ismaelabdel

[ismaelabdel]

a starter for @xsorceressx,

Ismael hadn't necessarily been coping well; Lupercalia came swiftly after the tragedy many were resentfully choosing to pretend had never been but the cambion was not so able-minded it seemed. He made the attempt -blissful ignorance- signing up for the events, pretending all was normal despite his workload nearly tripling. Long nights, later hours; the Innocent still ensured he made it to Lupercalia and he'd been insistent on finding a familiar face in the crowd. A goddess he understood full well would not miss this event considering Nash's participation. Ismael came forward, smiling almost meekly as he held his hands up in a sarcastic surrender, "I've been told by many family and friends that I need to have more fun," he clicked his tongue, "And yet I've lost every event I've signed up for since."

[ismaelabdel]

a starter for @safiyebalik, when: after the singles gladiator gauntlet

"You survived," words garner this teasing nature, smiling softly at the sight of Safiye; a touch worse for wear but considerably unscathed considering what had erupted shortly after the gladiator tournament had started. Ismael was a vet, he'd taken a very strict oath, and the Innocent felt that even Otherworldly creatures sort of locked into that; as such, when he realized what was to come, Ismael quickly resigned from the very competition. Chaos swiftly followed and it became a bloodbath and free for all; there was no competing with some of the names who'd signed up, but if anyone had a chance he'd figured it could be Safiye. "How are you feeling, champ?"

[ismaelabdel]

a starter for @nashalbrecht,

"That was… quite a speech," nobody would have ever pegged the draegloth as having an eloquent way with words; but Nashoba's certainly had ammunition this afternoon. It had taken the Innocent a bit to find him since Nash had said his piece and gave Lupercalia his final, vivid message but the cambion crept forward now, raising a brow. "Fear is a very powerful motivator," it affirmed that succinct and indelible area where the two crossed, and it showed that while Ismael often didn't agree with Nash's methods, that the cambion believed in exactly what the Cannibal had proudly proclaimed.

[ismaelabdel]

"lets go babe"

OA Zidan & Tiffany Wallace || FBI 4.07

[ismaelabdel]

Ismael made a face of discontent, this conversation would be uncomfortable to dish out between those who did remember, but it felt even more scathing to reveal it to one who had been given the mercy of death. Death was a kindness within the End and although many had been salvaged from it's clutches, there were those who had been the collateral. Guilt was hard to evade in such a situation and he understood, very well, that Sabina was one to conceal her true emotions to the point of controlled perfection. "The Great Old Ones, they'd taken any halfblooded survivors; we were like cogs in a machine, with them tapping upon our abilities nonstop." Ismael took a pause to down another drink and it seemed the cocktail waitress sort of got the point and had lingered to pass the cambion's more liquor to soften the blow, "Death was a kindness, but I know it doesn't mean you went without suffering." His head bowed, god this was a heavy conversation to have in the height of a vampire rave.

She throws the test tube shot back and gestures to the cocktail waitress for another, she was always a social creature but part of why she attended parties was for the free drinks that she didn't have to mix herself. She didn't know when exactly she had gotten all soft inside, but he was living when she lost sight of him and she wonders what happened to them all. A nagging voice in the back of her mind wouldn't let it go. "What happened after my vision went dark? Our chance of survival was low but I saw you give everything you could." If she's going to have this conversation, the least she could do was be a little drunk. A half shrug "What's the point of pain? Sometimes that doesn't always make us stronger, there's so much if we choose to let it in that sometimes oblivion is better." She fled a home where her mother was made of the Inferno and killed men for survival

[ismaelabdel]

While a lycan bite was poisonous to a cambion, Ismael was certain a bite from a draegloth hardly mattered when their massive stature was grand enough to likely destroy the manufactured home they were currently arguing in. He'd grown around lycans, found a home within the very den of creatures who could harm him the most, but within that the Innocent had come to understand their weaknesses. Silver, being slaves to the full moon, their true name. Ismael stepped backwards as Nash seemed overtaken with the painful transformation; the draegloth was right about one thing, Ismael had a difficult time letting go. Of people he'd never see again, those who had scorned him, those who Ismael seemed intent to fix as though he was an adamant healer. Nash sometimes fit in the very lines of said people, those Ismael figured he'd never see again, those who scorned and scoured with their anger, that who he assigned himself to fix. The Innocent had to relinquish all of these things; within forgiveness there was warmth, within acceptance he could maybe learn to let go.

