrow.

It was theorized by Walter Cannon that animals react to threats with a general discharge of the sympathetic nervous system, priming the animal for fighting or fleeing. This has been called the fight or flight response. The response that the scene before Felix created within the young man who had recently found himself unemployed, was the flight reaction. He turned and ran, trying to put as much distance between himself, and the thing that had caused something deep inside of his heart to grab at him. It felt like at some point in his day he had swallowed a caltrop and it had caught on several vital organs all at once, leaving his insides a torn and tattered mass. It was this pain that had caused him to run out of the house that belonged to the person that he had called his best friend mere hours ago. It was this pain that had caused him to rush across the street towards the flickering street light.

The car was an older model station wagon. It had a nice crisp paint job, black. It had come out of nowhere, ore perhaps it had just seemed to come out of nowhere because the headlights were out. The chrome grill had dug into Felix's hip, the force of the car cracking bones before lifting and pivoting him, causing his shoulder and head to strike the windshield with devastating force, and a sickening, spine-crushing noise. His body moved like a ragdoll as he rolled, catching air and allowing the black car to shoot under him, letting his beaten and torn body fall into a crumpled heap on the asphalt. The cool pavement below his broken body bit into the side of his face as well as his jeans, the dampness from the rain soaking into his clothing, and mixing with the blood that he was now losing onto the tarmac.

It was odd. As Felix lay there on the cool pavement, his very life slipping away from him. The thoughts that went through his mind were not 'why me' or 'there was so much more that I could have done' but instead were 'at least this can't get any worse'. Of course, that was simply a failure of imagination.

-----

"Hey. Hey!" Felix felt a hard and bony hand slap against his cheek for a moment, "Joe Stein! Wake up, buddy."

Felix slowly opened his eyes. He felt a weak aching in his side, but it didn't feel like he had just been struck by a car, which he knew was the case. He blinked for a moment, his eyes first registering that he was in a classy looking room with lots of polished wood. Upon a second glance he saw that the room that he was in was some form of courtroom. He blinked and narrowed his eyes slightly as he looked over the scene. He looked to the Jury stand and saw empty seats and then looked over to the other council's section, seeing nothing there either. He looked over to the judge and saw a figure hidden behind a black cloak. It made him uncomfortable to look at this figure for any length of time and quickly he turned his attention to his council, seeing a skeletal figure who was wearing a pair of glasses, and a suit, complete with a bowtie. He took a long deep breath to keep himself from screaming at the skeletal face that looked back at him for a moment before grinning (as if a skull could do anything but) and turning back to the cloaked figure.

"Now, as you can see, Mr. Stein here has lived a rather interesting life." The skeleton pushed itself onto its feet. It brought it's hands up and tapped it's fingertips against each other, "He was a mechanic who tended to cheat people who don't know better by telling them that they were running low on left blinker fluid."

"Wait." Felix looked up for a moment and then closed his eyes, taking a long breath, "I'm not...I am not this Joe Stein guy." He shook his head for a moment, "And what is going on here anyway?"

"What? What are you talking about? You're dead. We're here to figure out whether you go up or if you go down, if you know what I mean." He chuckled for a moment, "What did you think was going on, Joe, ol' boy?"

"What? No. I'm telling you, I'm not Joe Stein. My name is Felix Castman." He brought his hand up rubbing at his temple for a moment.

The skeleton turned and brought it's hand down, tracing it's bony fingertip around the edge of the round name-tag emblazoned with the name Joe, "Seems to me that we have evidence of who you are right in front of us."

"No. Dude. I bought this at a second hand store as a joke." He brought his hand down with a thud on the desk in front of him, "I have been having about one of the worst days ever. I got let go from my dead end job today, I walked in on my girlfriend and my best friend having sex on a gaming table, and then I got run down by a fucking car! Now I have no idea what the fuck is going on here-"

The bony fingers of the skeleton defense council had moved with lightning speed and a dexterity that seemed to far outdo what anyone would have expected a skeleton to have, flipping aged and crackling pages of a well worn leather bound book with maddening speed. Upon reaching the end one of the deathly thin digits came up sliding between the front teeth of the skull for a moment, "None...none of that is here, except for the car, of course. That was us, of course."

"That...you guys hit me with a fucking car!?!"

The skeletal figure brought his hand up, adjusting the spectacles for a moment, "It never ceases to amaze me how you mortals pick up on the most insignificant things...but...if you really aren't Joe Stein...hmmmm..." His hand came up, his fingers moving over what would have been the sides of his lips if they were there, "Really...the die cast..."

"No. That's bullshit! If I'm not supposed to be dead-"

"But you are dead, aren't you, Mr. Castman?"

 

[Mephistophelily]

The hooded head tilted slightly to the right as the young man continued to argue with his defense, the tilt becoming almost a full-born right angle from the rest of its form. He claimed to not be Joe Stein. But Joe was supposed to die.

As he continued to rant in disagreement on his actual name, the figure's hand slipped into its robes, pulling out a little pocketwatch. It clicked open easily with a little press of the thin fingers, revealing the skeletal moving hands on the watch face inside.

"It says 11 am, Mister Femur." The voice that left the figure was more like wind passing through a tunnel, a gust of a whisper that escaped from beneath the black folds. The watch was held out to the skeleton, an offer for him to inspect it as well. "11 am. Something is not right here."

A mistake certainly had been made. The watch was snapped closed, the object vanishing back into the robe before the figure hidden inside stooped over the various papers spilled before it. So much would have to be done to rectify this. Allow the true Stein to continue on extra hours.... at the expense of this man? No, no, no. That couldn't happen. Things had an order to them, and this was simply ruining it. It had to be fixed. But to allow someone else to do it? No, no. This looked like a personal matter.

The black figure stood.
It pointed to Felix.
"Your time has not reached its end, Felix Castman. This error will be rectified. I personally shall see to this..."

The skeletal Mister Femur gave a worried laugh, shaking his head. "I'm sure we can find some other way to-"

"I will fix this."

"...Yes, yes, of course, you will fix this..." The meek reply was murmured back with a weak nod, the skeleton lowering his head as the figure came down from its podium, standing before he and Felix's table.

"I shall accompany you back to the world of the living to correct what was happened, Felix Castman. Case. Dismissed. Ruling: mistrial. I shall join you in the living world, Mister Castman, momentarily. Your body is currently left in a coma, awaiting the outcome of this trial."

A hand reached out once again, this time touching a finger against Felix's forehead. "Bop. Back you go." There was an obvious change in the voice speaking to him, though not much time was given for him to truly debate it...


*~*~*~*~*

Poke.
Poke. Poke.

"Are you back in there yet?" The curious red eyes peered down at the young man laying in the hospital bed, motionless as the various wires and lines ran into, out of, and around his body. So many things to try and keep her at bay. Silly mortals. All this stuff didn't matter. What mattered was what was in her pocket. Pulling out the pocket watch, she popped it open, confirming that this was indeed the right body; the minute hand had slipped merely a minute past 11 am.

Her finger reached out once again, readying to jab him yet again as the other hand pulled the falling black hair from the young woman's eyes. "Waaakey-wakey."

Poke.

She grinned as he finally came to, giving a quick wave as she continued to lean over him. "Hello, Joe! Whadda ya know? Er. No. Not Joe. Joe's who got us into this mess. Felix. Yes, it was Felix, right?"

 

[Bluemage]

Felix didn't feel well. That really seemed understandable since he had just been hit by a car and then seemed to have had some sort of near death experience. He was sure that he was going to laugh about that later when he wasn't worried about things like broken ribs and wasn't still so close to the problem. Near death. Ha. The reaper had touched him. How much more near death could you get. Something to laugh about at another time, he was sure.

Right now what he knew was that he was on something soft and warm, the ultimate contrast to the cool and hard pavement that he had found himself sprawled over after the car accident. That both made perfect sense and made no sense at all. He was sure that with an accident like that he should be all 32 flavors of dead. He should not have been in a warm bead. That being said, if he accepted that he was still alive, then he was very likely in a hospital, and from what he had been told, they tended to keep a stock of warm beds for people who got hit by cars and didn't get turned into worm food.

