drear | give me a miracle, i just want out from this

[when even god can't do anything for you, it's a bad sign. when god calls up lucifer - 'he's one of your own, put those needles down for a second' - and lucifer also can't do anything for you, it's an even worse sign.

mon has been idling in his apartment (how strange still, though by now, many months into being earthbound, it's started to resemble his room at roman) for a little bit more than two days. he's ignored the messages - all from noiz and the part-time job he picked up simply because he was bored and wanted to be useful. glossing over the paperwork on that hire was a weird one but they liked him so much and needed help so badly at the cafe that he'd been let on. now he's probably been let go.

for once, mon doesn't...care.

or he does.

but he's also busy caring about other things.

we're not sure we can bring you back.

it's as good as saying he's trapped here forever.

and that's literal.

because mon can't die even if he can be hurt. mon can't even cease to exist unless he loses a core part of himself.

it kind of feels like he has but that's not the same and he knows that too.

vaguely he's aware of loud knocking but he ignores that as well, instead moving from the living room further into the apartment to his bedroom. the bed hasn't been unmade ever since he got the news, but he sits on it anyway, draws himself wholly onto it and brings his knees to his chest, chin perched on top.]

Oh well.

[it's not how he should handle it, but he needs time, and 'oh well' is easier to the empty room that's not really his room - not the one he wants - than 'i don't like this' and 'i actually hate this' and 'i'm....sad'.

ah. it hurts.

has the knocking stopped? if mon thought about it a little more he'd remember he'd not even locked the door those couple of days ago when he met with an emissary from both heaven and hell. but it doesn't matter. he had been only too grateful and yet also disappointed that it wasn't someone he knew. it was probably done as a courtesy to him, to make it less painful.

he's not sure that it worked.]

[ There's no response. Damn, maybe Mon is dead. Noiz starts reaching into his back pocket to find a credit card. First he tries the handle to see how much resistance there is, and—it's already unlocked.

Maybe he got murdered. Noiz turns the handle and lets himself in. He scans the entryway and the living room, finds no one, and moves on to the bedroom to see Mon alive but looking even more like a beaten little animal than usual. ]

Why haven't you been answering me?

[ He stands in front of where Mon sits on the bed. The possibilities for what might have happened to him had run through his mind. He wasn't worried, though. There was no point in being worried.

But he does crouch down to see his face better. ]

Something happened. Tell me.

[only one noiz is literally so close to him he can't miss him, crouched down too as he is, mon's head snaps up as if just then coming back into full coherency, which he is really. he makes the mistake of focusing on noiz's eyes only to avert his own, letting them focus on his hands instead. he hasn't had many accidents on earth unlike at roman where he's more at risk, but his hands are still dotted with bandaids because it's as if when he was created there had to be a balance for his potential strength which equated to a weakness of the body. then again, it's just normal for most -- to excel at one thing and be a little lackluster in the other. not that it especially matters now.

mon isn't sure what to do or what to say. he could tell noiz that he just found out he can't go home, but he's not sure it would register how he means nor is he sure he wants noiz to even hear it because then it is that much more real. he can't tell him the whole truth can he? well actually god and lucifer said it wouldn't make a difference. humans are forever running amuck and yelling things that are true and false and in between. it's up to him, they'd said and lucifer had even paused in his knitting in a way that made even mon feel bad despite the situation being about him to begin with. did they tell mananan? knowing mananan, he found out for himself. mon is surprised, if he's honest, that he's not here.

not that it's his fault but there's something singlemindedly determined about mananan that mon somehow found himself always believing in him, even the most radical or ridiculous of things he might say; if mananan said so, it was probably true, or at least, could be.

but they aren't god. they do have limits, whatever they say to each other.

earth, it seems, took up roots in mon in a way he hadn't noticed or understood. not only can they not unseal his power which might have provided enough demon in him to get back, but it's almost as if there's less there than he had when he first ended up here; like he's becoming more human in some ways, though in others he remains decidedly not.

he can't explain this, he decides, but what to say?

his hands fall to his sides on the bed and curl tightly in the bedcovers.]

I'm sorry! Haha...I just...wasn't feeling well. Ah.

[it's not a lie. he continues to avoid noiz's gaze.]

A..are you okay? D-did you need help with anything?

[he does mean it, even if his voice quakes right through the half smile he's barely wearing.]

[ That's one of the most obvious lies Noiz has ever seen. Mon is so easy to read that it only adds to the impression of him being soft. Even if Noiz can't connect all of those emotions Mon displays, plain and tender on his sleeve, to why he acts that way, he knows when he's bullshitting. ]

You're acting weird. [ He pokes Mon's forehead hard enough to make his head bobble backwards. ] I don't need your help.

