Informational - mostly for my own records.
Kaden's Calling is incredibly strong, for an Angel of Knowledge Calling -- or really, any angel Calling. It's something that over the nine years he's had it, he's learned to deal with, even if it's only gotten worse since then. He manages to repress it fairly well, most of the time, so now it comes on in stages. Sooo I'm going to detail those, mostly for my own sanity when it comes to tagging.
1. The Calling 'at rest', as it were, is mostly just a constant thirst in the back of his mind to know more. About what, it doesn't really care, though he particularly latches onto vulnerabilities and discomfort. This is where the Calling sits when he gets 'enough' sleep -- six-ish hours -- and actually remembers that coffee is not a viable substitute for food.
2. The first indication that it's coming on is itching. His shoulderblades and wingscars will start to itch, beginning at just a low annoyance and getting to the point where he can't help but twitch or rub at said itching because it's nearly unbearable. There's often a corresponding itch in his hands, which is the need to record everything around him for further perusal later.
3. This is when the first minor surges will start; the itching will start traveling down his arms in waves, to meet up with the corresponding feeling in his fingertips. The surges are few and far between, and he can usually control the need to scratch. Recording is more difficult not to do.
4. Eventually, as the surges get closer together, the itching turns into a tingling, pins and needles feeling. Kind of the sort of pins and needles that happens when one's foot wakes up from being asleep -- slightly painful, but nothing too big. Just infinitely more annoying than the itching, is all, and significantly more dangerous. This is when it moves from being a need to record to a need to hurt.
5. Around now is when he starts getting very faint tunnel perception, in that it's hard to concentrate on more than one thing at once, with that thing he's concentrating on usually being someone else in pain. Or Lily. He can still hold a perfectly normal conversation and all, but it's hard for him to pull his perception away from one thing to focus on another, and then go back, etc.
5. Kaden can stay at that stage -- the tingling-with-surges -- for quite awhile. However, if he goes longer denying it, it eventually moves into painful pins and needles, so it's difficult to touch things. The tingling also stays in his arms and isn't just isolated in his hands and shoulders. It also can crawl up his neck, into his jaw/scalp, and across his torso. The surges get a lot closer together, and a lot worse.
6. The tunnel perception then gets a lot worse, so that he'll focus on something to the exclusion of all else. This is usually his point of no return, or about where he starts needing to reset. This is also the point at which he's only getting a couple hours of sleep per night, barely remembering to eat, and has picked up his smoking habit again.
7. After that, the tingling starts getting bad enough that if he doesn't do something every now and then, even if it's just record for a half an hour, he'll start going slightly numb. This mostly applies to his hands, but he's lost feeling in his face or just in patches of skin/muscle before. If you see him and he seems distracted and keeps dropping shit, this is probably the stage he's in.
8. This is when the Calling-ADD kicks in, as well, and he's suddenly unable to keep the tunnel perception from flitting from one person's pain to another to another to that one over there and oh what was that over there? It's always some kind of pain or distress, but he's hyperaware of all of it around him and he can't quite stop himself from zeroing in on any available. In general, this is when he starts using, if only to get himself to focus on one thing at once godammit. And the drugs, in turn, make him feel like he doesn't need to eat or sleep ever again, which in turn pushes the Calling forward even more.
9. It's around this point at which he has trouble keeping his wings in even if he's not doing anything, and most likely his shoulderblades are completely numb and have been for days, except for the occasional sharp deep-tissue pain from his wings wanting out. He'll have trouble hanging onto anything, as his hands are more than likely tingly numb as well. 50% of what he records will wind up being gibberish, also.
10. Simultaneous with 9, the Calling moves from surging to just pulsing. Or rather, the surges get close enough together that they're really just pulsing along with his heartbeat. That's usually accompanied with blood rushing in his ears as well, in time with the pulses (and, obviously, his heartbeat).
11. This is the point at which he's basically incapable of fighting it anymore. Full tunnel perception, so he ignores anything except what he's looking at/concentrating on (usually an experiment). He's unable to keep his wings in anymore, so they're out whether he likes it or not, and he's completely unable to control them. (They have a specific pattern of stretching allll the way out to their full length (backwards, not to the side), then pulling in, then mantling, then pulling in. A few moments of stillness, and then they twitch rather violently and do it all over again. This is if he's staying still; if he's not, they tend to react with how he moves.) The Calling's just pulsing, faster than before and sometimes faster than his own heartbeat. He stops being able to process external input correctly; it's hard to figure out what people are saying to him no matter what language they're speaking, and he can barely concentrate long enough to read. He also cannot record in this state; nearly all of it makes no sense after he comes down. His hands are most likely close to numb, but if he's exercising the Calling, he gets the feeling back in them; then they're just painfully tingly.
12. If it gets bad enough, or he allows himself to go without sating the Calling for a long time, he'll be unable to pull himself back from this last stage. The Calling will drive him further than he planned, physically torturing people (once to the point at which he almost Fell) and doing his best to make sure anyone around him is miserable. He's incapable of picking targets when the Calling is in full force; he'll just take whoever's closest to him, fuck them over, and then move onto the next person.
It's rare that he gets to 12 -- usually he lets go and spends a night at 11, high from both drugs and the torture and the Calling, then lets himself crash and sleep for a few days straight to get everything back to 'normal'. He's been at 12 twice in his life; after Lily left, and when he almost Fell. He hasn't allowed himself to get that bad again, though he nearly did after his two-and-a-half-months-with-no-reset stint he recently pulled.