His mind had snapped into rationalization mode as soon as he had discovered that he wasn't a statistic on the evening news. If he wasn't dead, perhaps he had been sent back when the reaper had realized the mistake that had been made...of course, that made less sense than all of that being dreams or hallucinations brought on by the head trauma of being hit with a car. It was possible that he hadn't been hit by a car at all, and even that had just been imaginary. It didn't explain why he was here. Perhaps he had ran into a post or something and someone had found him and taken him here. That was assuming this was a hospital. Maybe this was some girl's room. Maybe he should tell her that he had a girlfriend.

The images of the day washed over him, striking him with the force of a thousand black station wagons and causing his gut to wrench slightly. He winced for a moment as he looked up at the girl with the black hair. He had ended up here because he had seen his girlfriend getting a world class banging from his best friend, and now he supposed neither was still deserving of the title that he had given them in his mind. Well, he was certainly going to have to change his relationship status on facebook.

Really though, no amount of jokes or making light of the situation made him feel any better about what had happened, and regardless as to whether or not he had actually been struck by a car, this had been a very terrible day. Really, so far the only good thing to come out of the day was the attractive woman who seemed to be looking after him, or at least poking him back into consciousness.

He blinked for a moment as he looked up at her, still feeling like she was oddly out of place, like she didn't quite belong on this planet, let alone in this room with him. He furrowed his brow for a moment, feeling like she was incredibly familiar, but at the same time an entirely new face that he had never seen before. In any case, she seemed to know him, but that made sense since he had been carrying his wallet. Well, at least that meant no one had stolen his wallet while he was out, or if they had taken the money they had at least been decent enough to leave him with his identification.

"Neughh...where...where am I right now?" There were a thousand and one questions he wanted to ask. Questions like what had happened to him, who she was, and several other questions that at the moment had slipped out of his mind to be filed under 'not important at this particular moment. Really though, he didn't feel like asking a whole lot of questions, and was aware that asking where he was would probably lead to the answer of how he had gotten there, and also what state he had been when she had found him, and if she was in a good mood, she might also offer up her name.

 

[Mephistophelily]

Motion. Well, that was good. She was starting to think that she had perhaps pushed a bit too hard, or sent him into the wrong body. Woopsie. That would have been just another addition to the mess.

Ahh, but he was moving, stirring about and starting to look at her. She gave another grin, a quick salute of her hand from her forehead as he lay there blinking dumbfoundedly. They were always so slow to come around after getting the return to sender.

This was just a very unique case for that.

"Where are you? You don't listen very well, do you, Felix? I told you before I bopped you. 'Your body is in the hospital, left in a coma.' But now you're out of it." She gave a confirming nod with that, dangling the watch out before him. "See this? It tells me your lifespan. You shouldn't have been sent to me. Your time is only 11 am. That's still fairly early. 11 pm... Now, that's a different story."

She paused as the door to the room slowly creaked open, a nurse entering the room with a cart filled with various liquid pouchs and equipment. As the nurse approached, the darkhaired girl simply moved aside, her hands in her pockets as she watched. "You've been out for a few days here. Almost a week, I'd say, by the minute that's passed in your time. Oh, don't worry on her, she can't see me. But you're moving around like that is probably-"

The nurse froze, staring at him as she realized the young man was awake and moving. "Oh.. Oh my... DOCTOR! DOCTOR!" She was still yelling for other medical help as she left the room, the darkhaired woman grinning still as she came to settle on the edge of his bed.

"That is still so funny to me. Haha..." She slowly glanced at him, barely turning her head as he watched him out of the corners of her eyes. "You're getting curious, aren't you? Hahaa. You want something to call me. Well then."

She gave a shrug with that, smirking as she slid back off the bed. "Angel Grimm. Yes. We'll go with that." Her gaze fell back on him, the smile refusing to leave. "I like that name best. Oop, here they come again..."

The doctors were flooding into the room now, the one nurse heading the pack as she pointed at Felix. Angel, however, simply settled on the end of the spare bed in the room, her legs folded as she leaned her chin against her propped palm. The usual amazed response- Oh, he came to; oh, it's a miracle... And taking the praises for themselves with their modern medicine, all the machines and gizmos they forced on his body. Oh, sure. It's all YOUR doing. And the underworld wondered why she rarely came to the mortal word?

"Amazing. Simply amazing. How do you feel, young man?"

Angel peered over the doctor's shoulder, raising her eyebrows. "Yeah, Felix. How're you feeling? Hunky Dory hokey pokey?"

 

[Bluemage]

He had been trying very hard to work his mind around the situation as he had it in front of him. As the strange girl explained things it became harder, and harder to ignore the 'dream' events as he had seen them. It was harder to just wave his hand and wish all of those moments in the magical court room with the skeleton defense attorney away. Based on what she had said, all of that had been absolutely real, and was the reason that he was back on this mortal coil. He remembered how he had argued against what was happening to him, telling everyone that he wasn't who they thought he was. Now that he was back in the mortal world, remembering that he had lost his job, and walked in on his girlfriend as she had been cheating on him, he wasn't sure why he had been so desperate to return.

When she had told him that the nurse wouldn't be able to see her, and that she was only going to appear within his field of vision, he rolled his eyes. That was just wonderful. It meant that he was either crazy, which was unlikely since he couldn't imagine crazy people admitting that they were crazy without some form of treatment, or this was lasting effects from whatever had happened here. In any case, he didn't like it because it meant that if he talked to her or treated her like she was real he was going to look very crazy.

Suddenly he had been surrounded by medical professionals who were asking him how he was and checking his vitals. Really, what he needed was some form of answer that would make all of these people go away. Something that would tell them that he didn't feel like he was going to slip out of consciousness again, but assure them that he didn't need them hovering over him. That was a more difficult task than he would have liked now that he thought about it, because he couldn't really think of anything.

He brought his hand up, rubbing at his forehead for a moment, "Ummm...I'm kind of hungry..." He wasn't sure that he was actually hungry enough for hospital food, but if it made everyone get out of his room for a little bit so that he could think about everything that had happened and have a better understanding of his life the way it was now, that would certainly have been appreciated.

The nurse had been the one who had bitten on that and had turned, almost bolting out of the room so that she could find some food for the miracle patient who had come out of the coma. The doctor was going to take a bit more convincing, obviously.

"Well, young man, you're a very lucky guy." Felix certainly didn't feel all that lucky, once he remembered that he had been canned from his dead end job, and seen his girlfriend cheating on him, but he supposed surviving a car accident where he had been lacking in a car was probably still viewed by most as a stroke of very good luck. The doctor who was staring down at a clipboard spoke up again, "You were involved in a hit and run, but someone who happened to be walking by called for an ambulance for you, and got you here. We had thought that you were going to metaphorically kick the metaphorical bucket."

All that this was telling the wounded man was that he had been saved by someone who just happened to be passing by, and had not been saved by his cheating now ex-girlfriend, or the man who he had thought was his best friend. Fucking amazing. They couldn't even be bothered to come out and check on his beaten and battered body after he had been hit by a car. He considered asking if he had any visitors, but really, he didn't want to have been visited by those two, and the only other people who might have come out to see him would be his family, and he didn't want to bother them with something like this. He was vainly hoping that they didn't know.

"Now, I know this may sound odd, given that you have been out for about a week, but I want you to take it easy, get some rest. We wouldn't want you to slip away from us now that we've got you back." The doctor gave one of those big forced smiles over the top of his clip board as the nurse finally came back in with what appeared to be a tuna salad sandwich, wrapped in cellophane.

It had taken a few more minutes of them checking his vitals and a telling him that he wasn't supposed to stress himself before they had left him with his sandwich, and the silence of the room...and of course the hallucinated girl with the black hair and the pretty red eyes. He stared down at his sandwich and unwrapped it, his features a slight frown as he considered the fact that he had been brought to life, but really, his life was a shattered shell of what it had been.