Ismael had taken that step backwards but the cambion still hadn't left, Circe had resorted to killing Nashoba once to stop him, and Ismael would never figure himself capable of such feat; but could the draegloth kill him? Ismael's hands fell to his sides, some borderline of acceptance, maybe something more of defiance and denial, "I'm not leaving you, Nashoba." Stern yet softer this time, Nash's home was a crowded place but the cambion took another half-step back as the draegloth fought within himself. "Nashoba," the transformation was this slow pull, the Cannibal's spine crackled, his maw lengthened and gaped, and it was as if the home would fall apart beneath the draegloth as Ismael grasped to the one inkling of hope that this was his true name, after all.

Nash wasn't sure what had Ismael staying right now, but he wouldn't really question it. Some people just had hearts too big for their damn bodies. The veterinarian was one of those people no matter how much he liked to teach the draegloth some sort of lesson. Still, here they stood in the midst of him about to shift and the cambion still wouldn't leave. He knew he was stubborn, but he was almost positive that Ismael was even more so than him. Maybe that was why the other was so damn drawn to him. He chose not to acknowledge at the moment that it went both ways, but, well, that was the case, it seemed. His spine cracked and his maw started to lengthen. The pain was, as usual, excruciating, but he had become so desensitized to it that it didn't even matter. His voice was almost nothing more than a growl as he spoke again. "You need to let go." He didn't want to hurt Ismael. Physically, at least. Or, well, anything else honestly, but as much control as he had in his draegloth form, he could still hurt people that got in the way whether he wanted to or not. "Ismael, go," was all he said as his arm snapped out of the halfblood's hand and he fell to the ground on all fours. "Get out."

[ismaelabdel]

Ismael tames a genuine laugh at her indifferent candor, though the arch of her brows tells all he's ever known about Blair. Two cambion's who seemed so vastly different falling into a rhythm of unlikely friends; both never seemed to buy into the romanticism of Camp Halfblood. Quaint and charming, Ismael wouldn't find himself above the place, but it sort of felt like sitting around akin to sitting ducks. "Sounds like a suicide mission to me, but you're more than capable," her unique ability often had Ismael seeing her as some powerful rarity amongst them. "Discover any escaped criminals lurking or interrupt some dark ritual?" Within Rome, crazier things could be believable, so his sarcastic questions were no longer a far fetch from reality.

"It means you can't add the 'religious trauma' patch to your Halfblood Scouts sash." It's said with a raise of her brows and she can't help but think of it that way, from the outside. 'Camp Halfblood', that's what everyone called that place. She'd never been to any kind of 'camp' but from what she knows, Mutat Dormun is more of a dormitory for the lost little halfbloods. Blair isn't lost and she doesn't quite need whatever guidance or whatever everyone is seeking there. "Every day is exactly the same." She admits, nodding a little as she thinks further on it. "And if I'm not trudging to the clinic with you, you've left me to resort to spelunking in caves to shake things up a bit."

[ismaelabdel]

"What do you want me to say?" Exasperated, it often didn't take much to whittle the Innocent down, this aggrieved air about him. "There are some doors that should stay closed," another warning to Isabella's third jab, "Cut and clean process that way." He nodded, she was always all business, even when the minutes on the clock for some therapy session wasn't ticking it seemed, "See - you gotta give, as well, I can't be the only one handing in off-the-record confessions here."

"But a burden shared is a burden lightened." It's one last jab, a reminder that for as much as she is working in Lupercal in a doctor capacity, she is a fully certified therapist and she can see the way he is bending underneath the weight of memories. Altogether, all she can hope is that he does not break under the pressure, or that he has someone to pick up the pieces when he does. "Not that I am aware, but frankly, if I am the first one to do so, I would not be surprised. The more you know, and all."

[ismaelabdel]

Anger, grief, it was all swallowed by this net of anxiety that now swirled around him; everywhere Ismael turned the Archfiend greeted him, with his mother's presence surrounding them. This sense of no escape, of having to face what was before him as though the Innocent could navigate himself out of the mental web the Archfiend had created. Strained, jaw clenched, the cambion picked up the glass by it's fragile stem, "To the Abyss in the hopes it will take down those who think they are strong enough to meddle with it." Namaah and any archfiend included within that. Something, something, stare into the abyss and it will also stare back unto you. If there was one true meaning spliced within his own calloused words, it was the hope that Ismael would not fall to cruelty, would not lose his compassion, in his own plight against such abyssal forces.

