And when the sky is starless

char·i·ty ˈCHerədē/ noun 1. the voluntary giving of help, typically in the form of money, to those in need. archaic love of humankind, typically in a Christian context. "faith, hope, and charity" adele davis. pastor's daughter. 10/7/94.

[moonskek-deactivated20251028]

By Adventures Of Finn

[swordofcassiel-blog]

heaven has always been on fire | cassiel & adele

[davisadele-blog]

@swordofcassiel​

It was too late now, one body fallen at their hand and then two more who lunged at them, Cassiel reflexively cutting them down easily before they could advance far enough. War had driven the crowd mad and violent, and Cassiel saw no souls to save in this chaos: this was not God’s war. A prayer still pulled them forward, focusing their attention on a goal other than clearing this room of its forsaken inhabitants. Adele.

The girl was half-broken on the ground, spirit wilted and marred to mirror her bloodstained finery. She was nearly unrecognizable in Cassiel’s War-influenced fury, but her prayer was strong enough to cut through the red fog and bring them enough sanity to sheath the grail once more. Arms like steel shoved away a straggling aggressor who hadn’t been caught in Cassiel’s initial onslaught, leaving him to the mercy of the screaming horde behind him.

Reaching Adele’s side, they assessed her quickly, asking her “are you wounded?” Their voice was near-alien to the tone they had become accustomed to adopting around their mortal companions, deeper and more authoritative, resonating in the brusque voice of a soldier.

Screams reached as high as the rafters, stretching out until they consumed all other voices that might have been asking for help or seeking a way out. They were devoured and destroyed, unable to be heard over the horde that was filled with blood lust thanks to the Horsemen who looked upon all those in the audience as nothing more than fodder in their war. It was destructive, people tearing at each other and blood covering the pristine setting until it was hard to recognize anything or anyone. 

Adele was caught in the middle, watching as the man she loved wasn’t who he used to be anymore and neither were just about everyone else in the place. Those she cared for were falling left and right, buried beneath the hate and aggression that flooded their systems while her eyes were focused solely on the angel before her with silent prayers blocking out anything else. She begged and prayed, asking for help and for someone to stop when it felt like there wasn’t anyone left other than those who continued to hurt or be hurt.

Cassiel was there, by her side, but Adele’s eyes were wide as she felt the warm spray of blood still clinging to her face and body from the man that’d fallen moments earlier in her path. The one that had been reaching for her, no humanity left in them as War twisted into objects for their own means. Even when Adele, shaky as she was, found a way to meet the angel’s gaze, much of Cassiel that she knew and trusted wasn’t there but neither were they consumed by War’s blood lust. “It’s not bad,” she managed to get out as her throat was tight between the pain and the fear before glancing down at the slash along her arm that hadn’t stopped bleeding.

[guccifloralsuits]

Visit Original Link

Can’t bribe the door on the way to the sky  

[risingorfalling-blog]

Almost Had Me || Adele & Elijah

[davisadele-blog]

risingorfalling:

Make her understand? Eli wasn’t sure he knew how. They were both sitting here, clinging to each other, pleading and desperate for the same thing – but the distance between them was like a chasm. It was starting to feel a lot like he’d already lost her. Or maybe he’d just lost too much of himself to keep holding on. Maybe that would be easier, in the end. But Adele hadn’t let go of him yet, and that was enough to keep him hanging on as hard as he could, even if it was futile. “You believed in me so much, Addy….I didn’t want to disappoint you,” he answered in a whisper, voice cracking with the painful realization that he’d disappointed her all the same. “You don’t know what it was like. When I moved out here, my family –” The people Elijah never talked about, though Adele knew more than most. “They were all just waiting for me to fail, and I couldn’t – Adele, I couldn’t live with myself if they were all right about me. But they were right. I was working so hard, but I was dead in the water the second I got here. I was nothing. Hard work isn’t enough here, you need connections. Only they’re impossible to make, unless you’re born to it. But I made one.” He let out a bitter laugh. “I gave up less for a deal with a demon than what some bullshit casting directors wanted from me. And Belial actually delivered. I played the game, Adele. Hollywood is a fucking game. And I won.” 