He took a long moment, contemplating eating the sandwich, but remembering that it was hospital food. His eyes slowly moved up to the girl. He watched her for a long moment before finally speaking up, "So no one can see you...so any time I talk to you I'm going to look like I'm crazy. Awesome. " He brought the sandwich up and took a bit of it, noting that it tasted like a lot of nothing. He put the rest of the sandwich down as he chewed for a moment and then swallowed, "Well, as hallucinations go, I could do much worse than having a supernatural hottie looking after me."

 

[Mephistophelily]

All these people, and his first thought was hunger. Angel had to laugh a bit at that. Some people came back with deep philosophical thoughts, waxing poetic about the meaning of life (some of which she truly got a kick out of), others sobbing on and on about all the moments of their life that had flashed before their eyes. If they bothered to really think about it and remember things correctly, they would have realized this slideshow was actually a part of the trial, to let Death see the type of person they had been so she could make her final decision.

Door number one, door number two.
Rare, rare cases received that Free Pass, Death deeming it not their time. How much time is actually left, however, few people are ever given the chance to truly know.

Hmm.
Maybe she had made a little mistake by letting Felix here spy on his timeframe.

"Bye bye, nurse lady." Angel slid to the side of the room as the woman ran through to fetch Felix his food, her eyes lingering on her for a moment. Food. Novel idea. She hadn't actually eaten anything herself in... She couldn't really remember.

She glanced back as the doctor spoke to Felix, circling around to the other side of the bed to listen in. "No, Doc, he quite literally did." Another grin, but her interest was already fading in the conversation. His suggestions on how to stay among the living. Blah-blah-blah. Instead, she turned to focus on the window, observing the world outside. Things were quite different from her last real visit to the mortal world. All these people, all these new things for them to be lost into and oblivious to the lives they lived...

Ooh, the nurse was back. Angel peeked at the food she brought, making a face as Felix accepted it. What was that? Ick, is THAT what mortals were eating anymore? Not interesting. Back to the window.

More work on the part of the physicians, treating him like a half-cracked egg that they were attempting to reseal. No reason for it, really. Angel would make certain nothing else happened to him until it was truly supposed to. When they finally left, she stepped over to the odd flat rectangle mounted on the wall, staring at the empty black space blankly. Mortals were certainly getting weird. Was this art or something?

"So no one can see you...so any time I talk to you I'm going to look like I'm crazy. Awesome. ... Well, as hallucinations go, I could do much worse than having a supernatural hottie looking after me."


"Oh, you misunderstand, Felix Castman. When I said she couldn't see me... I didn't want her to. That's all it comes down to, really." She glanced at the sandwich he had given up on, reaching out to poke it tentatively. It felt even worse than it looked. She cleared her throat, looking back to him. "My old form was rather intimidating. To just show up in everyone's line of sight wasn't exactly helping things. So, I decided to just show myself to those I want to." She frowned slightly, looking him over. "But we do have a problem. I can't fix the other half of this mistake with you being cooped up in here. I need you to help me."

A sudden thought hit her. There had been a large number of doctors in her previously. "Ohh, think I got it. You want people to see me? Oookey dokey."

Her hand raised, Angel snapping her fingers as she closed her eyes, the smirk still refusing to leave. It seemed almost permanently embedded on her face...

In the time it took him to blink, Angel's clothing had changed to that of a doctor; a white coat, little white skirt, a barely-buttoned white dress shirt and a stethoscope draped about her neck. Her hair was now up in a tight bun, a pair of small black-rimmed glasses perched upon her nose that she pressed up with the pen stolen off the chart she held in her hands. "Doctor Grimm is on call!," she announced loudly, only to press the pen against her lips with a sheepish look. "Woops! They can hear me now too," she whispered in explanation.

She pointed to the far side of the room, indicating the wheel chair located by the door. "In you go! I'm transferring you to a different facility for physical therapy! Doctor's orders!" She pulled a paper from the file she held, plunking it into his lap. "See? Right there in black and white. How convenient, hmm?"

Wheeling him into the hall, another thought hit her; something he had said. "You called me a hottie. What... What exactly does that mean? I'm not a demon, if that's what you think. I'm just the Grim Reaper," she whispered, the cheery tone in her voice seeming oddly out of place with such a subject leaving her lips.

 

[Bluemage]

Really, the wounded and hospitalized boy had been expecting that when the doctor had left, the 'girl' who was here with him would probably also come up with a convenient reason to leave, either soon after answering his questions, or before she had a chance to answer them as a sort of 'haha, you'll never know' tactic. Instead she had decided to take the time to talk to him, to assure him that she wasn't a hallucination, but in fact reality. She had done it in a way that he hadn't expected her to. He had expected her to say something along the lines of 'I can touch you so I must be real' or something else that wasn't really a satisfactory answer. Instead the simple answer that she had provided was 'magic'. That answer was as acceptable as the rest of this.

There was no way that this 'Angel Grimm' as she had called herself could have known the effect that her sudden costume change would have had on him. There was no way that she could have known that the 'sexy doctor' look was going to get him right where it counted. He had shifted up in the bed, pushing himself into a bit of a sitting position, hoping that it would be enough to hide the biological effects that her sudden change in costume had over him. Of course there had been biological effects. The barely buttoned shirt, the short skirt, the sexy glasses, and the way she held that pen...Either she knew and she was trying to torture him for some reason, or she honestly had no idea what she was doing now.

He swallowed hard when she pointed to the wheelchair. With the sexy doctor/librarian/teacher look, he was quite sure that he wasn't going to be able to turn her down. Before the change of attire she had a certain presence about her, but now there was a commanding presence that came with the clothes. He was almost afraid of what would happen if he denied her...then again, she had control over whether or not he lived or died, so he supposed that in the end it was probably better not to think too hard before complying with anything she told him to do. As a result, moving to the wheelchair was something that was done quickly.

He was glad when she had dropped the piece of paper in his lap, adding something to help him hide his shame. He looked over at her as she mentioned that he was being taken somewhere for some rehabilitation. He could only guess what she meant when she said 'physical therapy'. He knew that had this happened a little bit later in his life he might have said something like 'yeah, any physical therapy you want me to go through' in a suggestive tone. Really, he was pretty sure she wasn't interested in such things.

The question of what 'hottie' meant caused him to blush a little bit. This was a bit embarrassing. He sighed softly, and brought his hand up, rubbing at the side of his nose with his index finger, "It means..." It was at this point that he registered that she likely would only figure out 'sexy' slightly faster than she would figure out 'hottie'. That might have been enough to explain it, but he figured that if she wanted him to explain something, the best way was to try to explain it as fully and completely as possible.

"It was a compliment on your physical appearance." He didn't want to look at her while he explained this, didn't want her to be able to figure out what he was thinking, or what he was feeling, "It means I think you're sexually attractive." This was probably the best place to say this sort of thing, as he was looking forward, sitting down, and she was pushing the wheelchair.

 

[Mephistophelily]

"...Oh. Huh."
So her appearance was far, far better than what she chose to look like before. Good to know. Her old self would probably not have ranked as a 'hottie' in his opinion. Sexually attractive? She didn't really think of herself as the least bit attractive. It wasn't really something that Death had time to consider.

Angel continued to push him down the halls, glancing over to the nurse's station ominously as the woman behind the counter started to stand. A confused look rested on the nurse's face, her hand slightly raised as if readying to stop them. Angel only scowled, reaching into Felix's lap to snatch the paper and shoving it toward the woman. "This young man has been in a state of inactivity for the past 7 days. The best way to get him recuperating is to provide him with physical therapy immediately. I'm transferring him to another facility with the proper equipment to offer him what he needs."

The nurse lowered herself back down, her eyes wide at the snapped words coming from the 'doctor'. Satisfied, Angel increased her speed with Felix's chair, hurrying him out the automatic doors of the hospital and out onto the street. "That was pretty good, huh? I totally have no idea what I just said."

Now how to get wherever that it was they were going.

"Ah. Y'know, I think we may have a wee bit of a problem. I have no idea what to do now. I haven't been here in quite a long time. There's a few things I'm not really recognizing." She paused, her head turning to watch a white van that passed the patient pickup circle they currently were resting in front of. "Like, um... What's that?"

