to soak the bones in february, eons from the autumn shower–

[baalpeor]

[Rain. It was raining.

He'd never actually felt rain on his own skin before. Hell didn't have weather, and every time he'd taken control of John's body it was nothing more than a muted feeling. A secondary feeling. Like the sensation was an absent memory plucked out of the back of someone's head.

Which is why Belphegor's standing outside, eyes squinting against the grey sky, keeping the droplets from falling into them, from making him have to look away for even a second. His shirt is open, hands stuffed in pockets of the jeans he'd taken the habit of wearing - something he blamed on his human host - each droplet only running down over his skin for a few inches before hissing, turning to steam.

It's... different, this human form. The form he has to wear in order to avoid suspicion, to live alongside the pup and her mate, the form he has to settle into if he wants to remain next to his virtue. He thought he would hate it, he really had. It was awkward, bumbling, lacking the horns he so liked, the tail and claws he'd lived with for so long. But in reality, moments like this, the little things he couldn't remember ever experiencing - or maybe he had, maybe in some distant memory, a life long past and long since forgotten, a nostalgic link to a memory burned out of what was left of his soul - seemed to make everything worth it.

It's amazing how a demon, a being who thrived off of pain and anguish, blood and torture and death, could be so pacified by the simplest things. By the shifting grey of the sky and the feeling of water hitting his skin.]

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[patiens]

[Something so trivial, in comparison to so many things in their worlds. Worlds that weren't specifically of Earth, Heaven or Hell. Their stories rarely slowed enough to let something as passing as weather catch their eye.

Or at least, that was how most of the Host had always been. It certainly wasn't Elerial's first time on Earth... And she had most definitely been here in this human form for longer than the Sin. Not that it mattered. She was just as enamoured by the fickle state of this planet as the next of her kin. She was merely one of the only ones who seemed to appreciate her time here.

And she's been watching him. Just from the deck of their home- or John's home. Watching the steam curl around him, off his shoulders, even through the fabric still half hanging off of him. Such contrast to the things she'd seen of him before. The various forms... Seeing him in the casing of a human that was his own and not that of Erasmus... It was startling. Made her dwindling holiness question itself in so many ways.

Did he know she was there?]

[baalpeor]

[When didn't he know she was there? His energy might be in flux, his powers still not quite at their peak, but he's always known where his Virtue is. It's a gnawing pain in the center of his chest when she's too far away, a heat coiling in his stomach when she's just out of arms reach, a soft sigh in his mind when she comes close and allows them to touch.

They're still wary, it seems, both still getting used to the change in their powers, their beings, these restrictive human guises. They were beings of energy and light and dark, they were shifting and changing, Patience with wings and robes and the wind, Belphegor with limbs and claws and fire burning hot inside of him, spilling like lava from gaping chasms in rock-like skin.

Still, he knows where she is, even as muted as that awareness is now. So he turns, slightly, not bothering to curb the color of his eyes, to keep them blue instead of that burning red they naturally were. He turns, takes in the form of the woman watching him, and extends his hand, tilts his head to the side and raises his eyebrows.

Will she join him? Or will he yield and walk to her?]

[patiens]

[While slightly more used to things than he would be, it doesn't mean she won't revel at the chance to indulge. Maybe a little too frequently, considering her .. sort-of status. So when he turns, offers a hand out, she readily steps into the gentle downpour, toes cold against the wet grass; she's always barefoot.

Of course she'll join him, yield to him, despite the off chance that he could have come to her. The rain falls off her skin like marble decadence, soaking into her flesh rather than humidifying off as it did on her demon.]

It doesn't rain in Heaven, either. [Fingers twine and she just knows.]

[baalpeor]

[He could stop the evaporation if he wanted to, could just turn down the heat, the slightest sign of his command over the element. He just doesn't want to remain soaked through. The feeling of the rain is something new. Wearing soaked cloth, however, is a feeling he's familiar with. After all, when you were a Prince of Hell, challenged again and again by the lesser demons who thought they had a chance at wrestling the title away, it wasn't uncommon to spend days soaking in a pool of blood.

But when Patience comes towards him, he's lowering his temperature, making sure his flesh isn't burning when she takes his hand. He allows the rain to soak in, to finally clump and plaster his hair to his skin, to permeate his clothes and weigh them down. All to make sure his hand has just the slightest bit of warmth as his Virtue links her fingers with his.]

Weather seems unbecoming of angels. [He can't help the sneer in his voice, the slight scowl on his face before he curbs his expression, attempts to soften it again, to glance back up at the sky.] Weather is chaos, is changing and unpredictable.

[And yet the rain gives life to the soil, the winds bring seeds and carry the birds. It's too volatile for the purity of heaven, and too nurturing for the damnation of hell. And so the great middle ground receives it instead. The moderation neither side can wrap their minds around.

A thought that causes an ancient ache of longing, of unremembered hopes and long dead dreams, to settle deep inside of him. That causes his fingers to tighten just barely around Elerial's.]

You'd think I'd be used to this realm by now.