He’d paid a price, surely. But was it any more than thousands of others had given for so much less than what Eli got out of it? Not to him. But he still wasn’t certain Adele would see it that way. He was positive she wouldn’t agree with what he was going to do tonight. But she’d given her word, now, and Elijah had to believe that meant she would keep it. He couldn’t bear to think otherwise. “I love you too, Addy. I do,” he repeated, unsure if he was trying to convince her or himself that it was true. 

“If shouldn’t matter if they were right or not because they weren’t, even if you never made this dream of yours because you could have made more dreams. Better dreams,” she responded, out of breath and trying her best to hold onto hope somehow that he was still there with her rather than one foot out of the door. He might disappear if she let him go now, holding onto him and the notion that there was a way out of this even if she couldn’t see it right now. “Even if you never made it into a movie, you never would have disappointed me.” The truth hurt more now than before, realizing how little he’d seen of how she felt towards him before it was too late when she met his eyes, pleading into them to believe her. She pressed her lips together, unsure of what to say now that would help anything. There was nothing to do, but hold onto him and ask him to fight whatever it was that was happening now that his soul was gone. “I’m sorry if I made you think that I could ever be disappointed in you,” she told him finally, squeezing his hand once more.

“You won,” she repeated with an empty feeling in chest as she spoke with a nod. He had won, but the cost in her mind far outweighed what he got as she tried to be strong and brave in the face of the loss that felt devastating. “I’m sorry your family let you down too,” she added when it came back around to the real reason he’d taken the deal. They had let him down, made him believe that he wasn’t worth anything because of a dream that was far out of their reach as she pressed the palm of her hand against his cheek, the warmth underneath her reminded that he was still there, still alive, and still had a chance, even if she didn’t know what it could be. “I’m real sorry about them.” And you.

[davisadele-blog]

text @renee

Renee: Elijah doesn't. Neither do Abaddon nor Heath.

Renee: How does one do what? Let go of someone you loved? You know, I'd pity you, I'd even have an answer for you, if we were talking about someone now dead. I'm not a stranger to that, I've done it once or twice.

Renee: But Elijah's very much alive and everything he's done should be more than enough to make you see that doing anything less is toxic; he has no problem dying, no problem HELPING the world end. You should have a problem with both.

Renee: You might know it but you don't act like you do. You act like you're stuck on the idea of me as an angel, on me finding supposed redemption, finding my way back to her or her goodness. Read this carefully, now: UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCE DO I EVER WANT TO BE HER AGAIN. If someone gave me the chance to do it all over, another chance to make the choice, to possibly stay in Heaven, I wouldn't. I'd change none of it.

Renee: Talk's cheap, Adele. You want me to believe you, lay off, be anything but unkind? Prove it.

Adele: I don't know yet. I'll let you know when I figure it out. Or I won't.

Adele: You'd change nothing? Not a single thing about anything you've done? Fine. Don't change, but don't expect me to change anything I've done either. I would rather go through what I've gone through with you and anyone else than not feel anything at all. I'd rather have the marks that you've left on me than never learn anything at all.

Adele: I will do something to stop him, if it comes to that. It won't change that I'll pray for him and everyone else, ask them to change who they've become, but I won't stand aside.

Adele: Believe me or not, Renee. I don't care anymore. Thank you for helping me see that.

[davisadele-blog]

thyvillainy:

“Forgive me, Adele. Unfortunately my face is not as welcome as it used to be and that’s a rather new feeling for me.” She wasn’t going to relax. Why did he think the gun wouldn’t startle a doe like Adele? Yet, she sat down next to him, a figure of quiet strength. He could appreciate that. However, Heath was a creature of immense strength. “Here, I’ll make it easier for you, Adele.” He discharged the gun and slid the magazine away before holding the gun in his palm. He didn’t stop there. Whether it was actually a show of goodwill for her to relax or a show of that strength was up in the air but Heath crushed the gun in his fist into a ball, ignoring the bite of it. He picked up the small ball and smiled prettily at Adele before throwing it to the side. “See. No more gun.”

“I knew about the Horsemen. After all, I feed Donato.” He looked at her, gauging for her reaction. “After all, Donato needs those doubts to eat and that emptiness to suck up into him.” He shook his head, sighing audibly. “And fortunately for Donato, I’m a walking, talking happy meal.” After all, Heath doubted his creator more than most. It was helped by the fact he knew his creator personally. Famine fed off it, sucking up that cold nothing in Heath like it was water and Famine was a dehydrated man in the desert. He paused and looked at her. “I didn’t think of Elijah and you that night. None of that was my intent nor plan.“ He pressed his lips together. 

