eyemind | Calling Heaven hear my voice

Entry tags:

Calling Heaven hear my voice

Who: Ella and Murmur
What: Partner shenanigans
When: Post scuffle and subsequent makeup with Lucifer
Warnings: Shoes?

It wasn't that he was afraid of her, not really, but so far the mortals he'd encountered were either atheist, questioning, or from entirely unrelated worlds altogether. It has been some time since Murmur had had to figure out how to maneuver around a believer without completely putting his foot in his mouth. However, after his follow up conversation with Lucifer he was feeling more confident in that Ella wasn't likely to do anything too terribly strange like try to pray to him.

And, well, she was his partner. Murmur would have to stop skulking about like a skittish cat eventually.

We should talk, He offered out to her through their link, invasively perhaps. Do you like tea?

Yes this is likely not the best way to go around doing this but... Well he might be less likely to get hit with a shoe if he asked before showing up.

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So angels, cool. Ella knows that he is one because that's the whole thing about being inside someone else's head even if it's not something that she's ever had happen before. There's Rae Rae of course, but she hadn't ever felt like she was inside Ella's head other than when her family had nearly committed her for it. But that had been doubt more than anything else. It had just worked out how it worked out. So now she's aware that Lucifer is totally like that Lucifer and Amenadiel and everything else that went along with it. Like she knows actual celestials from her universe, and she also knows that Murmur isn't from it. Different universes, different angels it all made sense.

Tea is fine. It's not Ella's favorite by any means, but it's fine and she's not too fussed about it. Like would it be better if it was tequila? Oh yeah definitely but from what she's seen it's not like this place has a bar and she can live without it considering how much she knew other people drank. But come on over whenever.

Even if she weren't in his head, they did meet if only briefly and chaotically. The wings should have been a giveaway, though it was likely she didn't exactly realize who she'd partnered with given the chaos. Murmur probably wouldn't be sure if he weren't already accustomed to recognizing people by a very different method than sight and sound alone.

Unimportant. What was more important was reassuring her that he was not, in fact, a psychotic maniac despite what first impressions might suggest. Tequila, the impression had come through all the same and was met with something along the lines of an agreement to make note. Really, he'd not realized how desperate everyone would be for alcohol on this ship. He'll make a note of that for future adventures.

For now, tea would have to do. And it was almost as soon as she'd granted permission that the knock sounded on her door. It's not that weird, considering.

It's not that weird considering, and Ella opens the door to her cabin. A cabin that she's definitely trying to make more her own. She's dragging pillows around and while she doesn't have any funko pops yet. (Oh man, what if there's like... space funko pops? That would be so cool and Ella is definitely going to need to figure out something that she's going to be able to collect here.) While it's not on her mind that she's going to collect celestial figures, it's probably true considering everything.

When Murmur is there, she takes the tea and sets it down on the table before Ella Lopez Ella Lopezes with a move that is very here even though they'd met in a fight where she'd hit him with a shoe. There's no shoes in her hand now (or even on her feet) and there's nothing in her that's radiating malice or foul intent. Ella doesn't really do the whole foul intent thing even if her brain tends to go to darker places (as she calls them.) Instead, what Ella does is gives him one of her certified hugs. "Hi. I'm Ella. Nice to meet you like officially. Sorry about the shoe thing. It's you know. My thang." Yes, 'thang' and not 'thing.'

It's not that weird, he just hoped holding hot tea meant he could dodge any potential further reprisal for his fight with Lucifer. Ella should have ample opportunity to personalize her cabin on one of the worlds they land on, surely. In the meantime she can collect Celestials, while she waits to find the funkos.

After she takes the tea he slightly braces just in case... only to find that Lucifer was absolutely right and instead of a shoe came an enthusiastic hug. He wasn't really worried, as he'd detected no malice from her even upon reaching out. Still the hug came as something of a surprise and for a moment the awkward angel just froze up because he really wasn't used to people hugging him. After a few moments the shock wore off and he did return the hug, if somewhat awkwardly.

