kore_logs | You're only in trouble if you get caught.

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You're only in trouble if you get caught.

Who: Fun Ghoul and Anna Milton
What: Species swap - Ghoul and Anna sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G! Except he's still a demon and he just murdered a guy. Whoops.
When: Day 62ish
Where: In the woods! In a tree.
Warnings: Strong language, demonic... shit, possible descriptions of graphic violence, will update as needed

She's slow. She's human and slow and he wanted her to stay away from him, but that was before. She's human, slow, and even more breakable than Jesse had been, and she makes him feel so wrong and so powerful and so ... guilty. But he called her. He called her and he's waiting.

Anna's on her way. She'd said she was coming! Ghoul would just have to wait. Wait and watch. Make sure nothing touches her and make sure Galen doesn't make him sleep. He didn't even know he could sleep, didn't think he would, but Galen did it. And then the nightmares came. Those fucking nightmares. It stopped being fun after that. He needed time to regroup and plot his next move and--

Maybe he just really wanted Anna close. Maybe he kind of liked the way she looked at him. Maybe it makes him feel ...

He scowls, scanning the area for any sign of her. It's pretty easy to spot someone from 20 feet up. The hell is she?!

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It's been a rough week as far as Anna is concerned. It seems like something is purposefully trying to push her stress levels beyond comprehension, and even if mentally she's just about got everything processed and under control, physically she's not handing it well. She's exhausted, there's no missing that, tired and a little paler than usual, but she still comes. She comes because he calls, because he's in the woods and that's where Balthazar is, but mostly just because she's worried.

When she actually gets to the edge of the wood she hesitates, mostly because she's actually a little lost over finding out where exactly he is. She's too used to relying on the more angelic methods of locating people, and even though she followed his directions to the letter she still peers around for a moment before taking a few steps past the tree line and into the woods. It's a little more careful than she'd like to admit - though, she's a lot more fragile than normal, and her trips into these woods before haven't exactly been uneventful - but she calls out, voice soft and only a little hesitant.

"Ghoul, you around?" She's looking, just not...up. "Hey, I'm here. I said I'd be, right? I'm here. Where are you?"

There she is. He hears her. He sees her.

Ghoul drops down easily an silently, landing directly in front of Anna. He steps forward, pressing her up against the trunk of a tree, and covers her mouth with his hand. "Shh. Right here. Just-- quiet, okay?" They might here. Someone might here. Jet might find him, he might be in trouble. Galen might find him. Kobra Kid-- the Kid don't understand, the Kid's gotta-- no. Fuck. He makes a frustrated sound and gets his arm around Anna's waist, taking his hand away from her face and looking into her eyes.

"You good? You okay?" He cares. He does care! He isn't supposed to know how to care anymore. "Anyone follow you?"

Her first instinct when he drops down probably would have been to scream honestly, so it's probably a good thing his hand covers her mouth almost instantly. As it is she just stares at him for a second, until she takes the moment to actually look at who it is and then relief floods through her. It's okay, it's him. It's Ghoul, so she doesn't put up any protest when he pushes her back to the tree, just frowns and backs up with him.

"Okay, quiet, I got it." She nods easily enough, confused but willing to go along for the time being, and when his arm snakes around her waist she reaches back to squeeze his hand lightly. "I'm fine. No more injuries, no nothing. I'm fine."

But his last question requires a little more thought, because she hadn't even considered that someone would follow her. Why would they? Why does he need to hide out here? She doesn't quite sigh but it's damn near close, and she shifts slightly to really look at him, fix him with some pointed eye contact that's all concern and confusion as she raises an eyebrow.

"Why would someone follow me? What's going on?"

Okay. Okay, she's fine. She doesn't know.

And she's still looking at him like that. And squeezing his hand. And suddenly he's kissing her temple, just so thankful that Galen's too much of a pussy to go after Anna, but not thankful that he's still after Ghoul. Fucking cheating. Not even putting up a real fight. Maybe he'll give up. Maybe it'll be too much for him, losing Jesse. Ghoul knows he'd fucking lose it if anything happened to Anna-- No. Fuck.