[ It looks like, for once, it's Mon who could use his help this time.

Noiz doesn't linger on that possibility for too long. He's got more pertinent questions to be answered. He will find out why Mon's acting different. Something big must have changed, but for all the information Noiz collects on everyone he interacts with, he's found oddly few records on Mon.

He's a mystery, and that's something Noiz won't abide by. He digs again. ]

Tell me what happened that got you so fucked up.

[noiz persists and mon smiles wider. it kind of...hurts.]

Oh does it seem...

[that bad?

mon can't see himself how he is right now of course, just as lost on the outside as he feels on the inside, accustomed to hiding it better so not thinking he would fail now. but then, he's never been so far from home and certainly never with the hanging reality of never being able to go back.]

Ahh...well you see, um, that's....I don't know if you'd believe me.

[that much is true. he expects noiz might find this ridiculous but it's not something he can help. he's read enough stories about this kind of thing even if he hasn't been on earth as long as noiz, to know that human beings are predisposed to being skeptical towards the supernatural. it's often in their fictions because it's something they think they cannot have, good or bad, or it's their ways of coping with 'real' things -- loss, fear, jealousy, love, whimsy.

mon's smile fractures and he lowers his face to his knees to hide it, though the very nature of his posture is telling enough on its own.]

[ Mon seems depressed. Way more so than usual. Normally when Noiz gets this close, he'll fluster, or at least respond in full sentences. He's wavering from his words and acting like he's on the verge of falling apart.

Noiz narrows his eyes. He reaches his hand out and digs his fingers into Mon's short hair, pulling just enough to make his eyes visible. ]

I'll decide if I believe you or not.

[ It pisses him off that Mon assumes. He's impatient, too, but that's nothing new. He wants answers. If something bad happened to Mon—if he was hurt, if he couldn't protect himself after all—

—he'd be pissed about that too. Mon's older than he is, based on a few things he'd let slip around Noiz, but at the same time he's like a pet that won't survive in the wilderness. ]

Tell me.

[he winces but doesn't pull away when noiz tugs by the grip on his hair. having interacted with noiz enough by now, he could've anticipated this if he was more clearheaded but he hadn't thought about it.]

Ah....

[it's soft the way almost all of mon's intonations are soft, the slight discomfort and the pause of it all leaving room to wonder if he's going to answer noiz properly at all. but he does, wide eyes darting to the side and teeth catching to his lower lip sa his only preamble.]

...it's kind of a long story. [not exactly, but a long backstory.] But. I found out I'm stuck here.

[this tells noiz next to nothing about the situation's gravity but mon isn't exactly in a great headspace for articulation. there's a tremor that lowkey makes its way through his whole body. is he panicking? mon can't remember the last time in his long long life he truly panicked. well, this would warrant it he supposes but tries to stifle it anyway, hands planted behind him curling in on themselves to dig nails into palms. it helps, a bit. stay calm, he tells himself. it wouldn't do to lose his head.]

I'm not you know...from here.

[ah why is it so hard to say? he can't quite get it out: not from the human world.]

[ Noiz loosens his grip a moment later, fingers lying in a curve along Mon's head. When he'd asked his questions before, Mon had returned his gaze, always coming back to face him despite whatever Noiz did or said.

Something's really got him messed up. Just being stuck 'here', in this apartment, can't be the only thing. ]

Just tell me.

[ Noiz lets go of his head and drops to sit on the ground in front of him. One knee bent to his chest, he extends the other, threading it through where Mon's feet brush the ground. The comparison to an out-of-place animal grows stronger. Rabbits just stay still and shake, sometimes, when they're really scared. Then their ears get cold.

Mon's not turning red like he usually does. ]

Quit beating around the bush and explain. If you're making it up, I'll find out anyway. If you're telling the truth, then you won't have to say anything else.

[ And then—and then Noiz will choose where to go from there. ]

[briefly mon considers the fact that he can't unseal here, that even if he could to show his demon form would be foolish. ah. he really must be panicking at least a little to even think of that! but he laughs a bit, self deprecating which ebbs into something milder - resigned. he studies noiz's posture from the knee he holds to him to the one between mon's own feet. it would be easy to rest his hand there.]

Well. When you say it like that, I guess I'd end up telling you sooner or later anyway.