Elijah had been angrier than ever, giving War plenty of energy to destroy. He wondered if that was because of Adele. He knew his own void had grown because of Talia. God, he missed Talia. She’d know what to do but this wasn’t her path, it was Heath’s. He had refused Lucifer’s plan, forcing his way in a different direction. Talia would never leave Lucifer for Heath. No matter what he said. 

“Hope?” He questioned, casting her a dubious glance. It made sense that she prayed for hope but hope had never been apparent in his own life. “You pray for hope but for whom, Adele? Everyone hopes for something different. My hopes are different than yours. War’s hopes are different than yours.” He was quiet for a moment and then cast her another glance. His expression was hesitant, vulnerable for once. “Do you pray for Elijah, Adele? Even for what he’s done?” He looked up at Jesus again. “I pray for Talia.”

Sucking in a shaky breath, it didn't help many matters at the strength in the other as she watched him wad his gun into a ball of metal before disposing of it. It only widened her eyes at the sight, trying to gauge the strength it must have taken to do such a thing and it was only paired with a look of indescribable emotion that she couldn't read on his face. "It happens." More now than ever, considering those who might have been unrecognizable were now associated with the end of the world which for some, like Elijah, might have been what they wanted. "Our actions have consequences, whether we saw them coming or not," she added softly, trying her best to relax despite the unknown that hung heavily in the small, private room.

She didn't know what he wanted, not truly, when wanting to pray and speak might have been a surface mode that felt out of place in a world like this one now when so many sought answers and a way to escape. Some turned to God, others to alcohol, and then the ones caught in the cross hairs didn't have a chance to turn to anything at all when it was too late for them. They were the ones that she prayed for the most, the dead as well as the living caught in the middle of it all whose only crime was to be alive at a time like this. If that could even be called a crime, to be alive. She settled down, hands in her lap, and breathed out slowly as she calmly counted the seconds between each breath to keep her heart from racing out of her chest.

Donato. Another one of the people she'd lost to the end of the world, eyes tight on the figure to her side rather than succumb to the rush of emotions that were tied to one such name, like Elijah. Like Belial. Like so many others who were lost. Heath was now another name, fighting on another side where so many others had come together -- he stood apart from them. ( from her ) "If you knew, who they were and what they want... then why did you agree to help them?" Silently she asked to know why Elijah had done the same, signing up for the end of the world and helping to feed them as she tried her hardest to crush down the onslaught of mixed feelings that stemmed from the piece of her heart that still broke for him. "What was your plan?"

Curiosity often won out over fear, asking the questions that might never be answered or returned to her with anything more than more confusion that was written across her features. Hope was a tricky thing. Many sought it but he was right, who won out if they were all asking for hope to be on their side? "Hope for people to survive this. Hope that this isn't the end of the world even if there are others who hope for the opposite. Hope that I can be strong enough," she spoke softly, a touch prayer like as she followed his line of sight to the figure that hung between them. Tears glistened in her eyes when her thoughts turned back towards Elijah, letting her gaze fall to her lap once more as she breathed through it before responding with a whisper. "I pray that he finds peace."

[davisadele-blog]

crash into me | dominic & adele

[davisadele-blog]

@no-mercy-mercier​

He watched her ask for something harder—sip and cough—and there was a slight softening of his gaze, a gentle lift of the corner of his mouth. A sort of amused and soft affection. He shook his head as she coughed and pushed the glass away, let his teeth show in a grin and gave a wave to the bartender. “Can you bring her a China White, actually? Thanks.” He looked back to Adele, with a small grin. “It’s a shot, but it tastes like white chocolate. It’ll ease your nerves but be like a desert. You’ll like it.” A soft smile.

She told him of her promise to Elijah, and of her hope—hope that was somehow both admirable and foolish. Dom sighed, and dropped her gaze for a moment. Like the chewing she was doing of her bottom lip, he gnawed on the inside of his cheek. He wanted to find a way to address this with her without being too cold, too unkind. She was wounded, and he was worried his usual tactics of the Blunt and the Furious wouldn’t get him anywhere but further away from her, less likely to be heard. 

