They're everywhere

Her voice had broken him from his reverie, all attentions completely upon her as she whispered through the air, her voice just barely reaching his ears and he strained to hear her. In her hysteria, Alistor had shaken his head, wanting no more than to disperse whatever distance was between the pair of them and envelop her within strong and lacerated arms to obscure her from the impurities of the world. "And I would have done it a thousand times over should that meant keeping you safe, Josette." He had genuinely meant it; he would have rapturously gone up against that man again unarmed, regardless if the other had wielded the broken glass or not. He would strive for his victory and walk away with the wounds of a battle just as he formerly did, and wear them with pride.

And as she had elaborated her fright, trepidations faulted by the man that had maliciously assaulted her, her fingers wrapped around his wrist and her cheek leaning into the palm of his hand, Alistor was quite proud of his consequential actions. If it had been a much less serious predicament and he had acted the way he had, he may have regretted them - and now? There wasn't a tinge of remorse, and he found himself quite earnestly, and secretly, hoping his fists had done permanent damage to that mans face in a feeble reminder. "He was a pig," the medium said rather bluntly, a deadpanned tone that had eclipsed the disgust and malice felt toward the drunken assailant, "I don't believe you'd like to think of the other intentions he may have had. And I'm glad I got to him before anything else had happened." Of course he had known, albeit the innocence shrouding his angel may have obscured her from not - sober or not, Alistor was male, and his gender tended to have repulsive thoughts.

The pain was elementary as she sterilized his wounds with the dampened cloth of cleansing alcohol, washing any traces of lingering and caking blood from his pale skin with a nurturing touch. It was almost ironic how she may have been more worried for his well being rather than her own, when it was her whom had just previously been assaulted. A nearly unfathomable thought; the good in her heart was almost too good to be true, and Alistor felt himself longing and desiring for such a familiar feeling. His own had run cold upon past experiences, as though dunked in water far too Siberian and instantaneously frozen - even pumping blood was not enough. "It is quite the gift you got yourself there," He agreed with a laugh of his own, more than glad to be hearing such a sound emit from the shaken female before him as she healed his wounds; lacerations that would surely scar in the near future.  "How could you say that you're not a pure angel with that ability?"

Gio never knew what happened to Alistor until after, truth be told, Giovanni’s family didn’t care for what Alistor’s parents did. They believed that it had been cruel to the young boy. And Gio had vowed that he would make sure it never happened again. But as a child, what could someone do? Nothing. That was all in the past however, a memory that he should have forgotten, yet remained there, like a needle jabbing into his skin at little reminders. Giovanni would forever be grateful to that little ghost boy of Alistor’s for bringing him here. It made coping with things much easier on the young man.

Gio’s entirely body froze when his cousin mentioned the anniversary and then visibly cringed. How could he have forgotten? Sighing, he looked over his shoulder to Alistor, offering a weak smile. “I’m sorry that I wasn’t there when you more than likely needed me Alistor.” He had been on the docks, kissing the fortune teller and he knew the feeling of being confused. “I’ve had some things weighing on my mind as well, cousin, but that’s no excuse.” Gio felt horrible, that was certain, so wrapped up in his own woes that he had forgotten the death of Lucille.

During the crucial time of his minority, Alistor and Giovanni were not as present in each others lives as they were now - partially due to the fact that the former had been stowed away in a decaying cell, experimented on, in the asylum for his unfortunate ability many doctors have dubbed as some sort of 'inhuman mutation'. Yet they had known each other rather well, most certainly after the Medium had gathered enough smarts to hoax the visiting Doctor's that their feeble minded treatments had worked. He knew not of how life had treated his cousin during their time apart, regardless of when they had first been reunited here, at the very Carnival that gave them a home.