"Ah, Lucifer was not exaggerating you are a hugger." She gives pretty good ones too he has to admit. Once she released him he'd offer her something of a little bow, this one is more the stuffy proper type. "You may call me Murmur. No need to apologize, I was in the middle of having an altercation with your friend. I apologize for the... unsavory introduction." That was not his best behavior.

"Yeah!" Ella just says quickly, and she shrugs a bit at that. "That's kinda also my thing. I mean I'm definitely way more famous for my hugs than my hitting people with shoes." Hugging is easier to do, because Ella is a hugging machine who hugs everything and everyone she can. Shoe hitting is reserved around the people that Ella cares the most deeply for. Shoe hitting is something that she both uses on them when they're stupid (as evidenced by Lucifer of course.) or in defense of people she loves (also evidence by how she threw herself between Lucifer and Murmur.) so she does it less. Or at the very least less obviously.

Does Ella remember when Maze had impersonated her and her hugs in order to get keys? Of course she does, but she's not going to like stop doing it.

"It's okay. I mean Lucifer and angels. It makes sense. Like even or especially if you're from a different multiverse. I just hope that it means that you're not going to do it again. You know, fear of my shoe and all of that." Which is a joke. Mostly. But Ella is sort of giving him a bit of a shovel talk around Lucifer cause no one fucks with her bro.

"So he said," Murmur did seem amused by the whole thing. What a delightfully friendly human, no wonder he spoke so highly of her! Murmur hadn't doubted his assessment, of course, but it was always best to verify for oneself. Especially if it meant you'd get a hug out of the deal.

He put his hands up in a gesture of surrender, looking faintly amused. As amused as Murmur ever looks with that strange monotone neutrality of his. "I would prefer not to incite the wrath of your shoe again, no." He does drop his hands, not actually that concerned about it since she wasn't coming after him with another at the moment. "Lucifer did something similar, the vaguely threatening thing. Is this behavior common?" He sounded genuinely curious and perplexed by it. Murmur's not used to friends, nor is he particularly up to date on social interactions.

Ella sits down cross-legged on her bed, holding the steaming cup of tea like she would normally hold a coffee. The tea is even made in the same way as she'd have her coffee: too sweet with too many frills and the like. Gesturing to the chair, she can't stop herself from laughing even as the mug in her hand doesn't move. "Oh, cool. I mean I shouldn't be surprised that Lucifer like gave you a shovel talk. It's very him." Ella doesn't know what he'd said to Jay exactly, but she does get the feeling that Lucifer had said something to her brother. Whatever it was meant that Ella could never mention Lucifer around him which was fine, cause her family wasn't too thrilled that she was working with someone who she'd thought wrapped himself in the persona of the devil.

Man, they would be even more against it if they knew that Lucifer actually was who he claimed to be.

And then because Ella is a nerd who is used to needing to explain her references, she continues on. "A shovel talk is when someone who cares for someone else threatens someone who could hurt them with harm if they do it. It like started as a romantic thing where friends or family threatened a romantic partner, but it's totally expanded to be anyone who cares about anyone, you know?"

Murmur moved to settle into the offered chair for his instruction on what a "shovel talk" is. For all of his lack of emotiveness Murmur is eternally a scholar of all fields, that included human behavior and habits, no matter how puzzling it may be. He was, of course, going to ask what she meant exactly by shovel talk but thankfully she realized quickly that he required an elaboration.

"I see... what a peculiar tradition. And this behavior does not discourage would be friends or romantic partners from pursuit of a relationship? Is it effective in discouraging the harm it's intended to?"

"Nah, it's never stopped me from getting involved with someone honestly. I mean I have four brothers back home. They definitely have given more than their fair share of shovel talks." And it normally meant that Ella was more determined to date those people; after all Ella's got a very unhealthy attraction to bad people. Really bad people even when she tried to date nice guys. For a moment in her head, there's an overwhelming scent of lilies, and she needs to take a deep breath of the tea-scented air in order to remove the phantom of it from her nostrils.

"I don't think it stops anyone, really. But it definitely makes them aware of the fact that it's not like there aren't people who care for the person that they're talking about you know? Just like a bit. It might not change anything but it's still something that people are gonna do. It's not about the person who's getting it. Not really. Anyway, it's all good. You don't need to worry about it. Probably anyway."