He smiles, "Nothin', Angel eyes. Nothin' you need to worry about while I'm here." Another quick scan of the area, eyes going all shifty, and he sniffs. His arm tightens around her briefly before lets her go. "Get on my back." It's not a suggestion. "Just trust me."

... She probably shouldn't trust him.

Of course she wants to press further, because there's obviously something going on, and even if she's not actually all that helpful right now she still can't stand the idea of not doing anything. Sitting idly by hasn't been her style for a long time now, she gave that up the moment she chose to give up her Grace all those years ago, but she gets a little sidetracked by his request.

"Get on your back." She repeats the instruction with a little doubt, surprised and by this point utterly confused. Whatever it is that's going on with him, whatever changes he's undergone during this week, she needs to find out the details because she's completely lost.

He says 'trust me' though, and that's the thing. She does. She's not sure when exactly it happened, because God knows she doesn't just hand that stuff out unchecked, but at some point between that first, awkward almost kiss under scrawled mistletoe and now, in the woods and with no idea as to what's going on, she started trusting him.

So it goes against her better judgement, and she still has a million questions to ask him, but he asks her to trust him and she does, so she just nods and carefully wraps her arms around his neck. The idea that she can't harm him quite so easily still takes a little getting used to. She does quietly add something though, because she trust him but she's not just letting this go. "You owe me a lot of answers when you're done with whatever you're doing."

Ghoul smiles wickedly when she does as he asks. Barely questioning it, no hesitation. Trust. It's misplaced. It's blind. She doesn't know. She'll believe anything he says!

But he doesn't want to lie to Anna. He wants her to trust him. He wants her to stay.

"Yeah, yeah. Answers are on the way, Chiquita. You just worry 'bout holdin' on. Hold tight." Not that he wouldn't catch her if she fell. He knows he'd catch her. It pisses him right the fuck off, but he'd do it. "Just keepin' us outta harm's way." By climbing back up the tree.

He moves up the trunk quickly and easily, like he's climbing the easiest rock-wall ever constructed and Anna weighs about as much as a speck of dust. They're back up where he was before in less than a minute. Soon, he's sitting on a sturdy branch, leaning back against the trunk of the tree with Anna in his lap and her arms around her to keep her there. If they do come looking for him, he now has a hostage.

If they don't... he just has Anna.

"Ask away. I'll answer you now. Ask."

She's not sure what exactly it is that she's expecting him to do at this point, but when he starts climbing the tree she goes from a loose grip to all but clinging for her life in an instant. A drop like that is actually pretty fatal these days, after all, and that's hardly how she'd like to go. Anna just closes her eyes and tries to ignore the faint dizziness that comes with looking down - it's been a while since she was genuinely scared of heights, but some of the responses her body prompts are still there it seems.

It's not until he's stopped and she's settled and relatively stable that she opens her eyes, and when she does it's exclusively to stare at Ghoul. Clearly not human then, not like her, and that alone prompts more questions than she had to begin with. She has to start with one though, just one out of two million she now has. After a moment, she just frowns and drops one arm from his neck, letting out a soft sigh before she actually says anything and touching her fingers to his jaw lightly. She's beyond concerned at this point, but before she gets to anything else she has to find out the answer to the question she should really have asked days ago.

"What are you, now?"

That sigh. That touch. He can't remember the last time he felt something like that. He can't remember what it feels like to be close to anyone. Oh, but he can fake it. He can play the unsuspecting friend long enough to get a knife into a back, and he can play the role of his hold self... but he doesn't think he can fake being this close to Anna. He doesn't want to fake it. So when he leans forward and nuzzles against her neck, he's not faking.

"Nothin' good. Somethin' you should stay away from. Not... M'not myself." But he doesn't want her to go. He's selfish. She's his.

His grip tightens, but not enough to hurt her. Look, he's being careful. He murmurs against her neck, "Whatever Jet is... M'the opposite."

"And how well did that work out when I said the same to you?"