"It's quite alright, no need to apologize. I've had the pleasure of another's company that night" He reassured with meek smile toward the other male, scrutinizing eyes observing his body language - how he had tensed, seeming rooted to his spot, and how he had flinched upon sudden realization. He hadn't minded that Giovanni hadn't been there that restless night; he was more than certain that the gambler had much more important things to be concerned about rather a mourning cousin. Alistor's head craned as he absorbed the words of his cousin, eyebrows just heedlessly eroding, "is it something you wish to speak about? I'm in no hurry to be anywhere."

She understood his stoic plea; yet watching the man so dear to her leave for uncertain battle was debilitating; blood had suddenly stayed in her very veins, limbs made inert and nerveless by some immobilizing poison that had infected her arteries and threatened to abduct her being. At the moment she should have turned round and fled, the movement Alistor should have joined in, she was more affixed to the ground than an archaic oak annexed with monumental and pulchritude roots. Her head was suddenly hazy; spinning and aching in the way that hurt most. It was not the severity of the pain, but the unrelenting constancy. It seemed to slowly unravel her mind, degrading her into a spiralling tornado of lunacy or perhaps utter despondence. This state was maddening, truly, for the longer she looked at the scene before her the quicker her tears rose and the worse her head ached; and everything was suddenly so immeasurably worse.

Their bodies were tangled, Alistor’s lithe and graceful one wrapped around or over – one could not be quite sure, with the way their masses swayed so viciously – the sum of the licentious stranger, muscle against pounds and light against dark. Josette’s hands had long ago risen to her mouth, as if to prevent a cry of horror from escaping from her ruby lips without her bidding. She tried, she did, hands outstretched to other, stronger males that fled by on guilty feet with only a glance at her and the scene before them. They avoided her, detached and heedless to her cries; the Angel acknowledging any form of interference from her faintly created form would result in results unpleasant to all around.

“Alistor! Help, somebody, please!” A calling voice of hunger and pain, a remaining blow from autumn’s winds, rustling throughout the flaps of the tent. Perhaps that voice had blood and sorrow and pouring rain dripping from it, but no longer did mortal ears listen for an Angel’s cry. She had long ago resided from the seraphim, becoming a demon in their eyes; wings ripped forth with scars and battle wounds, halo shattered and now appearing as some dark sprite lurking the corners of their mind to damn them. They had no need for her in their limited and duplicitous benevolence.

He'd be quite the fool should he even consider disobeying her wishes once again.

So, delegating once last glare (his face masked with grotesque anger, non-verbal hatred spewed by just one glance) to the man whom he had just brawled, the medium grasped his Angel's slighter hand within the bruised and callous grip of his own, the other on the small of her back - mindful of prodigious and spread wings - to lead her from the rambunctious and anarchic crowd amid the Freak Tent. His chest heaved in his previous efforts to defend the beauty he hadn't known - yet had the minute feeling she was - was watching the entire ordeal piece together, and crimson trickled from the inconsequential abrasions upon his knuckles and his face, which loitered about his cheeks, nose, about the optics and the jaw. Sure, the drunken man had put up a good fight against one not quite belligerent, but it had been worth the endeavor.

"There's no need to thank me," Alistor said rather bluntly once they had been out of public eye, eyes scoping his frightened Josette before him, "he was hurting you, Josette. Wishing to take advantage of you, of course I had to. I won't allow a single being to manhandle you as he so attempted to have done." And like the expected, he spoke words of pure truths; granted, should he have ever seen such an act pulled again on anyone - perhaps her specifically - he would assume he may just maim someone beyond actual intentions.

Her body did not cease in its resistance, arms still attempting to contend with the vast mass that pinned her so malevolently. Without warning the force was removed from her, suddenly and perfunctorily the air around her was clear from his pervasion and hands of wickedness. Josette’s glassy eyes cautiously foraged the space before her; body halted akin to a deer having caught a whiff of a hunter, orbs dubious in their entirety before they rested on her saviour. Alistor, her miraculous, superb, heroic Alistor; and she had never been so utterly blithe to be his Josette.  

