diversified | Everyone's got their chains to break. [ closed ]

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Everyone's got their chains to break. [ closed ]

WHO Jacob Kane (

insertdadjoke), Abel Fletcher (

sociopapathic).
WHAT Do not fuck with these brothers. Not even if you want to experiment and find out why one is immortal. Just don't do it.
WHEN Late 2014, several months after Cain and Abel have been working together to down the Death Erasers.
WHERE nfc.

"What do you mean, you don't know how to text?" asked Cain. He glanced over the lid of his laptop to give his brother a dubious look. There was a whole lot Abel had simply never picked up in his time as an Enforcer and Cain was painfully aware of how much personal experience Abel was lacking in his unlife. There was nothing to be done for it except curse the Reapers and move forward from there. Still... "Everyone knows how to text, Abel."

It was a bit egregious when Abel had a thirteen year old daughter (granted that she was adopted) who was quite the typical teenager in some respects and still Abel couldn't do much more than make calls with his phone. That just seemed like willful ignorance on Abel's part. Cain was going to have to fix that. There were worse things he was going to have to help his brother get through; this one would be a piece of cake.

Didn't mean he couldn't rib the hell out of Abel for it, though.

"Do you even know how to get to the text menu? Can you even turn your phone on? My God, does Holly have to charge it for you?" he asked, tone going more and more obnoxious as the questions came. Sometimes he even got a reaction for it. Those were always awesome.

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"I never saw the need to learn how to text. Calling works just as well," Abel replied in his usual monotone, an undercurrent of resignation hidden between the lines. While he was usually on the forefront of technology, this was one of the few rare cases where Abel had declined in keeping up. Texting felt like a step backwards instead of forwards, so he had no plans on using it.

He rolled his eyes at Cain's increasingly ridiculous questions. He's well aware that they're mostly to gain a response from him, but he couldn't help himself from being slightly annoyed from time to time when they popped up. "I can manage using my phone with Holly's assistance, brother. Despite appearances, I do understand most modern technology."

"Texting is quicker," Cain answered easily. "You can keep a log of everything you said and you can even send images along with it so you don't have to struggle to describe something in voice only. Also: emotes," he added pointedly. As if texting might encourage Abel to express his emotions more when he didn't have to do the same physically. Maybe it would make it easier for him to understand what emotion went where.

His gaze flicked to the clock on his laptop for a moment before he reminded himself to stay cool. He still had some time before he would need to leave. "You've yet to master the cell phone, though. That's just unacceptable in this day and age. Why not? Just for the satisfaction of learning something new."

"I see no need for any of that, especially whatever those emotes are." Okay, so Holly had given him a brief rundown on texting a while back which meant he knew vaguely of what was being explained to him now. That didn't mean he couldn't mess with his brother until he realized it though.

"I'm not fond of dealing solely with the written word, especially in English." It wasn't as if he couldn't read, but it was something that didn't really come naturally. He came from a time when most of the population couldn't read, especially if they were slaves, and even if Abel had learned in his lifetime, he couldn't remember it and had to possibly relearn it later on. Plus, he never really could get English. He was getting better with it, but not as well as he should have.

"Emotes are fantastic. You can even make baby whales with them." Which was all the argument one needed, really. Unless you were Abel Fletcher. Cain rolled his eyes to himself in amusement and curled his legs up on the couch. Sometimes it really felt like he was just a modern young man living only in the moment. Those were some of the best times and he longed to hold on to that feeling whenever it arrived.

He tilted his head thoughtfully toward Abel. It made sense that his brother wouldn't be on very good terms with writing. It had been a luxury—even a danger—for Cain to learn how to read and write all those years ago. Such a talent was useful only for the rich and free. It had allowed Cain to found Rome and build upon it a successful empire. Abel, on the other hand, had none of that influence nor necessity for it and apparently the years hadn't changed his position.

"Do we need to get you a Hook On Phonics book?" he asked. Pity had no place with his brother anymore even if Romulus was griefstricken at how much Remus had been denied. Move on, move on, move on. They always had to move on.

"I do not understand." Way to confuse your brother, Cain. He is more like an old man compared to Cain's college kid. Some concepts he got while others sailed over his head. Of course, social interactions were still his main weakness. "Why would an emote make a baby whale?"

"I am learning English at an acceptable rate." And he was. He had only really started learning after he had adopted Holly. The fact that he could read it with only some difficulty was a feat.

