and I'll never go home again [ smoking/drugs ]

[adomania]

[align=center][div style="borderwidth=0px; width: 55%; line-height:115%; text-align: justify;font-family: calibri;"][ because I dont have the energy to rewrite his return thread, assume it happened already ]

The waves that buffeted his body were gentle, the caress of nature rather than it's wrath. It was far from expected, for he had assumed that his untimely return would have angered whatever spirits were out there... people didn't just come back from the dead. They shouldn't just come back from the dead. Not him, at least. There were about a hundred different individuals he could name who deserved the privilege more than he ever had, and yet it was his paws that had dug their way back through the otherwise impenetrable membrane of the thing he called 'reality.' He never wanted to return, it hadn't been some conscious effort by his part to come back to the land of the living. If he had any say in it, he'd had stayed buried six feet under so no one else had to deal with the repercussions of his childhood.

Des was by no means a violent individual, not often at least. He had held an anger inside of him that could tear down entire villages when released, but those days were far gone. He was tired now, nothing more, and he had hoped that he was allowed to be tired, allowed to be weak for one god damned second before he was shoved back into a body he resented with every single molecule of his being. Death had given him the perfect excuse to let it all out, to do the next best thing to relaxing. Neither were offered to him for long, however, and now he had to resort to his old vices to take the edge off of life once more.

He was never a fan of drugs much heavier than marijuana. They messed with your head, made you an idiot without your input. Des had never bothered trying anything more than what he had so far, and although the idea was tempting, tonight was another night he would ignore the call of things stronger than cigarettes and alcohol, and so he settled for seeking out a dealer who could hit him up with some of the good shit. He needed it in situations as dire as this. Nothing else worked to keep him calm, and right now... he couldn't promise he wouldn't lash out at the first person he saw who tried to give a damn about his well being.

It was for the better that he was stoned out of his mind, and, by extension, unable to do much to hurt anyone at the moment.

[GABRIEL]

[align=center][div style="width: 500px; text-align: justify; font-size: 9.4pt; line-height: 1.4;"]Gabe supposed that when it was his turn to go, he'd rather stay that way than wind up back in the land of living. It was so commonplace these days as to be natural, as though it weren't an amazing thing for someone to show up an hour after biting the bullet, but some things- well. Death wasn't meant to be a mere inconvenience. Everything in the world ran through cycles, life making way for new life, and he didn't want to grasp at more time than he was afforded for that reason. Not to mention he'd rather not have a part in the newer generations' world-building; their futures were for them to build, not for old men who'd lived years beyond their time to influence. He was fairly certain he'd just fuck it all up, anyway. He'd already dug a pretty deep hole for himself and those connected to him. People filled those holes eventually, but they'd have to bury him in his.

Of course, he hadn't kicked the bucket yet, and he didn't plan to live as though he was about to. Not too fast, not too slow, and, when he had time, he could enjoy the smaller things. However, he could admit he hadn't done that very often, and had only started after he picked Laz off the streets. Marijuana hadn't exactly made it to the list of, "things to do to be more alive," and if it had, he wasn't at that one yet.

If Des had a list, it looked like he would've crossed that one out about five times at once. The hybrid -going through another brief, "Des was alive then he was dead now he's alive again," dilemma- gave the kid the owl equivalent of a raised brow, facial muscles quirking. "Do I still look as ugly as ever? I always wondered if this body was a stoner's idea."

[align=right][i]——INFO

[no more]

[align=center][div style="width:400px; font-size:8pt;line-height:1.1;color:#000;font-family:arial;margin-top:3px;margin-bottom:3px;letter-spacing:0px;margin-left:0px;text-align:justify;"]Death. There had been a time when the word seemed almost revered, touched a murmured breath exhaled through the teeth, given the respect such a state was due. But time had a way of reducing things, striping from it any ounce of worth. Rather than gossamer spun between nimble fingers, golden sheers simply waiting to close and cut it from the rest, it had become a web, entangled and sticky, beginning and end wound around each other for neither seemed to truly ever stop. It had become a cycle, the first breath touching lungs new to this world only to still with the chill of death, finding warmth and life once more some time later, be it minutes or even years, always was the possibility lingering around the corner.

And what of they, who had been risen to a position centred around keeping at bay the reaper, giving his victims a second chance to breath once more. They were expected to tend to those injured within combat or who had found themself brought low by sickness, the last line between those who stood within this world and that which lay beyond the border of reality, where only the dead may tread. But then what of their work to honour those who had departed, funerals given care and attention, each tailored to the individual. They were both in a way, a foot placed upon the sandy shores tying them to the living and yet one had sunk into the wet soil of the dead, found a perch where skeletal hands might grab at them, left behind for they had been too late.

They knew not of Desperado's passing, each subject they were taught had been rooted in healing and ways to prevent, in the poison and venom coursing through some life, not the ways in which to prepare and honour the dead just yet. All the same it was hard to miss the veil of mourning, a darkness lingering about the edges of thought and action, though they had not cared to ask, knowing death was a temporary situation for some. It seemed Aita had been correct in their thinking this had been little more than a roadblock, if not the deceased had never wished to scale, looking upon the canine with unfamiliar eyes.