He looked back up. “There’s no fixing getting your soul back from the Devil, Adele. There’s no coming back from that and you know that just as well as I do. Besides… he doesn’t want to be saved. You have to accept that. You have to let him go. I don’t know what—” He wanted to say he didn’t know what she saw in him, anyway, but he clamped his teeth down onto his tongue. It would instigate an unnecessary argument, attacking Elijah, when she was feeling the way that he was. 

Instead, he tried something else. “I respect your… desire to forgive, and to help. But I think… Adele, even if there were a way to save him, to change anything, it would be him that has to do it. Not you. You can’t do this for him. If there’s anything that can be done, not only is it not on your shoulders, but it’s not in your hands. He’s the only one who can make those kinds of choices. You have to put yourself first. And your purpose—whether that’s helping the people of your church, or helping in the fight… whatever. You just… you can’t make him your end goal. It’s a dead end, Adele, and it’ll get you killed. And I’m no saint, but I’ll be honest, I’d really rather not have to avenge your death. There’s going to be plenty enough candidates for that,” he added, dry.

The bartender dropped off the shot, then, and Dom gave him a nod of thanks, and slid it towards Adele. “Drink up, beautiful. Now’s as good a time as any to get your drink on, wouldn’t you say?”

"It feels like I can breathe fire," she murmured under her breath but caught the hint of a smile that he'd produced. It felt like a win in a world where every second was another punch to the gut. If she could get Dominic to get close to a smile, then all hope wasn't lost yet, even if it was something as small as that -- it still counted. "This is why I don't drink. It's usually easier to just, not. Without becoming so complicated," she let her words trail off softly as she glanced at the rows of alcohol that lined the wall. So many choices, people picking what suited their needs, while she often took her fill of water or Elijah's lemonade that brought a rueful twist to her lips at the memory.

"He hadn't always been that way. There was a lot of good in him," she started to say, remembering the good times as if they were yesterday instead of the bodies that continued to pile up with every passing day that the Horsemen brought the end of the world upon them. It hadn't. Once he'd been a bartender behind a bar just like this one, making her a secret lemonade while she waited for someone who never showed and then ended up being her neighbor on the same floor. Things fell into place, so easy to the point where it felt inevitable that she'd fall for him but never once thought it would end like this. With him selling his soul for fame, trading in the last of his freedom to work with the Horsemen and leave this world a worse place than they'd all found it.

Adele nodded, listening to Dominic's warning that hid in the edge of his words when she knew they were truthful. If anyone else was to tell her the same thing, Adele would agree with them but it wouldn't change the shape of her heart that told her that she had to at least try. Foolish as it might have been, she didn't know how to turn it off. "I know there's no fixing it unless..." She shook her head. A trade wouldn't save anything, not when he was already so far gone with the Horsemen but if she thought for a moment that she could fully save him, there would be no stopping her even as she shifted her gaze back towards Dominic with a silent plead to understand the position that she was in.

Her heart ruled over her head most of the time, it was how she continued to allow herself to be hurt by those she loved the most and would continue to do so but with Elijah, there was only a sense of hopelessness that she'd never felt before. "When my father lost his church, I thought that was the end of him. I thought.. I had lost him for good, but he came back. It took time and a lot of patience that I didn't always have as a teenager. I don't exactly have it in spades now either," she told him with a slight joke on the tip of her tongue as her lips twitched upwards while she reminisced. "I don't know how to give up on someone. Anyone." It wasn't in her nature, a part of her DNA that might have contained it was only filled with more hope than any one person should have had.

Her lips twisted upwards at the promise of avenging her death, but she simply shook her head. "I wouldn't ask that of you. If anyone is going to walk away from this, it's bound to be you. You've got too much potential to be sucked into my mess," she replied with a knock of her shoulder against his own before the drink he'd ordered for her appeared.

Eyes wide, Adele picked it up and sniffed it as if she'd be able to smell the chocolate he'd promised her before she glanced back at him. "Always the flatterer," she smiled, genuine but not without a hint of sadness in her eyes as she tasted the drink with a sip. It didn’t burn like the last one.

[wordsnquotes]

Sure the world breeds monsters, but kindness grows just as wild….