Cain grinned at hearing what was essentially Abel's catchphrase. He pulled out his phone and began to type a few simple keys in order to make the image he wanted. Long ago had Cain borrowed Abel's phone to put his own number in the contacts, so he knew it wouldn't be blocked or anything either. "Let me show you."

While the text took a moment or two to bounce to satellite back to phone, Cain tilted his head and stared at his brother with scrutiny. "That wasn't a yes or a no. How are you learning it, anyway? Doesn't that whole... Enforcer deal just stuff it into your brain?"

"Negative. The magic Enforcers have only translate the languages we see and hear into our native or most commonly used language, not actually download the information into our minds." Which makes sense considering how haphazardly the Reapers tend to run the Enforcers in the first place. If they don't know other languages, then they're reliant on Enforcer magic and therefore kept under control in some way. "Sesame Street and other children's television shows, alongside learning tools."

His phone beeped and Abel pulled it out of his pocket, holding it out for Cain to take from him. "You wished to show me. Show me."

Cain leaned forward, one hand hovering to make sure his laptop wasn't about to fall off, with the other outstretched to snag Abel's phone. He plopped back with a quiet ooph and began to scroll through it for the message he had just sent.

"Is there a point?" he asked, gaze flickering between his brother and the phone. "To learning, I mean, if it just comes out native anyway. That would sure beat having to learn a new language every time another one gets invented. Look, here," he added, turning the phone around to lightly toss it in Abel's direction.

Whale. Baby whale.

Abel sighed and takes a moment to drop the language spell he uses to translate everyone around him and translate himself for others. It's the first time in a very long time that he'd dropped it for another person instead of only doing it for learning reasons.

"Holly. I learn for her." And it's incredibly apparent that Abel dropped the spell, his voice heavily accented and speaking slowly as if he's thinking about how to explain it. "I want to know her words--no, language--I want to know her language. I do not want to--what was it?" He snapped his fingers in a frustrated manner, trying to figure out the word he wants to use before giving up and just switching to Latin. "Cheat. I don't want to cheat for her. She deserves better than that."

Edited 2014-02-01 03:52 (UTC)

Cain held in a breath as Abel's flawless English suddenly broke down into something as rudimentary as a child's grasp of the language. No, that wasn't right. It was the cadence and uncertainty of someone learning another language all over, knowing the exact message to portray without having the ability to get it across. By necessity, Cain had gone through the same process numerous times over and had eventually gained a learned aptitude for new languages.

It seemed like Abel was further behind in such progress with the Enforcer magic stunting his lingual growth. It was weird. Not disgusting or confusing, but suddenly so odd to hear the words spoken in an accent he recognized but had never heard twisted that way before. When Abel actually straight-up began to speak Latin, Cain couldn't help the smile that eventually fought its way onto his face.

"She does," he agreed. His own grasp of his first and truly native tongue was rusty. He understood it just fine, but it sounded almost alien to his own ears. Dead languages didn't tend to pop up in every day conversations. "How long you been learning?"

This was the first language Abel has actively attempted to learn outside of what he considered his native language. So it's not much of a surprise that he's having difficulty, but it's not at all obvious that he's been learning this since he adopted Holly. He picked up on the language far fast than the average living person.

"Months," he replied, no longer frustrated since he wasn't attempting English. There was a raised eyebrow at Cain's rustiness at the language, but he wasn't surprised. There weren't very many people who spoke Latin these days. "Since she became my daughter. Progress is slow, so I have to rely on that magic."

"Do you practice?" asked Cain. There was a quiet, simmering frustration that it wasn't coming to him so quickly. His usual outlet, being moody and outright hostile to anyone that looked at him funny, wasn't exactly viable at the moment. Abel was the only one around, and Abel always looked at him funny. It was just how his brother operated now.

There was a pause while he went over what he had just said. There was rather a large piece missing from it that he had intended. He grimaced and added, "With her. Do you practice with her ever?" Translation magic would have been useful right about then. It would save him the embarrassment, anyway.

"Yes. When there is time," he answered in English. He can tell that Cain is out of practice and decided that now isn't the best time to be forcing him to relearn Latin. They had plenty of time for that later. "Not much time soon--late, no, lately. The others don't know." He doesn't want them to know. "You could help me learn, brother. I would like that."

All the time in the world, really. That didn't make the present much less frustrating. Cain had the annoying habit of trying not to focus on his failures when he wasn't using them to push himself to do better. When Abel switched back over, he averted his eyes long enough to pretend he wasn't smiling at the thoughtfulness.