[the tone of his voice is like a shrug of the shoulders, a tinge of a smile at his mouth as he considers starting with asking if noiz even believes in angels and demons, in heaven and hell. then he reconsiders. noiz is a direct kind of person. to start with a question is both unnecessary and pointless.]

I actually, I'm not human. And where I used to live is sort of...er...I'm not sure how you would think of it. But it's not on Earth.

[he stops with that, tries to gauge noiz's response, the slight part to mon's mouth revealing the tiny fang like nature of his teeth that's so easy to miss if one isn't looking closely.]

[ Noiz is stubborn, more stubborn than most people like. Mon had seen it already. Today, the questions come the same way. He would find out eventually.

But the answers that come aren't the ones he expected. He'd thought Mon was kicked out of somewhere. Maybe his parents who'd supported him didn't want him around anymore. Maybe they'd finally cut him off. Then he wouldn't be able to go back and he'd be forced to support himself, or whatever. Noiz would expect rich kids to react like that.

Mon isn't, apparently, one of those kids. He says he's not human. ]

What are you, then? [ Noiz looks at him even more closely. He'd noticed the eyeteeth before (marked it in his records, in addition to other identification). ]

Vampire?

[that actually makes mon give a wet hiccup of a laugh. he shakes his head.]

Mm-mm. No. I'd make a really bad vampire, don't you think?

[there's a big part of him that's relieved, because if noiz jumped right to 'vampire' then who's to say 'demon' is so far off? then he reevaluates because was he being serious? but then...noiz isn't really the jokey type. mon bites his lip. thinks.]

Well, in any case. I was living here just kind of waiting to go back.

[it's plain enough: now that that's not an option, mon has no idea what to do. he shrugs again, forces a slight smile that might as well not be there, and turns his face away. his eyes fall to the bedcovers. everything here is so temporary because that's how mon had perceived it, not particularly infusing more of himself into things than he couldn't help.]

It doesn't matter what I am I guess. Down here, like this, I'm not much more than human.

[his wings won't be unsealed, nor the rest of his demon appearance, and his 'strength' will stay as it is, if not wane according to both lucifer and god and their guesswork as this has never happened before, well, no not never; not for a very, very long time. just because memory is 'forever' doesn't mean it's good forever, after all. the next breath mon takes in is a shuttered, anxious thing; still alarmed it seems, still harried despite his best intentions to be calm. i can't go back. i can't go back. i can't go back.

he wonders if he'd become an angel would it be different? god had considered him and seemed to not say everything he was thinking, which of course only leaves mon to wonder.

it occurs to him that he should tell noiz to go and then it occurs to him that noiz doesn't tend to do anything on anyone's terms except his own, so he stays quiet about it, the room sort of muted to him, even his own shaky little breaths just wisps of awareness.]

[ Yeah, Mon doesn't have any of the mystique or angst to pull off the vampire aesthetic Noiz knows from movies and video games. He didn't think they were real. Mon seems convinced that he's telling the truth, but people can have consistent delusions.

And he hasn't answered Noiz's question properly yet.

Noiz comes closer, using his heels to pull himself in. He reaches up to grasp Mon's knees. He can still hear him breathing, so at least he's still alive. 'Down here'. An alien? Well, whatever, Noiz has practical thoughts that he needs to get through so Mon stops being a crying sponge. ]

So you're stuck here. What are you going to do about it?

[ The way Mon doesn't look at him is annoying. Noiz knows about giving up, but just because Mon believes he's not human doesn't mean his whole life is over. ]

You didn't explain what you are.

[drat. mon really shouldn't have even half expected he could get around noiz in this regard. information does seem to be one of his Things, even if mon still doesn't know why that would be. noiz's hands on his knees are steady in a way mon is not but it's not a good or a bad thing; it's just an observation.]

Well I don't know what I'm going to do. I can't...I don't know.

[he babbles slightly, unnerved. he doesn't dislike noiz's directness in general but he really has no answers in this regard which both is upsetting and frustrating.]

Well. I'm a demon.

[this much he says the way some might say 'i'm tired' or 'i'm nervous' or 'i'm not sure' yet the words themselves brook no room for argument, alternately 'it is what it is' - resignation then. not for what he is but what it means to him and him alone. mon had been coming to terms with it, again, before he fell. noiz's words circle back to him in his head: what are you going to do about it?

nothing, mon thinks but it's less tearful and more just the truth.

he has his limits.

even when noiz had taken his knees in his hands, mon hadn't looked at him and he still isn't, staring as if transfixed at...well, nothing, though to an observer it would appear he's become fascinated with the blank wall past the foot of the bed.]

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in which: mon couldn't just leave him there!

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