Even as Ismael turned, and no matter how often he turned, the cambion would be confronted with the same vision of the archfiend standing before him. Leaned against the side of the balcony with the shot in his hand and Namaah's tray, offering Ismael another. "I insist." Ba'al instructed; there was a lesson here muddled in with a test; the ruler of the eighth circle had a preference for pushing at people's limits. Placing them in situations and seeing what they would choose to do. Namaah placed her free hand on Ismael's arm and asked, her son if he had anything that he wanted to celebrate. It was just about the New Year, now was the time to make resolutions.

[ismaelabdel]

Every sensible and reasoned piece of Ismael fell away the more they lingered upon each other, flush bodies, wandering limbs; the End truly seemed as some faraway terror that was no longer linear to this frangible piece of time shared between them. Ismael was an infernal creature, so often he'd found himself on the very outside of affections, of love, a cambion mistreated by mere rumors of the infernal blood distilled within him. Something weaned off of violence, reared within the den of Tiber lycans, yet a creature who seemed incapable of possessing such truculence. To have been treated as a weapon, it had warped him, the cambion indescribably marked by the handling of the Great Old Ones, but within each kiss upon Circe's lips was this searing forgiveness towards a promise not fulfilled.

War was not something that garnered any predictability and Ismael so often bled forgiveness, bled compassion, understanding. The shirt was slipped from his frame, his own insistent hands returning the very favor as they were momentarily separated. His eyes took in the ethereal beauty a goddess could only garner, something otherworldly, something a creature from infernal means did not deserve. He almost laughed then, it came as some breathless chuckle, shaking his head as the vulnerability sank in around them. Ismael understood now the ridiculous stories filtered through history, the very reality of how a goddess could simply command a mortal from the beauty they naturally possessed. Inspiring armies, razing villages as though it'd allow them to be at the mercy of a goddesses command. He too felt akin to some fool, at the mercy of a goddess; something mortal struck now within the orbit of hurtling bolide.

Any infernal piece of him should have clashed with ever godly aspect of Circe, but here they met within some sordid middle ground, did not fall to the trivial absurdity of infernal versus divine. Strong arms pulled the goddess towards him now, a sturdy frame her greeting as he kissed the slope of her neck, the sharp curve of her shoulder, a hand pulled at the flimsy lace which was the only thing which now covered Circe, while the other hand that had looped around her could pop the button of his own pants.

Love had, for so long, been a betrayal to Circe. From the familial love that was meant to be there for eternity, to the love that she had so freely given out. From the human that she had turned divine, to those that had stumbled upon her island with sweet lies upon their tongues. Over and over, love had betrayed her. Had reared its ugly head to push her further away from its warm embrace. Years had turned to decades, which eventually turned to centuries, and still, Circe had remained upon her island. With only her plants, and the wolves, and the men that she had cursed into pigs to keep her company. Love had been a lost gift to her. Until Nashoba had turned up within her life, into the freedom that she had seized when the seraphim had turned away. With the blood of his own kind upon his teeth, with destruction in his eyes, he had not been the love that Circe had anticipated.

Nor had Ismael. For though she had promised herself to not fall so easily, had she not done exactly that? When she had recited to him the knowledge that she had, or when she'd joined him upon that dance floor. Or when she had promised to return to him, to protect him. To not allow them to be separated. Perhaps that is why she drew him ever closer, pulled him into her for fear of the space that may expand between them. Or perhaps because she had longed to do precisely this from the moment that he had returned to her little shop, again, and again, and again. A creature of infernal birth that barely reached the cusp of what Circe had seen throughout her existence. Everything that Nashoba was, Ismael proved to be nearly the exact opposite. As if they combined were precisely what Circe had been seeking all her life.

His hands were on her, a burning path created as they moved along her hip. Along what was offered to him, as her own hands moved against his warmth. Her fingers drew soft paths, slow, despite the years that she had unknowingly been waiting for him. Until she could not house the virtue any longer, as fingers curled into his shirt. As she pulled it up, towards her with the very want for him to remove it entirely. Which would mean that she would need to stop kissing him, and that seemed a cruel punishment for the want of something more.