Mary Karr, The Liar’s Club. (via wordsnquotes)

[batsandothercutethings]

[davisadele-blog]

bacon-dragon:

batsandothercutethings:

Bears playing with a balloon.

Was bummed out this morning, but then i saw this. Now i can’t stop smiling.

[risingorfalling-blog]

Almost Had Me || Adele & Elijah

[davisadele-blog]

@risingorfalling​

She didn’t understand. Elijah could see it her eyes, in the way she looked at him as if for the first time, before she even answered. The ache in his chest got worse. Maybe he’d always known she wouldn’t understand. That she was too good, too pure to understand the hunger that clawed at Eli since he was a boy. The voices that lived in his head, his parents and grandparents and siblings and cousins, calling him selfish and ungrateful just because he dared to dream of a life beyond rows of shitty houses that all looked the same. He’d sworn when he left Chicago that he was going to make them eat their words, and now he’d done it. That wasn’t what Adele saw, though. She saw someone who’d given up. Given up? How did she not see that wasn’t at all what he’d done? “I didn’t give up, Addy. I got it.” The words were pleading, just as desperate as before, but even as he said them he knew they weren’t going to change her mind. She was broken, watery eyes and held-back sobs as she looked at him like he was already beyond saving. His grip on her hand felt as delicate as his grip on himself. It didn’t matter how hard he was holding on, squeezing her so tight his knuckles were turning white with his grip. What mattered now was that Adele was holding on back. She still was, for now, and he clung to her words like a life raft. “Please,” he whispered. “Please don’t give up on me.” But it didn’t matter. If she was this close now – how would she take the worst of what he’d done, the darkness he hadn’t even touched on yet? He’d had every intention of telling her about tonight. About his plans. But it felt like that hollow pain in his chest was spreading, settling over more of him. He couldn’t bear to let her go – but he wasn’t sure he could hold onto her any longer, either. He took a breath. “Just – promise me something, please? Promise you’ll talk to me after tonight.” Let her think it was to talk over the lack of his soul, to talk about them. She would understand what he really meant after the events of the night unfolded. And resent him as she may after that – surely Adele wouldn’t break a promise. Right?

         She didn’t fully understand. Try as she might to see it from his point of view, Adele couldn’t imagine wanting something so much that she was willing to sell her soul for it. Even if it meant seeing her mother again or Jairus, seeking out advice on what to do as her own thoughts were swirling at the moment, she couldn’t. But she wanted to understand. She wanted to know what had been going through his head that made this choice be the best rather than to keep trying his best without selling himself for an easy fix. “Make me understand,” she pleaded with him, asking him for help in seeing it through his eyes when she could barely recognize the man before her from the one she’d met months ago to the one five minutes ago who was telling her that he loved her. “I’m not giving up on you, I’m not, but I don’t... I need your help in helping me see it because if I had known... Elijah, if you had told me how things were...” She wanted to believe that she could have helped him in some way rather than be ignorant to the way he’d needed this route to get to his dreams. It felt like a heavy weight in the pit of her stomach, paired with the sharp pain that radiated from the way he held onto her hand -- but she was steadfast. No, she wasn’t going to give up on him. He’d sold his soul to achieve his dreams, but that didn’t make him a completely different person -- just one that she didn’t know as well as she thought she had. “Of course I’ll talk to you,” she told him with an incredulous look on her face, shaking it off with a twist of her lips that didn’t turn into the smile she’d hoped for when everything felt wrong. “I meant it when I said I wasn’t giving up on you, Eli. I love you. I do.” She just didn’t know if he truly felt the same, now that she knew the truth about his soul being gone.

[davisadele-blog]

text @renee

Renee: Oh, please, darling. I'm all for ambition and self-confidence, believe me, I am, but there's sometimes a point at which that's simply not enough. Like it or not, selling your soul works. Elijah got what he wanted. It just got muddled along the way and that was his choice to let it be like so.

Renee: I am sure he could have said no to whatever alliance he's agreed to. He didn't. He had a choice. Belial didn't. So no, I don't think they're much the same. Belial deserved better and I'd do anything under the sun to bring him back from something he didn't choose if I thought there was anything to be done because pathetic as it might be I miss him all the fucking time. Elijah deserves whatever happens to him.

Renee: Haven't I taught you not to, yet? Tell me dear, was it I have to say or do that will make you understand what I am and that your default shouldn't be to trust me?