 

[Bluemage]

Felix really wasn't sure what to say about any of this. It seemed that she really didn't have much to say on the topic of her being sexually attractive. He supposed he had expected that. A tiny part of him had expected her to be shocked by his admission that he found her sexy. A bigger part of him had expected nothing, and that had been exactly what had happened. She was magic and had already shown that she had the ability to change her attire with a mere thought. She could probably change her appearance however she wanted. Saying she looked attractive in the appearance that she had now would probably be about as deep as commenting on the shoes that someone had decided to wear on any particular day. Really, he doubted that things like 'you look attractive as you are now' were really all that much of a compliment to her now that he had thought about it.

When she stated that she had no idea what she had said to convince the nurse that it was alright for them to leave he had smile. He knew the basis of what she had said. Apparently the week on his back had been all that he had needed for his muscles to atrophy. He was pretty sure that wasn't the case, but that was alright. Whatever was going to get him out of the hospital.

He sighed softly when she mentioned that there were things that she didn't understand. He looked about for a moment, spotting the white van that she was pointing at. He turned his head slowly to look at her, raising an eyebrow before looking back to the van, "That is a van. It's a type of automobile." He brought his hand up, rubbing at his forehead for a moment, "Ummm...it's a vehicle, a device for transportation." He knew that he had decided to describe everything as fully and completely as possible, but going into more detail about something like a van was difficult. He supposed he could use words like 'mechanical horse'.

His eyes moved over the drop off area. He wasn't sure what he was going to tell her from here. He knew that they needed to get him home or something. He didn't know how to get them there though. He wasn't exactly sure where he was. Based on the fact that they were at a hospital he had an idea of where to go to get home. That was probably the best place to start on all of this.

After thinking about it he spoke up, "Well...I can probably guide you to my home if you'd like. That's probably as good a place as any to start." Really, that would be a good start. He could get some real food and they would all be happier. He had questions to ask that hadn't been asked or answered yet.

"So, there is more to this than you just bringing me back to life obviously. If it was just you bringing me back, I can't believe that you'd hang around if it was just about bringing me back to life. Am I right?"

 

[Mephistophelily]

"Autom- Ohh. What we hit you with. I was wondering what exactly Femur had been referring to." She paused, glancing down at him and giving a weak smile. "Ah. And, um.. Sorry about that. Research had been so certain you were the right guy... Told me it was a fitting irony that he received his final seconds from the same thing he harassed so many with. They have a twisted sense of humor sometimes. I suppose it comes with the job they have... Something to lighten the mood once in awhile."

Her eyes stayed on the van for a few moments longer. Transportation. Hmm.

She nodded slowly as he suggested going to his home, still staring at the van. "Sounds like a plan to me! You know how to make one of those things move?"

Already pushing the chair toward the vehicle, she listened to him talk, a smile coming to her face as he started to try and piece things together. "Righty-o. See, we thought you were the other guy. Really, really thought you were the other guy. But we were really, really wrong on that. And since we messed up, I gotta fix it. Joe's gotta go, You get to stay. Hooray for you...!"

She trailed off slightly, her attention momentarily focused on the van. The driver had left the vehicle running, simply sitting there as he ran inside. She tugged the latch. It popped open. "Ooh. Nifty. That makes things easy."

Turning back to Felix to help him up from the chair, she continued in her explanation. "Because of our mistake, we also owe you something. Well, I do. It's a very rare thing to happen, y'see.... Why I haven't been to this world in such a long time..." She sighed, shrugging. "Mistakes are bad, especially in our line of business. So when something goes wrong, the boss has to compensate for it."

Joining him in the vehicle, she readjusted her shirt, finding this doctor's suit to be rather fun to wear. She was starting to wonder if there was anything else she could try out...

Oh, right. She was explaining this whole situation to Felix.

"Anyway. This is for you." She held a folded black paper out to him, the paper held closed with a little golden seal. "You are given three favors from Death. There are restrictions to these favors, however... But we can talk about that later, hmm? We should probably get this vehicle moving before that man comes back."

 

[Bluemage]

He had watched her circle around the van before asking him if he could operate it. Of course he could drive a van. He had a driver's license. It wasn't going to be a problem. All he needed was a car. At that point it became painfully obvious what she was actually talking about though. She planned for them to procure this specific van. That wasn't a good idea. That wasn't a good idea at all. At the same time that he knew that stealing the car was a terrible, awful, no good idea, he also knew that in the mood she was probably in right now, there was very little that he was going to be able to say to dissuade her from the idea. They were going to steal this man's car, and in the end, the lesson that was going to be learned was that you shouldn't leave your keys in the ignition.

He sighed as she all but pushed him into the car while she explained that it had been a very long time since she had visited the mortal realm, and that it had been them who had run him down with a car, and about a million other things that were making his brain hurt to think about. He was going to go home, and then...he wasn't sure, hopefully this van situation would solve itself. For all he knew there were things set up where one of her cronies was going to come and drive it back. He supposed it really didn't matter all that much. He turned his eyes to her, considering voicing his concern about them stealing this car, and then saw her readjust her shirt and felt the common throbbing in his pants that she had been causing off and on since he had met her.

His eyes turned back to the windshield and swallowed hard. 'Be strong' he told himself. He needed to say something. If she didn't know about cars in general she certainly wouldn't know that it was very uncool to steal them. She seemed to understand that stealing them was bad, but probably not how bad it actually was. He spoke quickly, "Taking this isn't a good idea." He had said it all in a single breath, knowing that he wouldn't have been able to say it if he had stopped to think about any of the words on their own. He also knew that if he looked over to her for anything that he would quickly lose his nerve. He took a hold of the envelope that she was shoving his way and placed it in his lap, "When the guy who owns this car notices it is missing he is going to call the authorities. Borrowing it without permission is a bad thing. A very bad thing. I mean...so bad that it would probably be safer to just walk all the way home. I mean..." He bit his bottom lip trying to think of how he could tell her that it might not be safer for her to walk all the way home like they were now, not only because it might get cold on her exposed skin, but also because she might attract a bit too much attention looking the way she did now. He couldn't come up with appropriate words, probably because she had stated that she was the grim reaper, so she could probably get out of any trouble that she got in relatively quickly.

He looked down at the envelope. Three wishes, eh? Sounded kind of cliché, but he really didn't know much that he wanted to wish for. He supposed a new life filled with nice things would be nice, since he was now freshly unemployed and lacking in the girlfriend department. Of course, even if he wished for the two things separately he'd still have one wish left. He could wish that they were back at his apartment and in a flash they'd probably be there...then again, that might have been why she was insisting that they steal a car. It was probable that her goal here was to return him to the realm of the living with the least impact possible, meaning wasting his wishes on simple and tedious things, like getting home without committing a felony.

What could he do here? He needed to stand up to her and tell her that this was wrong and was going to land them in a whole lot of trouble, but any time he looked over at her the way she was now he was sure he wasn't going to be able to say a thing. He swallowed hard again and looked over to her. He didn't have words anymore.

He should have been enraged. This was the woman who had him run down by a car. For all he knew everything leading up to that, including losing his job, and finding his girlfriend getting fucked over a gaming table was part of their plan. It was quite possible that everything that had gone sour in his life these past weeks was the doing of the woman who was sitting beside him. For some reason, every time he looked at her, he didn't think about those sorts of things though. He thought of her as some kind of guardian angel...a very sexy guardian angel. He looked forward out the windshield again.

This was a terrible plan. He didn't want to take part in it. If she asked him to, he knew that he'd step on the gas and they'd be headed home, but he really needed her to understand that this was a terrible plan...

 

[Mephistophelily]

He was hesitating. Mumbling something, a quick spouting of words that she could barely understand. "Muhhh?" She leaned forward, tilting herself over in the seat to look at him curiously as he explained what he had said in a less rushed voice.

Authorities? Angel was quite sure there was only a few other authorities that ranked any higher than her, and highly doubted that -they- would be showing up any time soon over her borrowing this mortal's transportation...

... But the way Felix sat there, nearly shaking as he continued to mumble on the possible outcomes that could come from him doing what she wanted, it all made her start to realize that these authorities weren't so much the worry for HER... but for him.