[ismaelabdel]

Ismael frowned deeply at that as Lilith cut through his obvious deflection via jokes. She'd made herself a presence in Ismael's life, infrequent but a true constant as the First Demon found herself fond of Namaah's child; the only one the succubus attempted to truly raise out of her entire lot. The cambion had been coined the Innocent and even through the torture of the End he lived up to such moniker by breezing by the fact that Lilith, with all her strings upon the universe, had not attempted to salvage him from the very fate. "I don't know," harsher than intended, Ismael was tired of the sad looks he often got by those who knew, but it felt even worse to be scrutinized by Lilith now. "I can't sleep," if he lied Ismael was well aware she could weave into his mind and find her indelible truths, "I've just been pouring myself into my work; ignorance is bliss, right?"

"Aren't you already at the mercy of them?" For how many of them had the power to change their destiny, to take their own thread within their hands and make it what they wanted? The battle of the end had come, and had he not fallen victim to the Old Gods? Her lips pressed together at the thought, at the knowledge that he had become a pawn in the war that had been necessary. The child of a demon that meant a great deal to her, and Lilith had not made the move to retrieve him from his prison, so to speak. "Am I not always kind?" There was a look of offense that splashed across her features, before she moved to lift herself up onto the counter, "And how are these memories treating you?"

[ismaelabdel]

OA Zidan in FBI 4x20 “Ghost from the Past”

[ismaelabdel]

Ismael knew she was otherworldly from the very moment he'd stumbled upon her shop, a beacon of beauty and of substantial knowledge, Circe was a gemstone hidden within the melting pot that was Rome. He understood, since the End, that many were called here as though they could salvage an eons old pressure cooker from erupting, but there was once a sense of gratitude at having stumbled upon the goddess, at having been accepted by her despite the infernal blood which encroached upon his mortal roots. In a simple reasoning, the cambion had to know her, her herbal work was something that may have been insipid knowledge to many but Ismael asked eagerly, found his attraction to her grow under the mere basis that was Circe talking about her eons old passion.

Doomed, damned by the fates, cursed by the supposed Graeae; it hardly mattered to Ismael as the cambion was finally able to kiss upon her. Whatever relationship devised between them may have felt the weight of the world upon it, the timeline-that-wasn't, the blood on both of their hands as they merely tried to survive. He'd shed away each layer of tainted ichor as they each shed their clothes, Circe's kissing searingly apologetic as the goddess promptly pulled him flush against her once more. The weight of his frame fell naturally between her thighs, goosebumps betraying him as her hand fell beneath the fabric of his shirt to trail along the infernal warmth of his skin. Ismael's own hand slipped up to squeeze her hip, to roam each divot and mound as though he were mapping her frame to memory, a slow advance as though time had ceased around them and they'd all the time in the world to utter silent apologies and confessions within the clinic's spare room.

Had she thought about this moment, considered it since they had shared their first kiss upon the dance floor? Circe would have been a fool to deny that yearning that had settled within the core of her being. For another kiss, for something more. Ismael had swept into her life as seemingly an intrigued patron of her shop, with questions of how she could possibly know which plant would produce which sort of remedy. Day after day, he had returned to her shop. And day after day, he had burrowed more soundly within her being. As if he had always belonged there, as if he had filled in that empty space so profoundly within her heart. Nashoba had taken root so many centuries ago, and perhaps she hadn't yet realized the small hole that had still lingered even after he had.

Fingers danced across her jaw, an arm pressed against the curve of her back, daring to pull her ever closer. Yet little space remained between the pair, bodies pressed ever so tightly together. Even as he shifted, as did she with him. Legs moved to curl themselves around his middle, arms draped across his shoulders and splayed against his back. Her lips did not leave him, even as they slipped from his own to move against his jaw, down his neck. Each kiss held its own apology, its own promise that Circe would never leave him. Would never dare to let the future repeat itself, not if she were capable of writing it herself. And as she met the bed beneath her, she drew him down with her, into her as her lips returned to his own. As her hands trailed down his lengthy frame until she could slip her hands beneath his shirt, against the warmth of his skin shielded from her.

[ismaelabdel]

Elijah had always been strangely reliable; Ismael wasn't sure why so many demons felt privy to adopt them under his wing, but he knew it wasn't as simple as his infernal blood which tethered him to their brood. All the same, the cambion smiles weakly, an expectant look gracing his features as he wonders what Elijah has since heard through the grapevine. Ismael rolled his eyes, a playful gesture as he shrugged, "I've never cared for all that mess of vampires and politics, they're all so far up each others asses, it's ridiculous." The cambion side-eyed Elijah, however, softly grinning, "Do you really think the hotel is haunted?"