"So it is more a demonstration of... allies?" The concept of a support network was rather foreign to him, but allies weren't completely though he had few he could call upon. Murmur frowned slightly, raising an eyebrow while inclining his head very slightly in question at the overwhelming sense coming from her and her response. Should he ask? He felt maybe he shouldn't, but...

"...Lilies?" Quietly, he didn't mean to pry but it was so very intense he couldn't help but pick up on it.

A faintly amused sound. "I'm not particularly concerned. I have detected no genuine malice from yourself nor Lucifer, and that spat out in the hallway told me all I needed to know of his character." And hers, in a way. Mostly that they weren't a threat.

Whatever else Ella was going to say is lost in the question about lilies. She tries to push them and the thoughts that come along with them away but the more that she tries, the more that the smell of lilies rises around her again. Her pulse starts to race, and Ella's hands ball into tight and small fists at her sides. Closing her eyes, Ella tries to hold her breath as if the motion of it would somehow manage to keep the lily stench out, but it's a phantom and all that holding it in does is make them crawl up over her throat and spread like ivy around it. The sensation of hands around her neck only intensifies for a long moment, and Ella forces her mouth open, forces her legs to drag air into them so she no longer sees spots in front of her eyes. Instinctively, her hands scramble at her neck but there's nothing there.

Reflexively, Ella reaches out and grasps Murmur's hand as she tries to breath out the lilies and breathe in the scent of the tea. Her eyes are filled with tears that don't fall as she tries to get herself back under control.

A mention of a flower (and the scent of the flower itself) definitely shouldn't be affecting her like this. "Sorry," Ella manages to get out, but it's as managed as she imagines her throat being after Pete.

Murmur was an empath as it was already, with the psychic connection between them it only made sharing this sensation all the more clear. The associations made the scent of lilies not only unpleasant, but cloyingly choking. Along with that feeling of hands cutting off the flow of air, the repressed panic coupled with a slew of emotions he couldn't quite sort nor recognize in their entirety. The whole experience was, suffice it to say, overwhelming.

When her hand caught his he squeezed it reassuringly, leaning forward only enough to let his wings unfurl so that he could wrap one very gently around her like a large feathery shield. Not enough to suffocate, or entrap, but enough to be comforting... he hoped. After a few long moments he pushed a long unnecessary breath out through his nose.

"You have lived through something terrible, haven't you? There is no need to apologize to me. It's alright, let it out." He thinks that might help, if she were just free to process.

Ella is a believer down to the core of her and she can't help but to be reasured by the feathery shield that he's wrapped her in. Taking it as an invitation, and because part of the reason that Ella hugs so many people is for comfort, she just wraps her arms around him below the level of his wings and presses her face into his chest. With her face buried, Ella does let the tears fall, because she's not really had the chance (and a small bit of really not wanting to either) process everything that had happened with Pete. It had been her in the interrogation room, then it had been her been kicked out of the station with the news that Chloe had been found and she didn't even get back to her apartment before she'd ended up here.

And there was a whole lot more stuff here that had seemed more pressing. You know, at the time.

"I always pick bad people." Her voice is slightly muffled against his chest, but Ella knows that he can hear it one way or another. "Like normally really bad people." Which comes with the unspoken mental: cause I'm worried I'm a bad person because she doesn't think that she can say it aloud. "I thought I picked a good guy. He seemed like a good guy and everyone liked him and thought he was great and no one, not even Lucifer or Chloe or Linda or anyone thought he was a bad guy. My picker didn't even pick him. But he was the worst one."

Sniffling for a moment, Ella just shivers. "He's a serial killer. First he started talking to me because he thought that he could use me to get information and stay ahead on the case. But I'm his victim type. He killed women who thought talked too much by hitting them with a paralytic agent and slitting their vocal cords and letting them choke on their blood. He left lilies with their bodies. He'd given me a key to his apartment and I'd found this dark room that he'd had with lilies and the paralytic in it. I took a syringe to test and to get help but he came home and found me." As Ella is talking, her words are speeding up, starting to run together in her panic. "He started to choke me and as I was close to passing out, I injected him with it and then called Lucifer."