"Alrighty then..." she started, a breezy tone in her voice as she rested her chin in her palm, her elbow settled on the edge of her folded knee. "So... what's your plan, then? You've been human way longer than I have. Walk, y'say?" She paused with that, a finger tapping her chin momentarily before she gave a quick nod. "Walk it is. But perhaps we should find something different for you to wear... That robe thing they put you in looks a little... breezy."

She looked at him for a moment longer, her brow furrowing slightly. "Let's see if this works..." Her hand jutted out suddenly, gripping his wrist tightly as her other hand snapped its fingers.

His robe was gone. Instead, he donned a pair of jeans and a white tee, a rather basic outfit- that she had also just spotted on a young man walking past.

Hey, if it worked on him, it'd work on Felix. All in all, it didn't really look to bad on him- at least, in her opinion.

"There we are. Well, nice to know I can do that for others too! Now, let's get walking. I still have a few questions for you, and I bet you have a ton of 'em for me." Opening the door back up, she hopped back down to the sidewalk and placed her hands in the pockets of the white doctor's coat she still wore, waiting for him to get out of the vehicle himself as she looked around. Smirking as he appeared around the far side of the van, she jutted her head to the left, calling him over. "Sooo... What'da'ya want to start with? Shoot."

There was actually a whole list of things she was curious about. As she had said, it had been a long time since her last trip to the world of the living, and it appeared that lots of things had changed since then. For one thing, the methods of transportation... But there was also so many odd, confusing things around her. Perhaps this was a chance to do a little research herself...

The watch made a quick appearance from her pocket, the soft click of it popping open barely audible as she stole a glance down at it. The hands were different this time, but the watch wasn't pointed to Felix.

It was focusing on her.

A hundred and 68 hours.
After that...

She shivered. It took a lot to make her shiver, but one managed to make its way down her spine. She needed to stop thinking on the time frame, and focus more on what she was here to do. Find Joe Stein... Fix Felix Castman's life, or at least get him resettled into a start of a new one... Explore other means of collecting expired hours...

Get back to the land of the dead within 7 days...

She was doing it again! She shook her head, trying to force it from her mind. "Before our mistake... What were things like for you? I mean... did we... did we really screw things up for you?" She was truly curious on this, her gaze raising from the sidewalk to glance at him, a frown resting on her lips. "I'm really sorry what happened- happened. Things like that are never supposed to happen.... I mean-" she laughed slightly, shaking her head. "... Death's not supposed to make mistakes. That's not something that's easily forgiven. And I understand if you resent me for that. No matter how much I apologize, there's no way I can fix anything that came about because of it. For that I'm truly, truly sorry. The most I can do is try to make the rest of your clock span better..."

 

[Bluemage]

Something different for him to wear? He had been a little bit confused by that kind of thought for a moment until he had realized that he was still only wearing his hospital gown. It would look odd for him to be wandering the streets looking like that, not to mention that it would be a little bit breezy for him. He blushed a little bit that she had been thinking about him while he had been too worried about her to think about himself. Of course, he hadn't actually voiced his concern about how her skimpy clothing might be a little bit breezy, probably because he didn't mind the opportunity to look at her like that. Of course, it was probably because of that, that he wasn't in a rush to talk to her about it. He had already had to tell her that he found her sexually attractive, but going more into it would just be embarrassing, probably for both of them.

It was while he was in this thought process that she had used her powers to change his clothing. Suddenly he was no longer wearing the hospital gown, and instead he was wearing the t-shirt and blue jeans that she had come up with. He stared forward for a long moment as he considered what she had just done, his mind going faster than he could stop it and beginning to wonder if she could also use these powers to just remove clothing if she was in the mood for a little bit of heavy breathing and- and that was where he had caught up to his mind and changed to a different topic of thought. He couldn't keep thinking like that. He had known this girl for what? An hour maybe?

He swallowed hard, trying not to think about her milky flesh and instead thinking about the walk that was ahead of him. He climbed out of the van, like she had, and looked back to see her peeking around the back corner of the white vehicle. He looked at her for a moment, thinking about the questions that he was going to ask her. He really had a lot of questions, and wasn't entirely sure where he should start. There were questions about what exactly an hour on her clock actually meant for him. He wasn't sure that he actually wanted to know what the answer to that was though.

When she finally spoke up with a question of her own, asking him about his life, he knew what question he had to ask first. He looked over to her and blinked for a moment before shrugging softly, "That really depends on how much of what happened in the last few weeks of my life was me, and how much of it was you guys." He slipped his fingers into the pockets of his jeans as he looked over to her for a long moment, "I got let go from my job at a comic book store because I was born the wrong gender, and geeks like looking at cleavage and mascara than they like looking at my pasty face. After that, I walked in on my best friend having sex with my girlfriend. It was only after these things that I got hit with the car." He shrugged softly, "Really, if the car was the only thing that your guys did, then my life was pretty brutal and messed up before your influence touched it."

He let his head fall back, his eyes looking up to the sky. It seemed to him that maybe he shouldn't be saying these things to her. Perhaps he should be saying that his life was awesome and everything was beautiful and wonderful...but that would be lying, and when she found out, he was sure he'd catch a world full of pain the likes he had never known. He knew that he had answered her question in a way that if she knew what the answer to 'did you guys mess up my life' she would answer it. While he was on it, he had other questions. He had questions about her.

"What about you?" He looked over to her for a few moments, taking a long breath as his eyes looked over her, "It must be at least kind of lonely being the grim reaper, right? Only meeting people for long enough to decide where they go after they die, and all that?" He brought one of his hands out of his pockets, rubbing at his forehead for a moment. He wasn't sure what he was saying now. He supposed he could continue on this train of thought with something like 'have you ever had a boyfriend', or 'were you always a grim reaper', or things like that, but really, he wasn't sure how much personal information she wanted to share with him.

It was kind of difficult to talk to her knowing what he already knew. She was a creature of frightening power, who could reap the life from his body like it was nothing. She was a deadly beauty, an attractive monster, a sexy beast...He had no idea how to deal with her. It was like dealing with the girl who had replaced him in the comic book store. He didn't know what to say to her that would be appropriate, but he had so much to say.

 

[Mephistophelily]

Angel glanced at him curiously with the rather odd start to his reply. As he explained further on the previous life he led- and the rather bad way it 'ended' before her accidental interruption- she found herself wondering if he might have ended up being one of those who tried to end their hours without her stepping in. "Oh..." She trailed off with that, quickly shaking her head as the implied return question finally dawned on her. "None of that was my doing, Felix. I swear it. That type of stuff is up to Fate. She can be... a rather pissy thing. She can even screw up things for me once in awhile... And if she's in a playful mood, she can be a real pain in the ass. I don't know how many times I've had to kick her out of my offices..."

As they walked, she took a few moments to take in their surroundings. The scent of cooked foods wafted to her from the restaurants they passed, the vibrant colors of all the flowers in the little beds along the street. Everything was so... full of life up here.

It almost made her hate the idea of going back. The land of the dead was nothing but bleak, dreary colors; a reminder of the lack of life that existed in her surroundings. It was rather depressing, to be honest. She tried to cheer herself with a forced sense of humor, though those around her didn't seem to much enjoy it.

The dead didn't smile that much. Laughing was even more of a rarity.

"What about you?"

"Rmm?" She looked back to him, her eyes wide as the simple question caught her off guard. Kind of lonely... He didn't know the half of it. She took a moment, her face rather emotionless for a second before beaming him a big smile, shrugging slightly. "I got used to it pretty quickly. Nobody really wants to be friends with the creepy lady dressed in black, learned that a long time ago. Of course, the whole change in appearance did gain me a little attention for a little while... But again, once people realized who I was- 'Ahhh, she's the one who killed me, she took my soul to this place, blahblahblah...' Only guy who wanted to hang out was Femur. And he's not exactly the most fun-loving thing. But, hey, I've learned to deal with it."