"Gossip it is, then," Elijah acquiesces with a nod, dragging a chair next to Ismael and falling into it as he places a reassuring arm around the other's shoulder. It's the mildest form of comfort he can show, to be present and available for whatever he wants, but there are a rare few people that Elijah cares about to be readily available for and this cambion is one of them. He will be there for him, even when he cannot talk about what befell him long after Elijah has lost his afterlife. "You cannot believe who I have heard arrived to Rome," he sighs dramatically. "It seems that we have been graced by yet another magister, one that owns the haunted hotel at that. There is bound to be drama there. And that is without counting the fun mess of Saturnalia."

[ismaelabdel]

"I'm learning it's a halfblooded thing to be traumatized by religion, so what do you think is wrong with me to have been spared?" A teasing retort, Ismael is certain that the only reason he's a highly functioning adult is because the cambion had the smarts to tuck and run when he was still an adolescent. The miracle that, surrounded by a den of lycans in a dive bar, he'd managed to come out the other side this well rounded, is hard to grasp but Ismael would take his humbled beginnings over what his cubi mother may have actually planned out for his upbringing any day. "Isn't that the problem? I'm back in my routine, moving on, but it feels like I'm just trudging up the mountain, the boulder on my back; something has to give," Ismael frowned, inevitably forcing a weak smile to come about, "Yeah, I tried to drag you with me but they only need my doctor expertise there. Something about lycans needing yearly shots and all that. It feels a little dehumanizing to them but," the cambion held his hands up as though in mock surrender.

"Hey, I spent ample time around religious nutjobs, who is to say God doesn't appear to us in a form we are comfortable with but wouldn't recognize?" Her brows raise as she nods knowingly and it's only a little teasing because she's got a ton of theories about what comes after. Sitting back in her chair, Blair's legs cross at the ankle and she's pursing cracked lips as her free hand slides the pawprint charm on her necklace up and down the chain idly. "We're all alive I guess. I guess it's just a matter of moving on." On to the next big thing or whatever. Back to work, to fights at Dante's, to bananas going too bad on her counter to become banana bread. "I heard there's a clinic in Lupercal now, I take it you're helping out?"

[ismaelabdel]

"Fire hydrant calendar," sometimes it was okay for Ismael to make some abysmal lycan-dog joke; he'd grown up around the majority of the Tiber lycans to justify it. Ismael scoffed softly, it revolved upon a door of fondness but it was rife with residual pain, "We're both very busy people but that doesn't mean out friendship is ending." The Innocent was actively avoiding everyone, Cloe was no exception but he was also human enough to loathe being called out upon it. "How have you been since..." Ismael gestured, it was hard for him to encapsulate her eladrin powerup, the possession of the elder gods, and everything else endured.

"Not even the pictures or the posters? Should I get you the fireman's calendar to spice things up? I am sure your patients would love to see that." She thinks, at least. Cloe has never quite understood the whole fireman calendar popularity, but she can admit that the men are cute. Her attempt to levity falls flat and her shoulders raise and fall helplessly as she looks up too meet his eyes, a rueful twist to her lips as she sighs. "I still wanted to apologize, even if you don't want to talk about it. And you are not getting rid of me, sorry. I miss you and I don't want our friendship to end up like— Like this."

[ismaelabdel]

The animals within the clinic picked up upon Lilith before the aspect had made herself visibly known. The pen situated in Ismael's hand was placed carefully over the paperwork he'd been filling out, quirking a brow as though the offer was ridiculous to even consider. It'd be nice, selfish even, for his memories to be plucked out by their very root; but what worth would it be if it doomed him to commit the very same mistakes? "Wouldn't I just be at the mercy of the Fates then?" A bitter grin resounded at that, if he couldn't learn from the horrors endured then it'd all be for naught no matter how she tinkered with his mind. "Though, that's kind of you," duplicitous, surely; Namaah had had plenty of stories to tell about the first demon, first person accounts of Lilith's manipulative ways, but Ismael never judged a book by their clear and prevalent rumors; no wonder he'd been coined the Innocent.

where. lil clinic who. @ismaelabdel

The clinic reeked of various animals, some even with supernatural qualities. Lilith had heard the good doctor spent some of his time with the lycans, tending to their wounds and the like. How very noble of him. Though, she cared little to what happened to the mutts now; she had done her part, given them a chance. How easily they had crumbled. "I will only extend this offer once," she stated as she moved within the clinic, heels audible against the floors. "I can take away your memories, give you a chance at something... different."