It is a most excellent feathery shield, and it was indeed an invitation for a hug. When she took it Murmur wrapped her up in both his arms and his wings. Not everyone can say they got a full on wing-hug from an angel. His might not be as fluffy and glorious as Lucifer's but they still did the trick for offering an excellent hug service. He wasn't going to interrupt her crying, she was welcome to take all the time she needed. Everyone needed time to process after traumatic events, Ella hadn't had her chance to even begin sorting it out.

He's quiet while she speaks, though she's right he can absolutely hear and understand no matter how muffled. There were a lot of concerning thoughts there, but not a single one was met with any kind of judgement from the angel. Concern, yes, and a kind of gentle patience that could be hard to find in a world full of bustle and problems to solve.

He was quiet for a time after she finished, mulling over words and thoughts and emotions all jumbled together as part of the greater whole of her story. Not just the words she said, but the way she blamed herself for the actions of others. The way she felt that somehow she was responsible for all this. Eventually he shook his head gently. "Have you considered that it may not be you who picks the bad ones, but instead they who are drawn to you? Shadows are always at their sharpest, and darkest, near the brightest of lights." Ella wasn't bad. There wasn't a single thing bad about her, except perhaps her own perception of herself. He couldn't blame her, it is always easier to take the blame for patterns that make no sense than to try to puzzle out why the world works the way it does. Even if it wasn't her burden to bear.

"You are very brave, even if you may not feel like it right now. A vile, wicked soul, that coveted your light and could not stand against it. You did what was right." He does hope Lucifer got his hands on him before he was whisked away. Granted, even if he didn't he sure will eventually. Truly a despicable human, that one.

It's easy to feel safe in the protection of the wings and the hug that they provided. It's easy to feel like things might be okay right now. But for all of her history, Ella knows that 'right now' is never forever. Hell, sometimes it's not even more than a few moments once this one has passed. But she's going to take those few minutes, because when she's alone, and when she's not being herself surrounded by other people, it's hard and this can be a bit like a shield to at least try to wrap around herself later.

Against Murmur's chest, Ella just sniffles a bit at what he says about brightness and her attracting darkness. "But it's not like they're coming after me. I mean. I chase them. My picker just goes bing and it's like I've forgotten everything else other than how attracted to them I am." There's a pause and a bit. "I think that's why like I never really could believe Lucifer was like the Lucifer, you know? He never pinged at like my picker." Which isn't entirely true but it's mostly true enough for it to be considered gospel fact for Ella.

(She doesn't know that Michael took over for him for a time--if she knew that then Ella would have slapped her forehead and hit that asshole with her shoe again.)

"Pete wasn't drawn to the brightness in me though. He was drawn to the darkness." 'We're the same Ells.' Pete's voice is so easily drawn into her head she doesn't know what to do with it, and she just squeezes her eyes together and tries with everything in her to block it out.

Wings do make pretty great shields from the tragedy of reality... for a time. Unfortunately no one can hide in them forever, but Murmur isn't one to rush things. Ella will have all the time she needs from him. They may be relative strangers as far as time is concerned but Murmur is more than happy to be that shield for her. For time, after all, is meaningless to an angel, and to him they were already best friends.

"Let us consider for a moment why that might be. You are hardly a person who desires to harm others, so what other reason might you be drawn to such souls?" He did let out a faint huff of amusement at the comment about Lucifer. "Even among Celestials things are rarely so simple as a black and white good and evil. If you are attracted the way you say you are, he'd have to be more wicked than hurt and bitter." Which, come on, you can't say that isn't the case for him. But... he also senses that isn't entirely true, but they'll get to that. Solve one question at a time.

"So he says," Dismissive. Murmur didn't care what Pete thought at the end of the day. "And yet, despite his claims, did you find yourself at all tempted to join him in his murder spree?" Murmur just hugs her tighter, he feels those thoughts and understands how venomous those words of doubt are. He'll just have to try to navigate her out of it.