Another glance, followed by a sigh. "You're freaked out by me too, aren't you? Hey, up here, I'm no different than any other girl. Well, aside from the whole snappy-finger-thing. Anything else is from the watch. So relax. Contrary to what all those stories about me may have said, I don't kill someone just by touching them. There's a little more to it than that. And the scythe? Old me. That thing's hanging in my office now, hasn't been picked up in like- I dunno, 200 years? Hm. Something like that. Whenever I was last here. Had a real stubborn one that kept throwing me off..."

 

[Bluemage]

He stared forward for a long moment and then shrugged. While he found the fact that she could kill him and reap his soul a little bit ominous, he really actually wasn't as freaked out by her as he had thought that he'd be. Sure he had every reason to be. She could end his life on a whim. She already had once when she thought that he was someone else. She seemed to be emotional enough that she might just end him on a whim to get back at him for something that he said that was inappropriate, but really, in his mind he had just been hit with a car. He could get hit by a car while crossing the street again. He could get mugged, stabbed, and left to bleed out. Death was much less frightening when you knew that you ended up in a court room with people deciding whether you went up or down, and he didn't figure that she was going to come up with some sort of third answer to punish him for his misdeeds or anything.

He looked over to her, "I'm not." He looked back to the path before him, knowing that she wouldn't be able to piece it together since he had given her more time to talk and she had changed topics, "I mean, I am, but not for the reasons you think." He pushed his fingers a bit deeper into his pockets, "Obviously you don't kill me when you touch me. You've poked me how many times? Obviously you're not here to reap my soul, at least not yet, or you wouldn't have put me back on the dust ball that we call earth." He continued to look forward as he continued to walk, "You get past those things and the whole 'ooooo, big scary death' element of you kind of goes away, and instead you're just an attractive girl, who like every other attractive girl I've ever seen, I would normally never have the opportunity to talk to."

He sighed softly and let his head fall back again so he was looking up at the sky, "I mean. I'm freaked out. Of course I am. I just got mowed down by a car that was meant for someone who wasn't me, and then I got brought back to life, and really, this is a whole lot to take in all at once." He smirked and looked over to her finally, "And I have to say the fact that I am now hanging out with the person who had me run down by a car is kind of freaky, but really, you aren't a scary monster who thirsts for my life energy or anything." He chuckled as he thought of a clever innuendo involving 'nectar of life' and her drinking it. Just another thing that he knew that he wasn't going to be able to say to her.

Really, he was pretty sure that she was just a normal girl at the moment who just wanted normal girl things...well, maybe less the clothes aspect since she seemed to be able to change her attire even easier than she was able to end his life. What sorts of things did girls like then? Well, chick flicks he supposed. Maybe he'd sit her down in front of the TV when they got back and get her to watch...something. He wasn't quite sure what. What else did girls like? Pfft, like he'd know. He had pretty much cashed out his tokens on taking guesses at what it was that girls wanted. According to his girlfriend they wanted to be bent over a gaming table by guys like Tom. His lips curled down at the corners at that.

He closed his eyes for a moment, clearing his head of such negative thoughts. He still had about a million questions to ask death, as long as she was around. On that note, how long was she going to be around? Was she here until he made all of his requests from that envelope? Was she walking him home and then heading off to do her job? Was she here until she found the guy she was supposed to run down with a car? He bit his bottom lip and then spoke up softly, "How long are you here for?"

 

[Mephistophelily]

Angel grinned at the mention of her introductory jabs into his side. Well, he had been the one not moving. She had to get his attention somehow. So far, everything he assumed on her seemed to be correct; she wasn't here to do anything to him, she wasn't going to take anyone she didn't have to. When he brought up her feminine aspect, however, she gave him another sidelong glance. A hand raised quickly as he blamed her for the car, her head shaking quickly. "Hey, for the record, -I- didn't actually cause that myself. I was working on another trial at that time, and passed the note along to Fate. Femur had suggested the method. I had no idea what it was when I read it." She shrugged a bit at the life energy crack, a smirk on her lips. "You're not that far off, really. It's.. complicated."

Trying to explain it all was going to be a hard thing to do. Hopefully he wouldn't bring it up until they got to his home- or maybe she'd be completely lucky and have him not remember her saying anything on it. The souls of those who led good lives provided her with the source of her death god abilities. The souls of those who led terrible lives- well, containing the evil that still resided in that soul took a horrible strain on her.

"You're going quiet agaaaain."
*Say something, Felix. I don't like it when you go this quiet.*

He finally spoke, a gently uttered question that actually surprised her. He wanted to know how long she was staying? Why did he care? She would have figured he would want her out of his life- this new restart he was given. The inquiry actually made her stop in her tracks, looking at his back blankly for a moment before catching up with him.

Should she be honest about it?

*Until I find Joe Stein.*
*Until things are amended.*
*Until my hours run out.*

All of them were true...

"As long as I need to be here," She replied cheerfully, the grin returning to her face as she folded her arms behind her head. "Could be a few days, could be a bit more than that. Hey, you still have that envelope to go through. Ohhh, and I still gotta give you the list. Then there's Joe- I'm sure I'll find him soon enough. But I'll need your help on that."

She stopped abruptly once again, this time not because of something uttered, but by something spotted.

A cat.
A little white kitten, to be precise. It came from between two buildings, stretching its form as far as it could before settling onto the sidewalk, looking toward them with a lazy glance.

"I'm not moving."

 

[Bluemage]

He had no comment on the fact that he had gone silent again. It was going to happen from time to time, especially when he was thinking about all of the things that had happened before the accident. Things hadn't always been so bleak and depressing, he knew, but that last week leading up to the accident had not been the best time that he could remember. He couldn't, at the moment, think of anything that could have made that period of his life worse. He had lost his job, he had lost his girlfriend, he had lost his best friend, and then he had been hit by a car. He supposed if someone had also broken into his apartment...well, he didn't know about that yet. It was entirely possible. At least that would save him having to ask her to snap them in past the lock or something, and really, knowing his stuff, if anyone broke into his house they probably left all of it.

He yawned softly as they continued their walk to his home. So she didn't know how long that she was going to be staying, at least not yet. That was kind of unhelpful. She said 'as long as she was needed'. What if he wanted her to stay longer? What if she decided that she didn't need to be around until he was ready to make his requests? He brought his hand up, rubbing at his forehead for a moment. It was a difficult thing to figure. She could vanish from his life at any moment...so did he want to get attached to her?

When she stopped suddenly he took a few more steps and then turned his head slowly. He really didn't get it. They had been walking, and then suddenly she had frozen like she saw a hungry bear ahead of her. It was only when she had said 'I'm not moving' that he had cracked a little bit of a smile.

The fact of the matter was, that Felix was a smart ass. It had never gotten him fan-fare, it had never impressed girls, it was just a fact. If there was something that was said, and then there was a smart ass response, he'd find it. He had found himself in quite a bit of trouble before when his tongue had moved faster than the filter that stopped him from saying things that would get him in trouble, and had his filter been moving fast today it probably would have stopped him from speaking at all. It wasn't.

"I see that." Really, he had no idea what the problem was. He recognized that there was the street ahead of them, and that the attractive girl in the sexy doctor outfit had suddenly stopped. He couldn't really see what the problem was. It wasn't like there was anything that would trigger off danger sensors in his head up ahead of them. It was quite possible, he realized now, that she was crazy, but luckily, the filter that stopped him from saying stupid things had informed him that it would be ill-advised to voice such concerns.

He quickly ran his mind over the things that could have caused her to stop. Sight. Nothing out of the ordinary ahead of them. He supposed some of it might have been out of the ordinary for someone who had never seen the world before, but there was nothing on this street that seemed drastically different from any other street that they had walked on so far. Sound. No, he hadn't heard anything strange. He supposed it was possible that she had a wider range of hearing and it was like some sort of dog whistle, but that seemed unlikely. Smell. Sure the streets didn't often smell all that nice, sort of like gasoline and old tires, but that was what it smelled like when you were in the city, and really, that was what it had smelled like since they had set foot outside of the hospital. Taste and touch were the last two senses, and really he couldn't imagine how they would factor into her stopping.