Renee: For fuck's sake, you never quit with the trite statements, do you, even heartbroken? Fine, if I don't know what kind of girl you are then prove me wrong. C'mon, Adele, be something other than the soft, sweet Saint now heartbroken for the boy, heartbroken and hiding. Be something more than the stereotype I've seen play out over and over and over for the last twelve decades. Be something other than what I have set out, in part, to counterpoint myself against.

Adele: They all deserve better.

Adele: The choice he made, it wasn't one that I would have made but for some reason he felt like it was the only one that he had. If there was a way to change it, I would do it. Just because it's not the choice I would have hoped he would have made...it's not as easy as flipping a switch and letting go of him. Or of anything.

Adele: How does one do that?

Adele: Oh, I know that I shouldn't trust you. Believe me, you've done plenty but unfortunately, that's another feeling that I can't help in wanting you to tell me the truth every time you lie.

Adele: But that's my dilemma when it comes to you. I keep wanting you to be something or someone you're not, and I need to realize that I have no say in who you are. Only how I react to you.

Adele: I might be heartbroken, but that's not going to stop me. He made his choice and I made mine.

[robin-buckely]

[corophagia-deactivated20150821]

You have always approached everything terrible trustfully. You have wanted to pet every monster.

Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra  (via awreckageofstars)

[karaszorelarchive]

[davisadele-blog]

starofgrace:

“But everyone talks about me,” Grace sighed, knowing it was an unfortunate consequence of growing up in the limelight ( or people spreading ridiculous rumors ), “so we should talk about you instead.” She looked at the phone screen, responding, “ – oooh, that’s beautiful!! You’ll look great, just remember to look at the cameras and smile brightly! And not too many designers … then again, with the apocalypse, I don’t blame them for not wanting to participate with the oscars.” 

“Exactly . . except I’m not wearing a bikini underneath my wedding gown,” Grace noted, laughing. The image was surely an entertaining one. “Southern isn’t bad, it’s a good perspective to consider compared to the Hollywood glam.” 

“I ain’t so good at talkin’ about myself. An’ I am sure they’re not gonna ask me any questions, they’re all gonna be payin’ attention to you an’ Eli. I’ll got an’ hide behind Isaiah an’ hope they have plenty of food to last the night,” she smiled as she tucked her phone away. 

“Um...” Adele flushed, covering her face in her hands to hide some of her second hand embarrassment before she let it wash away with a laugh. This was Grace. Her friend. It also wasn’t the first time that she’d been so candid but it didn’t change the way teasing always led to the same result as she shook her head. “Hollywood Glam is so beautiful though. Maybe somewhere in the middle of it, an’ bring in some of the Kansas charm too while you’re at it. Or keep it strictly beach an’ let it do all the talkin’ for the entire event. Though if you go for a dip in the ocean after the ceremony, no one’s gonna be talkin’ about the water.” She laughed.

[davisadele-blog]

@thyvillainy​

Adele was a figure of mystery. Somehow she had gained the affection of not one but two Horsemen. There was an unspoken rule amongst Team Apocalypse that Adele was off limits so even as he pointed the gun at her, Heath had no intention of pulling the trigger. “Do relax if you can, Adele. I have no intention of killing you tonight if you don’t try anything, all I want to do is talk.” He smiled at her before nodding his head toward the cross. “And pray, of course. However, you might have to show me how it’s done.“

Then of course there had been Adele’s relationship with Elijah, one bright light of sunshine in a fading creature like War’s feedbag. Heath might not have known him from the beginning but apparently he had been nothing like the angry, twisted man he was now. But that was how War liked them. Still, Heath had to imagine Adele was taking Elijah’s betrayal hard, even if she did put on a brave face. 

As she settled in beside him, Heath shifted the gun to his hand furthest from her but let his hand fall to his side, setting the gun down beside him. His entire body remained tense despite his easygoing demeanor in case Charity wanted to get a bit cocky and reach for the gun. 

He turned his face back up to the cross, taking in the detail. Jesus’ face was carved into a grimace of pain, hanging there from the cross as a pit for all the emotions of the world. Heath wondered what would have been worse- to feel the world’s pain or feel absolutely nothing? He turned his head toward Adele, lips pressed together almost hesitantly before he spoke again. “What do you pray for Adele?” 