"No, of course not. I'd never do that!" Ella would never, she would beat people (and Celestials) with her shoe, and she would shoot people who were endangering others, but going on a planned murder spree like Pete does? No. Nope. There's no way in hell that she would do that. But there's other stuff too, like the dark thoughts that intrude on her sometimes, but Ella doesn't give them voice, at least not right now. Thoughts of not helping weren't the same as not helping, and Ella knows that she'd definitely help anyone who ended up needing it, dark thoughts or no.

"Lucifer's like my brother," Ella reminds him. "That's why it didn't go off around him. At least not normally. There was like one time but it turns out like it wasn't even something that he did! Cause he has a creepy evil twin cause instead of a crime solving detective, it's become like... anyway, it doesn't matter now. Like I don't know why Rae Rae became my best friend. I don't know why Lucifer's like my bro, and I don't know why...."

Pete Daly. Fucking Pete Daly she hopes that he burns for what he did. She hopes that he lives a long time trapped with a chatty roommate or something. But for right now, Ella just sniffles and puts her hand on his chest. "I'm sorry I ruined your shirt, Murmur."

"Precisely," The horror in her reaction displayed the truth of her heart, no matter what Pete said Ella was not just like him. It didn't take a Celestial's eyes to see the good in her soul, though it certainly did help. Brilliant as any star, Ella was not the darkness she feared she was. One cannot control their thoughts and shouldn't be expected to do so, but until she gave voice to that he'd not point it out. At least... not yet.

"He is also not evil the way he's been accused," He reminds. Of course it wouldn't go off around Lucifer, as her brother or no. Wait, a beat. "An evil twin?" Oh that's certainly different, do fill him in! Following Ella's train of consciousness was definitely an exercise in perception, but Murmur wasn't easy to shake. "Rae Rae?" One thing at a time, Ella! Give him some idea of what they're discussing!

A huff of amusement at her apology. "Nothing a little wash can't fix. Even if it wasn't this is more important than a shirt."

Oh right, definitely more to explain because if there's anyone who knows what it's like not to have all of the information, it's definitely Ella considering the past five years and everything else. So, Ella just takes a deep breath because she needs one--needs one to expel lilies and Pete and all of her fear over him, and one in because Ella knows that she needs to calm down. Things aren't going to get better if Ella isn't able to at least calm down a little bit. So, another deep breath before Ella explains, even if it's in her typical very fast beat fashion.

"Lucifer's twin brother, like identical twin brother, is Michael. Saint Michael which is a whole thing that my abuela isn't going to hear about because St. Michael is always who she prays too and stuff and he is so not worth it because apparently he's a dick. And like I don't know if he watched like one too many telenovelas or like too many seasons of Bones but he apparently decided to come down and try and steal Lucifer's life while he was in Hell. Hence, evil twin brother and that's why my picker went off around him."

And onto the other thing. "Ray Ray is like...well, I thought that she was like a ghost who was with me while waiting for help in the car crash that I almost died in when I was eight? Like she told me she was a ghost. It turns out that like not a ghost. She was Azrael, The Angel of Death and like she didn't tell me. She's the one who put it in my head to go to LA, and to like stay in LA, apparently because she wanted two of her favorite people to be together."

Yes, please, because Murmur looks incredibly perplexed. An expression which only deepened as she continued to explain, though it shifted more to concern as she went on. "Definitely very different universes..." He muttered softly. It's good she's distracted from thinking about Pete, though, she didn't need to keep dwelling on that horror for now.

"Perhaps she can pray to the one from my universe instead," He suggested, only partially kidding. After all the Michael from his universe was still quite the noble warrior and definitely not evil. Really it sounded more and more like they got the wrong version of the book. "I see..." Interesting. And it wasn't going off around Murmur, so that was a good sign the thought. He was concerned.

When she finally got into the part about Ray Ray, Azrael, he let out a quiet 'huh' of surprise. "Well then," Give him a few to digest all of that and place the players where they belong in his mind. "So very different. Although... I think I can understand why she may do such a thing. The Azrael I knew also suffers a very lonely existence. Ostracized, misunderstood, feared... to not be quick to admit that role does make sense."

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Calling Heaven hear my voice

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