“Alistor!” Her voice was one of pellucid adulation and appreciation, but the woman’s transient relief was sent spiralling backwards when she watched his capable hands defend her further. “Alistor!” It was now a cry of consternation and apprehension, laced with slight admonishment and another heavy dose of fright. She was quickly in front of him, shaking fingers binding herself to him for both her own protection and his. She could sense the shift in the zeitgeist of the room, the crowd quickly dispersing with screams and more than one look of shameless curiosity sent in their direction. Ladies seemed to all of a sudden draw life; eyes flashing behind pastel fans at the undeniably handsome man that had played champion to a damsel in distress. Of course, Alistor Prescott had a gift that was not visually disturbing – if it had been Uriel prying the man’s hands off her, the stares would have been fewer and far less admiring. And the Angel, in all her altruism, was growing tired of that. There was something alien in Alistor’s eyes, something animalistic and feral unlike what she’d ever seen before – and if it hadn’t been the cerulean eyes of her Alistor, it would have perchance frightened her.

“Just take me away, Alistor, just let me go away,” She whispered, already pulling at his rumpled shirt towards the exit. Her voice was a strange and sickening kind of desperation, a quiet kind; but the level of her modulation quickly rose as she spotted the man still behind them. He had stumbled, knocking into her box before sliding to the ground, head rolling as if the neck below it was made of rubber. The bottle in his hand had collided by some horrible coincidence in a high velocity against the wood base, and even amidst the chaos Josette could hear the glass break. Surely, in his state, the bacchanal would never have thought to use the liquor in his hand as a weapon; but even his clouded judgement began to interpret the power he held in his clammy fingers.

The mere fact that there had indeed been a man attempting to cause harm, inflicting such vile actions upon his Josette, and most other women of the Carnival included, ignited belligerence among himself, coursing through his veins as though a savaged and untamed wildfire, the flames licking and cauterizing any other emotion other than the feels of chagrin that ate and feasted away at the very marrow of his bones. In one way, he supposed he was beginning to sound like Giovanni - and he made mental reminders to consult him of the matter later on. 

In such an utter chaos, women expediting from the impetuous scene and men most certainly anticipating something that could be taken much more futile, further than just a punch, the sweet tone of Josette's voice interlaced with desperation, wording pleas as her fists grappled the fabric of his shirt had been drowned, and Alistor could hardly hear her. The blood thundering boisterously amid his ear drums, the triumphant and unsteady pounding of his heart deluged her words of reason - but this did not forego that he had not felt her trembling hands fist his shirt in mere attempt to drag him toward the exit of the Freak Tent, where spectators (Carnival visitors and fellow oddities alike) were beginning to stare in horror - or awe, he couldn't quite be sure.

Yet, the moment that the bottle had shattered against the glass of Josette's enclosure, the whiskey encased within it dousing alongside shards of the severed phial, Alistor's attention had been disrupted and he found himself glancing toward the disaster as the intonation of imploding glass pierced the air like an iron blade concaving into flesh. That fraction of fragile minutes had made quite the turning point; Josette's frame was hidden behind his before he could even manage a blink, and the drunken man had lunged. He had missed the pair of them, but Alistor would not let that be - as he figured, he would continue to pursue time and time again to get the girl that he so desperately desired for vulgar and repulsive reasons - and quickly turned toward his angel taking shelter behind his physique.

"I want you to leave this tent, now. Please. Get out, get away from him." His tone may have sounded more intimidating and callous than he appointed to his frightened Josette but nonetheless he hoped to get his point across all the same. Perhaps she'd be tenacious and not listen to him; whether she did so or not, Alistor was not going to order her around as though a piece of property, and she must have known that. Regardless, not even wasting another fragment of time, the medium set for attack. As expected the inebriated male fought back to the best of his unstable ability. Alistor, though not pugnacious nor belligerent, had clearly had the upper-hand, as though not an intoxication had laced his blood. But this did not go to say that he hadn't received quite the few substantial hits himself.