Though they knew of alcohol, hard to miss for they had lived within the rooms above the Capricon for a few days before the move to the tree house they now resided in had been completed, they had never tried it themself no matter how easy it might have been. Something about it had disgusted the child, the hoppy smell of most leaving them to never want to taste the drink, and so they had never dared try. Cigarettes in themself were a different matter, blue smoke heavy within the submarine when the Captain was present, one ever hanging from his mouth, seemingly a lifeline he refused to give up. They knew the smell of the smoke and despised it, heavy as it filled their nose, but it didn't temper their curiosity about it, wondering what made their father so inclined to indulge.

Taking up a slow pace Aita moved a little closer, never thinking to question Des on his well being, their duties were for those physically or mentally injured not those who sought to indulge some during their own time, and so they had no reason to ask him. The voice is what alerted them to the presence of another, dark eyes rising to touch upon the hybrid, once more a stranger though one they seemed more interested in than the canine. Though his head bore horns they held their own, if small things only beginning to curl about their ears, and beyond such Des seemed similar to most, heavily scarred from a life which looked upon him with unkind eyes. But Gabe, he was an oddity. Briefly they wondered upon asking to touch, see where feather became fur, thinking better of it as they approached him now, his posture not one inviting to such inquiry.

No words parted their dark lips and instead Aita turned once more to Desperado, their own fictional brow raising as they awaited an answer, wondering as to how these two knew each other. Indeed the hybrid seemed out but not entirely out of place amongst so many others with oddities their own, many raising to mind with features all the more strange then those he bore.

[adomania]

[align=center][div style="borderwidth=0px; width: 55%; line-height:115%; text-align: justify;font-family: calibri;"]In truth, the drugs didn't help much in making him feel alive. The alcohol and cigarettes were also all past their point of working, and as much as Des didn't want to go to any of the heavy stuff, it wasn't too hard to imagine himself doing it. He didn't do it to feel alive, though he didn't quite do it to die either. Right now the vice was there to simply control him... and he needed one hell of a trip to do that when he felt like he could tear even Gabriel's throat out as the hybrid approached. His muscles tensed instinctively, still attentive despite the empty bottle of unnamed alcohol by his side, the blunt that was already done, and the cigarette clamped so tightly in his jaws that it looked like he might as well be eating it.

If this was him at his most relaxed, they were all lucky he wasn't still sober.

But as Gabriel spoke and the dreaded words regarding his health were avoided, Des let the strain out of his shoulders, sheathing claws he hadn't realized he'd unsheathed, and offered him a polite nod in greeting, trying to actively avoid the fact that he had been seconds away from possibly killing him. The sense of guilt, although there, wasn't even as strong as it always was, and that hurt more than anything else. He had left something behind in that dark void, when he had been taken apart and put together back again into the same old form he used to don. He couldn't quite place what it was or why he had lost it, but it wasn't there anymore, and although he acknowledged Gabriel's probable attempts at nudging him away from darker thoughts by actively avoiding everything that could have been related to them, Des couldn't bring himself to indulge in conversation.

He could barely hear his own thoughts over the ones that were pervading his senses, let alone try and push past them to talk casually about things pertaining to anything but his death. It was a tentative point of conversation, but somehow Des found he'd prefer talking about it than trying to avoid it entirely, to ignore it like it never happened. It had happened. He had died, and the fact that it was such a terrible subject to broach only proved his point further that he never should have came back to begin with.

He didn't let any of that show, however, pushing past his own discomfort to offer some semblance of a smile towards Gabriel's statement without actively turning around to look at him, gaze still staring out at where the horizon met the waters, paws still soaking in the same place his makeshift grave had been. "Whatever's out there pulling the strings must be more stoned than I could ever be," he responded, making his best attempt to keep his voice light despite the heaviness he felt and just how much he didn't believe in it. "Shit's goin' to hell," he concluded after a few seconds of silence, proceeding to take another drag of his cigarette (which actively ended it's life) and wasting no time fishing another one out and lighting it with a flick of his tail, embracing the newfound powers his return had gifted him with.

"But you still look as normal as you've ever looked," his words were muffled behind the stick, a few seconds of silence spanning between them once more before a short, gruff laugh left him and he finally spared a glance back at Gabriel, dark gaze briefly returning to it's heterochromic version only to turn pitch black once again. "Take that as you will."

His ears caught the sound of Aita's movements towards them both, flicking backwards both to get a better sense of where they were and out of defense. He knew they were one of the people who healed others in the Typhoon, and knew very well what their job entailed: to make sure he was okay and all that other bullshit. He knew exactly what he was doing, though, and knew exactly how unhealthy it was to his body despite the fact that it was already proven to be able to withstand even death. Upon instinct, he brushed the space on his throat where it had been ripped out, tentative despite the lack of pain, then turned his dark gaze towards the child with the start of a growl already tugging his lips back.

They didn't comment on his health either, though, but he couldn't relax enough to care. Gabriel was different. He wasn't a healer, and they had talked already somewhat enough for Des to get some semblance of his personality. Aita? He knew nothing about her beyond a name and occasionally stumbling across her during his daily activities. She was a wildcard, and he knew nothing about what she wanted... and, more importantly, nothing of how he could stop himself if something went wrong.

He said nothing back, however, hoping she would simply leave him be... and suddenly had half a mind to tell Gabriel off as well.