"Rob and Angie?" he asked. "I won't tell a soul. Well, any living soul. Aside from Holly, but she's kind of an honorary member of family we-are-totally-fucking-weird. More than honorary. This adoption's legal, right? Actually, uh—" Here, he began to sit up, closing his laptop and setting it aside. "Looking at the time, I have to get going."

Edited 2014-02-01 05:45 (UTC)

Abel was quiet for most of that, letting the words filter in so that he could process what exactly Cain's saying. Then he exhaled softly and let the translation magic wash over him again so that he doesn't have to worry about communication issues for the moment.

"I understand. There is no need to be late on my account," he finally replied, speaking comfortably through the magic once more. As much as he enjoyed speaking without it, it's a comfort to have it there to catch him when he can't speak properly. "And yes, the adoption is legal. She is family."

Cain stood, running a hand through his hair in order to try and smooth it back into something less floppy. Much as he liked the general look, he preferred seeming a little more mature when he went out. He frowned, tried again and then with his other hand until it seemed his hair would at least obey halfway. "Better than nothing," he murmured.

Flawless accent and no grammatical stumbling keyed Cain on quickly that Abel had returned to the status quo. He gave his brother a quick grin. "Good, I'd hate to get Judge Judy'd because you were illegally holding an orphan with you," he said, doublechecking his pockets for his wallet, phone, keys. Making his way for the door, he raised his hand in a parting gesture. "Don't wait up for me, I'll be back tonight."

Before Abel could respond that he was always up, Cain was out of the house. His date with Lisa was in an upper-scale part of town, but casual enough that he could get away with not dressing up like he tended to do when trying to fake a few years to be taken seriously. Ever since she had learned of her weekend off and contacted him to get back into touch, Cain had been looking forward to their meeting again. It had been almost a year, her work and his own reintroduction to Abel getting in the way of finding time.

She was just as beautiful as when he married her forty years ago. Just as smart, just as everything. If it weren't for the new wrinkles around her eyes or the way her hair had lost some of its glimmer, Cain would have been fooled that his agelessness had rubbed off on her. Their children weren't terribly fond of Cain for the length of his death clock; they were jealous and hurt, bitter that they could see what they had not inherited from him. None of his children ever got that part. For their sakes, he and Lisa had 'broken up' and gotten a divorce. Legally, they were no longer bound by any sort of obligation. Emotionally, they were still bound together until death did they part. That was one thing Cain tended to abide by no matter how long he was actually with someone before something tore them apart.

They chatted, they ate, they took a walk around town to admire the sights. It was a great evening all around and by the end of it they were already talking about how they needed to do it again, this time without the terribly long gap in between. Cain walked Lisa to her car and watched her go. Only once she was out of sight did he return to his own vehicle. As soon as the ignition was triggered, there was a loud hissing and mist began to pour out of his air units. He coughed it out and his head spun. Panic was already overtaking him, adrenalin trying to fight the obviously sedative effects of the mist. He jammed his arm into the car door, trying to free himself and found no give. They had been locked from some outside source and no amount of fiddling would undo the mechanism.

His last resort was probably what he should have done first. No one would be sloppy enough to set this up and give him such an obvious escape route as the door. No, Cain would not be getting out of this one by himself. As his vision blurred, he pulled out his phone and swiped away the lock. Whale. Baby whale. There would have been laughter if that didn't carry the danger of inhaling even more smoke. He typed quickly, breaths no longer coming in coughs but desperate pants, and sent out the message he hoped would give him a chance to be found.

Sos.

It was laughably sad just how long it took for the cavalry to realize that it needed to ride in and save the day. Even though the text got seen pretty quickly by Abel standards, meaning Holly had been nearby and looked for him, the two couldn't figure out what the message had meant and it had taken the Yates twins arriving and seeing the two puzzling over the phone to learn that it was a call for help.

While memories of his brother was basically nonexistent, Abel still was Cain's older brother and with the protective instincts to prove it. If his brother was in trouble, he was going to find him, take him back to safety, and murder anyone involved in harming him. Leaving Holly with the twins, Abel left the house and went into his incorporeal form to gain access to not only his Enforcer abilities, but to contact the only creature that could assist him in finding his brother: the Reaper assigned to him.