Relax. Easier said than done as she settled down lightly on the edge of the bench, keeping as much well preserved distance between them as possible despite failing spectacularly. There wasn't much room in there at all, less so when he'd gestured for her to join him at the front as her eyes were torn between him and the gun, seeing the same man from the other day at the Oscars but recognizing next to nothing of him. All she could think about was the stab of fear that coursed through her, like ice water in her veins as she was chilled to the bone at the thought that he'd made it that far into the Church unnoticed. Or what would have happened if he'd been noticed before now. How many people could have been hurt if they'd stepped between him and whatever his end goal was here.

"You want me to show you how to pray?" The question slipped out before she had a moment to remember the circumstances, not the safest of places to speak her mind as she flushed slightly out of fear more than embarrassment. Adele had no idea what he had come there for, or what he wanted to tall about when she would have done that gladly without the gun. "You didn't need to bring a gun if you only wanted to talk.. all you had to do was ask."

A simple question, one that would have been taken up gladly even as she didn't fare well in the moment as her heart raced to beat out the words that took up space between her lips. It was there that she struggled to listen to her head or her heart, when they both wanted to be heard. Her head told her to RUN. While her heart poured out for the others in the Church who could be caught in the crossfire of her actions if she didn't keep him contained and calm, a feat that was impossible to judge when she knew little of the man beside her. "That night at the Oscars, did you know that was going to happen? Did you know.. did you know about the Horsemen?"

Plenty knew but less believed ( or they hadn't until the world was fully enveloped by the death and destruction that they brought with them while the few in her world still fought against them ) but that night had been nothing short of chaotic. Her eyes scanned him, taking in everything that she could but little was easily read or given as she felt helpless to know what all he wanted other than to talk. Maybe he did. Maybe he didn't. She paled at the latter thought, letting her gaze drift to her hands in her lap before she lifted it with a straighter back as she shot him a rueful smile that didn't extend far. "Hope. I pray for hope." Hope for the people who needed it and hope in those who still had it and wouldn’t give up until they saved the world. Hope fed them all.

[davisadele-blog]

@martriome​

Josh didn’t quite know what he’d expected from Adele when she’d answered the door — but he somehow hadn’t expected her to be… well, what she’d been like. Upset, skin rubbed raw, eyes puffy and red.

Really he should have known better.

But still, he let a small smile form on his lips, trying to show a comforting sympathy for her situation even though he was at war himself with the reveal of Heath as a farrier too. But Adele was human and Eli was human — they should have been allowed more respite from the end of the world than Josh or Heath did just on that.

“I know,” he said, pushing the swirling thoughts of Heath and the rest of the apocalypse crew to the side — he needed to focus on Adele right now, not himself. “It’s okay, you don’t need to be a good host right now.” He walked into her apartment, going to put the kettle on without asking Adele. “We’ll have some tea. We’ll talk. We’ll…,” Josh trailed off — what could he say to make this better? — “Um… we’ll just hang out and enjoy one another’s company.”

The kettle clicked off, and Josh turned to make the tea. Head down and peering at the mugs as he poured water into them, trying to think of the right words to say.

“You know, we don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, but I think that it’s better to get thoughts out than to keep them in.”

“I don’t really know how to be a bad host,” she murmured even though she was giving a prime example right then when Josh took point in her kitchen and had the tea going before she even had the wherewithal to move out of the main entrance of her apartment. Her entire being was exhausted, ready to sleep for days but couldn’t so much as take more than a few hours to herself before she was needed back at the Church to stay. 

It had been selfish, in a way, to have run back home after the Oscars, asking Cassiel to put her there rather than back at the Church with everyone else. She needed time to process everything. “Or maybe I am a bad host today.” She slumped down on her couch, half paying attention to him in the other room while the rest of her mind was wandering to the night before. “Sorry, I... I’m not such good company today. Not sure how much you’re gonna end up enjoyin’ it or me.”

“My thoughts... they’re not so good ones either.” A pause. Eyes misting over only enough to remind her that she hadn’t cried out every emotion from the night before, not yet anyways when she knew that eventually she’d hit a wall where it would turn to numbness. Maybe then she’d be able to work through it all. “I should have seen it comin’. I should have seen him different.”