Cell Block Tango
Closed To: @eve-baptized-by-fire Date: September 30, 2016 - 6:00 PM Location: The Cells
It wasn’t long after they’d gotten back from the Whipping that afternoon that Phoebe’s mind started to wander. The blood on Abel’s back that burst forth like a crushed rose, staining whoever dared clutch it that hard. She remembers the last time she and Abel really spoke, about the train on the outer borders of the county, and how that seemed to have made Lucifer discontented—and anything that made the demons discontent was something Phoebe valued greatly. She wondered if he was paying for that knowledge, as much as Junia’s absence—or if it was just her own conscience acting up: information was not a disease. Anyone that treated it as such were closed-minded people, afraid of those with questions. People who didn’t deserve power, that’s who limited information. All the same, she’d prefer if Abel didn’t undergo the process any further—but she had no information on Junia, no way of undoing the damage.
At least Junia had made it out into Paradise, like Phoebe had tried to do back at L’Aperitif. How could she and Eve fault her for that? But oh, the struggle here continued. That, despite the silent, guilty glee she had taken seeing Mammon slain and wingless. It was almost good enough, but not nearly good enough. Not nearly. That’s another reason Phoebe had returned, keeping up her facade as the docile little dove: if she ran, she’d be far from her quarry. Her mission of vengeance far from over, Phoebe made sure to steel herself, to withstand this life, as long as that end game was in sight. But sometimes her vision got blurry, started to see things that weren’t there, had trouble calling up memories, each scene slowly shifting sands. There were nights she would have woken screaming, except she slept with her fists balled under her chin, to stop her jaw from excessive opening. The darkness in the cell was nothing compared to those dreams; night terrors parading as memory, or vice versa.
“Eve,” Phoebe whispered low as a hiss, crawling to the wall they shared; she placed her hand on it, as if Eve would be able to—she didn’t know, sense it, feel her energy, anything, any mode of connection with her friend, a mode of connection with someone who wasn’t Alastair. “Eeeve,” she crooned again, more urgently, her ever-calmness slowly shaking and she could sense it, sense the anxiety rising around her throat and she started to slowly drag her hand down the walls, feeling the rough texture of them against her calloused palm, palms that were never meant for callouses, not ever. But this was what the world had handed her, now, and she would rise to the challenge. Clawing at the wall more desperately, Phoebe slowly started to wonder if Eve was still there: had she been killed? Had she been sent away? Was she being whipped now? How long had it been in this cell? Phoebe shook her head, her quick tic to shake her brain back into place, as it were. “Eve, I’m slipping,” she said, just above silence.