Of course, when he had thought about it, he realized that it was quite possible that the statement of 'I'm not moving' was one of surprise. It was possible that her body had stopped moving on its own, perhaps because of over-using her powers, or some greater force toying with her while she was on the mortal plain, trying to remind her that there were things that she was supposed to be doing. Anything was possible. He felt genuine concern now that he had thought of it though...but really, was there anything that he was going to be able to do that was likely to help?

 

[Mephistophelily]

The cat simply stared at them, lazily glancing at Felix before giving another look in her direction. Angel held her breath for a moment, slowly trying to turn herself away from the feline. "Go away... Go away now... shoo shoo...," she mumbled under her breath, forcing a smile to her face as she watched the cat nervously.

It continued to watch, blinking a few times before meandering down the road. The departure of the cat finally allowed her a chance to breath, a long sigh leaving her lips as she hunched over slightly. That was close. She wasn't sure if it was one of the couriers- but if it was...

She glanced to Felix. Oh right.

"Cats, particularly white cats, aren't a good thing for me right now. There are some snow-white felines that are actually from my domain. There was an old myth passed around by humans for a time, that cats could steal souls... Well, it wasn't exactly stealing. They can be couriers. Helping to ferry off souls- to me. Thing is, if they know I'm up here, they won't do their job anymore... and if they don't do their job- well, things'll get a little messy up here."

Her carefree way was returning, her arms crossed behind her head once again as she walked. She had really hoped that things would be easier up here; a chance to actually enjoy herself. Her job could be rather depressing... but no one really cared to hear about how lonely and sad Death was. She knew how most mortals envisioned her: the black robe, the sycthe, revelling in ending lives.

She actually hated it. But she had to do what she had to do.
Part of her wondered what the latest "image" if her was to humans. That one of her on a pale horse? That was actually rather nice, all those years ago. What did people see when they thought of the Grim Reaper nowadays?

Hm. Maybe Felix could give her a better understanding of that.
There was a number of things he could help her understand more. This new age of the mortals was certainly not what she remembered of her last visit.

"Hey. Felix. Maybe you could explain a few things for me. I'm trying to get what's going on around here. Things are really different from my last time here... Like, for example- that odd artwork back in your hospital room. The black shiny thing on the wall. Was that a painting or something? I know people can have very strange tastes in art, but- Really? Just a black- thing? She sighed, shaking her head. "And people think I'M depressing?"

 

[Bluemage]

The conversation about cats had been a little bit distressing, since it meant that there was a chance that any cat they see was actually much more dangerous than just a cat. He wasn't all that concerned about it, being that he lived in an apartment and as a result pets were frowned upon, and found it even less stressful when he figured in the fact that he was mildly allergic to the fury beasts. In the end, it was probably all just as well that they weren't allowed to hang around cats.

The distressing part was of course the fact that he hadn't expected anything from her realm of existence to follow them to the real world. He had thought that it was going to be the standard situation where she was some sort of genie or something and was going to grant him a handful of wishes and then be done with it. Instead he had to keep in mind that she was death, and as a result, things were bound to be several times more complicated. Nothing was ever as easy as a genie showing up and doing things for you...instead, this sounded like they could end up with armies of zombies or something roaming around and causing problems.

He wanted to come up with solutions to the problem, so hat they didn't have to be so skittish any time they heard a cat let out a meow, or something like that, but really, he didn't know the first thing about this. He would have thought that far from things being a problem if the cats realized she was in the earthly realm they would just adjust the situation so that they walked to her here instead of heading over to where she would normally be. Again...never as simple as he would have liked.

There was the possibility of getting Femur to deal with all of this. Was that what the guy's name was? Femur? Tibia? Something bony...which was actually kind of funny when you thought about the fact that he was a skeleton. That guy seemed capable of dealing with a lot, and seemed a lot more visually suited to the role of reaper than the girl in the sexy doctor outfit...though he was sure he could make some comments about 'bones' that involved an outfit and a girl like that.

...and that was yet another in a long list of comments that he wasn't allowed to actually say. She likely wouldn't understand when he said it, or she would and she'd make him explain it anyway, just for shits and giggles. He wouldn't put that past her.

Luckily for him, she didn't leave him to his own devices for thinking in his head. He didn't have to think about bones of various types, or the fact that she was still in that sexy costume. She had reminded him that she knew nothing about what was going on in the world today. He took a slow breath for a moment as he remembered the room that he had woken up in, figuring out what the 'art' she was talking about was.

"Ummm...that was likely a television. I have one at my apartment. Assuming no one broke in and stole it, I'll show you how it works." He was kidding himself. No one was going to steal his TV. It was probably only slightly lighter than a truck. It was the kind of TV with vinyl over fiberboard to make it look like real wood. It was the kind of TV that had an actual dial on it. No one was going to steal it. He knew that wasn't going to really appease her, "You turn it on and it has moving pictures on it." He shrugged, hoping that would be enough for her.

 

[Mephistophelily]

Angel glanced at him blankly at first, nodding slightly as she received her somewhat confusing explanation on what was seen back in the hospital. Hm. He was starting to seem a bit... annoyed. Frustrated.

Maybe she was going about things the wrong way.

Well, there also was the fact he had just been brought back to his life. Which he had confessed had turned horrible before her crew interfered. He seemed to be one of the rare cases that actually had a slight appreciation for her stepping in. Was that the problem? He didn't WANT to be back?

Oh dear. Maybe she should be giving the rundown on those rules soon. Don't want him trying to ask for something that was a big ol' no-go.

"Ahhh... So that's what they were talking about. I've had some come to see me that went on and on about being television stars. I had no real idea as to what they were talking about." She smirked slightly, her mind wandering already. Sure, there were things she should have been concerned about- more white cats, the state of things in her domain while she was away, the fact she still had no clue as to where the man she was truly supposed to bring the final minutes to his clock was... but instead, she was smiling at the guy she had just brought back to life.

Her days were nothing but death and depression.
She really wanted a chance to be happy, even if it was just for a few days- even a few hours.

""So this home of yours. How far off are we?"

 

[Bluemage]

He smiled softly as she mentioned that some television stars showed up before her. He couldn't imagine that it would have been easy to deal with them. All of the television stars that he knew of seemed to be cocky and uptight. It was hard to deal with people who believed that they were better than you on a normal day. He was sure that the bargaining and negotiating that a TV star would do to try and get out of dying would have been almost comical...especially given that she didn't know what a television was.

It was becoming clear to him that there was quite a bit more going on here than he would have liked to have admitted. She was following him around, headed to his home. He would have been frightened had it not been for the fact that he knew she was supposed to be there. He would have been confused if he hadn't known why she was following him around. The startling thing was that he was quickly discovering that there was more to it than he had originally thought. He had been convinced that she had just been following him around to make it up to him that she had killed him, and to set things right. There was more.

She had no idea what this world was like. If she was going to go around anywhere she was almost going to need a translator so that she could keep up with what everyone else was saying. He had thought that it was possible that the reason she wanted to hang out with him was because she was lonely in her world and thought that it would be nice to go out and try to make new friends, that perhaps she might have found him cute or something. It made worlds more sense that she needed someone who knew what was going on in the world of today to make the transition as easy as possible. He was shocked that he hadn't thought of that sooner.

When she asked how far it was until his house he continued to smile. They were only a block away now. He was a bit concerned that he would find that his home had been broken into and left in disarray, but he was sure he'd manage, after all, he was still alive, apparently, "We're only about a block away now."

His eyes traveled to her again, making a quick scan over her body out of habit before settling on her face once again, as this was probably the safest place to look. There were more questions that he wanted to ask. Questions about what had happened to him, and what this situation meant for him. He wanted to know what was going to be expected of him while she was staying with him...but he couldn't just ask a question like that straight out. He wasn't sure that he wanted to anyway.

"So...what do you want to do while you're up here anyway?"

It was an innocent enough question. It didn't ask what she had to do, as he was sure she'd tell him that she had to set things straight and all of that, and probably be cryptic about anything else that she had actually been sent to accomplish. It asked her what she would like to do, which was possibly a much more meaningful question. When some businessman was told that he was taking a trip around the world what he thought of first was not the meetings that he was going to be in, but the things that he wanted to do while he was there. This was the same thing, and he was sure that finding out what she wanted to do would tell him much more about her than finding out what she had been sent to do.