The creature appeared from an inky black puddle, rising from the ground and forming the robed humanoid shaped that was the Reaper. Its glowing silver eyes peered at Abel from under its hood.

what is it that you desire from me, enforcer?

"I wish to connect with you to find the one you were assigned to, Reaper," he said, impatience in his tone. "He is in trouble and I need to get him out of it."

still the protective older brother after all these years, child? i shall assist if my charge is in danger.

With a nod, Abel placed his hand on the Reaper's chest to connect with him, but instead of the jolt of information that usually was a connection with a Reaper, ink black lines traced up his hand and arm to his body. The Reaper creaked and folded until it appeared to be nothing but the misty black robe, wrapping around his arm and expanding across the rest of his body until it engulfed him completely. After what seemed to be ages, the robe seemed to be absorbed into Abel's body and revealed that the Reaper had been fused with him.

Either not noticing or caring that he had changed, Abel turned his head slightly, now silver eyes staring off into the distance. "there," he said, his voice similar to the oily hiss of the Reapers. With barely a twitch, he disappeared to the location where Cain had to be.

Unfortunately for them, a Reaper's senses on locating someone still alive and nowhere near their death wasn't precise enough to appear next to him. No, Abel found himself in some sort of facility with no idea where he was in comparison to Cain beyond "in the building". Well, that just means that he'll have to find someone and ask. If they don't answer him, well, then he'll just kill them.

Inside of the facility was almost eerily quiet. Everyone was in their space and doing their own job. It was also surprisingly small, apparently intended only for one or two purposes instead of being the central location for the people that ran it from the shadows. One person had been unlucky enough to traverse the halls from one room to another; when she came across Abel, there was too much terror to be helpful.

No matter how many rooms were overturned or entered, Abel's prize was in the furthest back room. It was a stale white, filled with plenty of medical instruments for taking samples and reading results. They obviously knew the difficulty of separating the samples from their subject and intended to keep them all in one place. Cain himself was on the floor, propped up against the wall and seemingly listless; his right wrist was shackled securely and attached to a long lead that was secured to the wall. From the collar of his T-shirt was an IV line buried into his common carotid artery, although the line was held by thread rather than tape and the dispenser was hidden from sight on the other side of the wall where the tubing led into a small hole. Despite the gurney against the other wall and the reclining medical chair in the center of the room, these people were clearly ready for whatever inevitability their guest could throw at them.

Cain was heedless of the scientist in the room next to him, only occasionally jerking his arm away while the doctor held him just above the elbow and tried to use some square, edged tool to remove a patch of skin all at once. It was a pathetic sight, really. He mumbled a plea or a question, sometimes tried to start conversation, but his languages were slipsliding over his tongue without aid from his traitorous mind. Only sometimes did he get shushed when he got too loud or lost his breath from speaking too fast and too much. Everything was a bit too confusing to be more than irritated and the most energy Cain had left was put toward trying to confirm where he was or what was happening. He wasn't worried. Someone was coming to get him this time, after all.

Edited 2014-02-02 04:50 (UTC)

When he came across someone who was useless to finding his brother, they were dead, as the unfortunate woman who stumbled upon him found out before Abel killed her by tearing her into two. Death clocks were pointless to him now because saving his brother was more important than worrying about people dying before their time.

He tore through each room looking for Cain and when he found that he wasn't in the current room, he killed the occupants and left for the next one. Abel was barely stopping, the only thing on his mind is his brother and hurting the people who took him away. And yet a grin had formed on his face during the middle of this search. He was enjoying going after these people and seeing just how terrified of him they were before he ended their lives in the most brutal fashion he could come up with. Once his brother was safe, Abel was tempted to hunt down whoever remained in this facility and kill them as well.

Finally, Abel found the room Cain was in and nearly flew into a rage when he saw him. He immediately grabbed the doctor and threw him into a wall. Disappointingly, this did not knock the doctor out and he had started going on about something, but Abel wasn't listening.

"shut up. nothing you say will save you," he said before crushing the doctor's head with his foot. Now that the doctor was dealt with, Abel went over to Cain and knelt beside him, removing the shackle on his wrist with ease. He brushed the hair out of Cain's face and looked at his eyes for a moment before he moved to his neck and checked his clock, touching it gently as if to reassure himself that whatever they had done hadn't caused lasting damage in the way of losing time. He didn't even seem to notice that his hands were bloody and he was accidentally smearing it wherever he touched, caring more about his brother's state than anything else.