He's not doing anything to ease her worry, but she's survived her brother turning into the most destructive thing in her world. She's not so easily convinced to do what might be 'safer', not when it comes to the people that are important to her, and Ghoul? He's important to her.

It's not exactly a new revelation, her behaviour gave the game away a while back. She's talked about him to Gabriel, tried to squeeze an apology out of Cas, taught him how to protect himself. It's pretty evident that he's important, that she's invested, but until now she's tried not to think on it too much. There's too many complications, on his side as well as hers, and they've gotten this far without addressing anything, a little longer can't hurt, right? But she's invested, she cares, whatever that means in this place. If nothing else, it means that warning goes in one ear and out the other, and when he holds her tighter, she just moves in closer. She's worried, she wants to know what's going on.

And then he tells her, and she can't believe she's managed to miss something like that.

"You're...a demon." She's not sure if he even knows enough to understand that for himself, but Anna certainly does. Her grip tightens along with his, and she can't help but curse herself for not seeing it sooner. The cruel smiles, the vague comments, they add up now and she missed it. "A demon, and I'm human. You could have hurt me, but you didn't"

Don't ask her what that means, because she's completely clueless.

He smirks. He remembers. "Not so good."

Ghoul couldn't stay away if he tried. Can't stay away even now. He knows it, she knows it, they just don't say it. Saying it would make it real, make it a thing, make it that much easier to lose her and that much more painful. No. He's not giving her up. Can't give up what you don't really have.

"Wanted to hurt you." A beat, "At first, really did. Still kinda want to now, but then I don't. Couldn't. Not you."

But he hurt his friends. He hurt Jesse. He hurt Galen even worse than that, making him live with it. He tried to hurt Jet with words and actions, but could never get too close. He might hurt Kobra.

He hates them all.

"I fucked up, Anna. I am fucked up."

Maybe saying it would be the push needed. Whoever it is that's brought them here seem to enjoy shattering what little peace they manage to craft with such flawless timing, maybe actually saying it would be just asking for trouble. It's easier to just think about it that way, anyway. Too much of a risk, too much chance of collateral. She can't be selfish, not with him. Maybe, or maybe it's just easier. If neither of them admit it, then it's safer. Less of a chance of getting hurt.

"It's not you." She can't stress that enough, can't begin to place enough emphasis that what's happening right now isn't him, isn't his fault. The blame lies in one place and one place alone, the people who decided to do this to all of them. he's no more to blame than Balthazar is for not being able to control himself, or she is for not being able to help them all more.

Not that it eases her conscience, and not that it will likely help him any more, but she has to make sure he knows that all the same. "Where I'm from, demons. They get that way because of thousands of years of torture. No one can withstand that, you know that, right? You understand that? No one can survive that, and it twists them and changes them. This isn't you, you're not fucked up. Not you."

Of course she doesn't blame him. She's too good, too perfect, to forgiving. Would she forgive him if she knew what he did? Would she forgive him if he dropped her out of the tree? Maybe. She seemed to be okay with that fuckhead taking a chunk out of her before he got the chance-- no. Stop.

His fingers thread through her hair and he keeps her close. Anna's like his lifeline to sanity right now and he's scared of what will happen if he lets go.

"So how the fuck did they pull this off? Because I wasn't tortured for years. Ain't been gone, been here the whole time. The fuck did they do to me? I see something, I see anything, I wanna hurt it. Wanna make it feel like I feel. I--" He can't tell her. He can't. She'd hate him. She'd hate him... and he would hurt her.

The how is the problem here. She doesn't know how this happened to him any more than she knows how it's happened to any of them. She does know that it's Ghoul though. He's not being possessed, it's actually him. She's sure of that much at least.

"I- I don't know." She's just as lost as everyone else here. The only difference is, she doesn't much care how most of them ended up the way they are. It's happening, and it's bad, but the how only minimally concerns her. What does concern her is how the Grace of three angels and two archangels were just wiped and in some cases replaces. What does concern her is how Ghoul was somehow broken and reshaped into this without more than a second passing. "The same way they made me human, I guess. It's- it should be hard to do that. Really hard."