 

[Mephistophelily]

Music. She could hear it now, music that was actually familiar to her; Mozart. Someone around here had an older taste for it to be something she actually knew. She hummed softly as she heard it, nearly dancing as she walked, her hands raising up to play an invisible piano before her. So lovely. So comforting...

The smile on her face fell immediately as other sounds replaced it; loud squealing, harshly barked out words, scratching, scritching noise that made her grimace. Oh, what was that?! Terrible. The window from which she had caught both the music and the noise was now also expelling shouts and fury, a man nearly screaming at someone inside. "Don't be playin' that shit! I'm not listening to no elevator music in my own damn house! Now this- this is music!"

Angel sighed, shaking her head. Things had horribly, horribly changed. Her hands retuned to her pockets, a frown still resting upon her face as she glanced to Felix. He looked like he was debating something, a question that was eating him up inside but he couldn't get it out.

He asked her what she wanted to do.
Somehow she doubted that was the question that was, well, in question.

"Welllll... There's what I have to do, and what I want to do. Totally different things, you know. There's things we all HAVE to do, and then there's what we'd prefer to do, what we'd love to do, what we long to do. And sometimes those things we long to do are things we know we really shouldn't do."

She paused. She was rambling, and drifting from the subject at hand.

"Me? My have to do's are very simple, everything I've already told you. My want to do's? Hmmm. Never thought much on that..." Her hands came from her pockets, one reaching up to run two fingers against the side of her neck. "I suppose since I've never had much of a chance to do my want to do's, I sort of just let them slip away. My have to do's became far more important, and never left time for anything else..."

But there had to be something. Even something simple.
Something that she could actually do.

"I want to be happy. Really happy, not faking happy. I smile and laugh, but it's never real. I don't even know what real happiness is like. You don't see it too often in my line of work." She sighed softly, shrugging. "I don't even know what type of things make a person smile. Make them happy. People say animals can do it. Yeah, I just freaked over a cat. Music? Seems my tastes are no longer the norm. I've read all this poetry on love and happiness, how wonderful it all is..." She paused, thinking on that before shaking her head with a light scoff. "Love is an impossibility for me. Who'd want to love Death?"

 

[Bluemage]

He listened to what she had to say. It was at once enlightening and at the same time cryptic and confusing. He had been expecting things like 'I want to learn how to operate a motor vehicle' or, 'I want to see what people of your time do for entertainment', or perhaps even 'I want to know what these pokémon are and then make a valiant effort to capture all of them'. He had been expecting something concrete that she wanted to do, like a shopping spree or something. He hadn't expected her want to be achieving something as intangible as happiness. There were plenty of things that could be done to achieve happiness, beyond what she had already said. He knew that a good number of people found their happiness at the bottom of a glass of alcohol, but he doubted that getting the grim reaper smashed would be the best option. In fact, he doubted that taking her to a bar when she seemed to lack any concept of the modern world was probably not the best idea. Of course, she probably had an idea as to what money was, and that had likely been around on her last visit, but he wasn't sure that she'd be up to date enough to pay for things, or to supply him with proper tender to buy things for her. Perhaps it was better that she didn't want to go on a shopping spree.

The comments about love had struck him though. She made some good points. She was, to anyone who stopped to get to know her and knew what she was, and what she did for a living, a horrifying monster of fiction. She was the reaper of souls, a creature who ushered people to their next existence, whatever that was. Because of that, it was going to be hard to argue with her that love was going to be difficult, but he had something that was almost as good to offer, something that most people in today's society were just as pleased with and accepted as genuine love. He wasn't sure that the reaper would be satisfied with it, but he could offer it to her as an alternative.

"Well, love is a bit hard to find for anyone, I mean you have to find someone that you like, and they have to like you back..." He closed his eyes and thought in his head that the other person would also have to not fornicate with your best friend on a gaming table, "...on the other hand, there is something that most people in today's society settle for that is almost as good, and someone like you could easily achieve." He smiled as he looked over to her, "Lust isn't quite the same thing, but with a body like that, and with your fashion sense, I'm sure you wouldn't have to put much effort into it to have guys lusting after you all over the place." He decided that it would be inappropriate at this time to mention that he could already feel the effects of lust on himself. She probably didn't want to know that about the guy that she had accidentally killed and then brought back to life.

He shrugged, "Happiness is a difficult thing to find, but much easier to find than love, because you can find happiness in things and activities. If you liked to paint or something, then maybe painting made you happy and all I'd need to do is get you some canvas and paints and stuff and you'd be set. That was sort of what I was expecting you to answer." He smirked and chuckled a little bit, "I expected something like 'I want to live a life like you do for a day' or 'I want to go to a museum', or something like that. I mean, obviously you want to be happy, and what I'm trying to say is that, if there is something that I can do to help you on your quest to find happiness, just say so. I mean, you brought me back to life, and all..."

 

[Mephistophelily]

Someone that she liked and liked her back? "Don't think I can be pulling THAT off in seven days...," she muttered, shaking her head slightly before looking back to him. Something almost as good? She wasn't sure what he meant by that, listening intently as he explained further. Lust... "Lust isn't love," she agreed softly, looking back to the sidewalk as they continued onward. "But maybe you're right. The lack of actual emotion involved in that, the loss of inhabitions-" She sighed, shaking her head. "N-No. I couldn't do that. Even if I were to pull off such a thing, I couldn't bear to have the consequences over my head... Or if it were to truly turn into love on his part- Or even my own? No... No, no, no, that would be a horrible amount of trouble. Me trying to stay here... The things that would been to be done are just- No. No, I couldn't have that."

Love was an impossible thing, it seemed. Any minute chance of her truly falling in love, actually feeling the need to stay in this mortal world, would result in so many complications. She wasn't sure if she could handle that. The exchange always happened... if she was gone, how would it continue?

Femur would be in his glory, wouldn't he?

"Human lives are hard. Mine is a thousand times worse." She sighed heavily, glancing to him as he spoke on how what she wanted was a rather diffidult expectation. "Ah... yes, I suppose you're right. I guess being a usually intangible creature leaves me to wonder about things of the same nature. To try and desire something existent- well, that's just impossibly hard for me."

She stopped once again, looking him over. Perhaps she was going about this the wrong way. She was asking to find her own happiness... Maybe a rephrasing was in order. "Let's try this then, hmm? Why don't you show me what makes YOU happy? Then I can get an idea on what might make me give a giggle or two."

 

[Bluemage]

He smiled weakly as he thought about the question. It was a hard one to answer. Much harder than he had thought it would be. What made him happy? He couldn't recall anything at the moment. His last week spent being alive had been spent at a job that he had known was not going to last, and going home and putting in time with video games and reading. He hadn't done anything exciting, and really, none of it had made him all that happy. When he thought about what had happened before he had been hit by a car what he could remember was seeing his girlfriend over the billiard table and his best friend going at her. That meant that even the thought of spending time with his friends was pretty much out.

His hand came up and he rubbed at his forehead as he turned slowly, heading up the stone pathway that cut through slightly overgrown grass to a large building that looked like it could have been taken better care of, but still looked rather livable. He moved to the side, pulling back a metal and glass door, the glass of which was reinforced by the crisscrossing steel wires that were standard for places like schools. He sighed softly, looking over his shoulder at her. He was still thinking seriously about her question and a way that he could answer it that she'd likely enjoy.

Of course, when it came to things that he thought he could enjoy with her, the first things that were obvious were the things that they had already mentioned. She was dressed provocatively, and she had the figure to most definitely pull it off, and he was a healthy young man, so it was perfectly natural for him to have thoughts like that about her. She wasn't interested in such things though. She was concerned about getting emotionally attached and wanting to stick around. That meant that kind of idea was most definitely out. Just as well, he supposed.

He sighed softly before looking into the stairwell that he had just opened the door to. What could he tell her then? It wasn't like he had to answer the question of what made him happy very often, "I don't know...I guess if you like reading or are interested in watching TV..."