If Cain immediately noticed someone else entering, it was hard to say. It wasn't until the doctor went flying and there were voices that he tilted his head and saw something that made him grin in delight. "Remus!" he called, reaching out his unshackled hand to try and grab on to his brother. When Abel came closer and removed the binding, he simply brought that hand up to take Abel's arm and hold on. "Remus," he said again, pupils blown so wide that there were only bare traces of the stormy blue usually seen inside. "Hello."

When he noticed Abel taking a look at his clock, he let his head dip to the side. His brother always got like that after a rough day or some kind of illness sweeping through the household, terrified that his brother might lose some of his infinite time to pure happenstance. It was comforting, the way his brother wouldn't allow anything to hurt him. Thus why he wasn't worried at all despite all the things wrong with the current situation.

"My neck itches," he said plainly. It felt like his words weren't obeying, but he had managed to get that out in one way or another, so he was satisfied. "Can you get that, Remus?" He didn't want to let go and risk his brother disappearing. That was not going to happen again. "Your neck is... What happened to your neck? What happened?!"

When Cain called him Remus, he froze for a moment and stared at him. The name tugged at his mind sharply, like he was supposed to know it and that it felt right to be called by that name, his real name. It opened no new memories, but it still shook him up enough to make him pause.

He got pulled out of his shock when Cain mentioned that there was something bothering his neck. "yes, i can," he answered, his voice attempting to be gentle despite its Reaper influences at the moment. Carefully, he moved his head to examine his neck better and spotted the IV, removing it as painlessly as he possibly could. Abel didn't want to add more injuries to his brother, even though he was aware that it wouldn't be permanent. "there. better?"

At the mention of his neck, he immediately reached up and touched it. Then realization hit him. "your reaper. we connected and something went wrong. i will be fine, brother, so do not worry for me."

It didn't take long for the skin to come back together, melding at the incisions made for the stitches while the droplets of blood scurried back inside. No trace of an injury was left, not even a pinkness to the skin. Cain hardly flinched while Abel removed the IV, eyes fixated on the moving numbers carved into his brother's neck. One hand came up to join Abel's and his lips moved soundlessly for a moment.

"You're not going to die again?" he asked. Something of it seemed to penetrate, he heard the words but did not process the meaning. "Tell me... I'm telling you now, so you can't die on me. Don't leave me again. Please, please, Remus. It won't end like it did before, we're going to be okay. We can have Rome together, just please don't die."

His hand fell away so that he could watch the crawl of numbers counting down, letting it latch into the collar of Abel's shirt instead. Abel's clock was ticking and that meant that he would have to be left alone once it hit rock bottom. Being alone was terrible. There was a large smile as he realized something. "Hey, if you've already died that means you can come back again, right? So just don't go in the first place. Can you do that, Remus? Like you promised."

The mention of Rome struck a chord with Abel and alongside being called Remus, he could figure out a few things about his brother that he couldn't previously. One of which being his real name. He placed a hand on top of his brother's head and ruffled his hair affectionately. "romulus. i am not going to leave you again. i cannot die twice."

If his clock was ticking, it meant something having to do with his connection with the Reaper, but it wasn't the time to think on that now. He needed to get his brother back home and safe where the drugs could wear off without fear of somebody trying to take advantage of his state and harming him. "we are going home, brother. how much time does my clock say?"

"How much?" Cain frowned, trying to focus his eyes on the numbers in front of him. He swallowed hard, looking back up into his brother's eyes. He believed it when Remus said he couldn't die again. It was just so confusing that he had a ticking clock once more and his addled brain couldn't really put the pieces together. He was just going to have to trust what Abel was saying to him. "Two minutes... forty-one seconds," he said, tone hesitant as he tried to get the timing down properly to give a precise answer.

"I'd like to go home," he hummed softly. He leaned further back against the wall without giving up his grasp. It actually wasn't very comfortable but it was the best of both worlds: his brother right there and something to keep him from falling over. What more could he want right now? Well, aside from the obvious longing for home. That one was coming; Remus didn't break his promises.

"that is plenty of time. we will be home soon," he said, trying to be comforting. It was going to be somewhat difficult getting out of this place with Cain incapacitated like this, but Abel would think of something. Grabbing Cain under his armpits, he pulled him up into a standing position, keeping a tight hold on his brother to make sure that he didn't fall back onto the floor. "i will have to carry you out. all you need to do is hold on tight, okay? i will deal with everything else."

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