There's another point she can't stress enough, because it's true. They shouldn't be able to mess with angels, it doesn't make sense that they can here. It's wrong, and it confuses her - and it scares her a little, honestly. Anna's never regretted being pulled from prison, but the fact that there are beings who can do it at all is terrifying. She can't protect any of them from that, any more than she can protect anyone right now.

She sighs, and the hand in her hair gives her as much comfort as it does him. Stress levels are high, worry and concern is higher, and it seems as each day passes it only gets worse. She carefully winds her arm back around him, holds him a little tighter, and just shakes her head. "They broke you. Your soul, that's what it is." She presses a hand to his chest lightly, and when she looks at him, it's just so sad. "If I could still see it, if I could still fix it..."

But she can't, and there's another thing that she can add to the list of things to keep her up at night.

He's quiet for what seems like a long time. It doesn't make sense and it's incredibly fucking unsettling. But the fact that Anna wants him back the way he was, wants to help him...

Ghoul shudders. Conflicted. Touched? Infuriated. Too many feelings at once. When he speaks again, his voice is low. "Some things are just unfixable. Taken enough things apart to know when y'can't put somethin' back together again. Not your fault when that happens. No one's fault if they can't fix something." He sniffs, "But if someone broke it? It's their fault."

Fuck these so-called scientists.

"Hey." It's soft, quiet and surprisingly gentle, but it's still a protest. She's still disagreeing with that, because the other option isn't something she's even considering right now. They won't stay like this forever, they can't.

"Even- listen. Even if we go back and this- you're still not you..." And it's not something she wants to consider, but she has to. For his sake at least, she has to explore the option. She's treading carefully with him, toeing the surface of the water in case she pushes whatever humanity he has left too far. It's a long way to fall, after all. Carefully, gently enough for him to pull away without much thought, she touches her hand to his jaw again, turns his face lightly to make sure he's looking at her. "If we get put back, and you're still broke. I can fix it."

...Well. She pauses for a moment, because that's not entirely true. She might be able to. She might be able to heal the damage, but she can't be sure. That's not what she says though, just keeps her voice firm and her convictions strong, and hopes that that's enough.

She can fix it. She wants to. He won't be stuck like this, he won't want to burn the city to the fucking ground and kick in the skulls of people asking for help. Good. It's good. It's going to be fine because he has Anna.

He's looking. Looking right at her. She's touching his face. He doesn't want to break her hand or leave her up in this tree. He can't feel any of that animosity towards her. Other people, yes. Humans in general, yes. But her? No fucking way. So he watches her, can't let go, she'll fall. Not gonna let go. Not ever. He doesn't pull away. Won't even try.

Ghoul leans in, pulling her closer, and suddenly his mouth is on hers. Careful. Don't hurt her. Softly... not too soft, just be careful.

It's hard to be careful with Anna.

There's times and places where kissing is appropriate. There's times and places where it's okay to just forget about anything that's going on and have a moment to yourselves. In the branches of a tree while the town slowly destroys itself isn't really the time or the place for that, but Anna doesn't much care about that right now.

When his lips meet hers there's no missing the little smile that touches the corners of her mouth, and she tightens the arm around him slightly, shifts in a little closer. She hadn't realised how much she really needed the comfort of closeness until that moment, but he's here and she's just so glad that he's okay. Not good, but they can work on that now that she knows. He's here, and she's so damn grateful for that.

So to hell with the right time and the right place. He's here, she's not going anywhere. She's not leaving him any time soon, not now that she knows what's happened to him, and if she's going to indulge in a creature comfort or two while there's even a few minutes of their lives where something bigger isn't driving a wedge between them.

She doesn't have to worry about being gentle for once, and it's just enough of a relief that she tugs him in a little closer and kisses just a little harder. The hand stays at his jaw though, gentle as her thumb grazes lightly against his cheek. Through it all, she's still smiling. Things are bad, but he's still here.

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You're only in trouble if you get caught.

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