citylogs | [Open] with some [Closed] prompts

There are stranger places to find Aziraphale than in a mall, glaring daggers at a chocolate display, but nothing is coming to mind at the moment. Usually Aziraphale is delighted by the prospect of chocolate - Crowley has certainly kept his angel well-stocked in the very best from Teuscher and Vosges and that one little shop down the block that does the best chocolate covered coffee beans that has not changed its recipe in the seventy years it's been in business despite changing hands between at least 15 different, unrelated owners, and it's always gone down a treat.

But then his eyes wander up to the familiar label of overpriced and overrated haute garbage.

"You know, angel," he says, a solicitous palm resting on the small of his back, feather-light because Crowley is still trepidatious about this Thing between them, but still very solid and real and there, "you can do better than Godiva. I was just in an art store, there's some very pretty chalks that would have more flavour than what they've got here."

It's like if someone condensed Heaven into a sweet, really. That might seem like a compliment at first, but Crowley's been in Heaven; it's bland, inoffensive, unfulfilling, and not worth the price of admission.

Crowley is not a strong believer in the concept of 'empty calories' but Godiva chocolates have very nearly managed to turn that around.

"Their liqueurs aren't bad though. Good in hot cocoa at the very least."

Rubbish.

It just seems so strange to him that in a city capable of constantly supplying food through impossible, infeasible means, that it would favour American products. That is, unless there is some shop somewhere or other that's been neatly tucked away and out of sight. Otherwise there appears to be a clear and noticeable bias.

There is a lot that could be said about a lack of taste. Just as there is a lot that Aziraphale has to remark about when it comes to those deceitful little treats, masquerading as anything but American chocolate.

He's in the middle of some very unkind thoughts as he flicks his gaze back over the stand, looking at his options with displeasure. Then a hand presses against his back and Aziraphale isn't all that interested in thinking about the chocolate any more.

"So you'd feed me chalk then?" he asks, looking over to his friend.

"Nonsense," Crowley says, his hand settling now as he passes Aziraphale a slim plastic bag. "Got you some nice paper if you're feeling peckish."

Or rather a sketchbook, a tin of pencils, and a gum eraser.

"If not, you could always draw on it."

He's cavalier as ever about giving gifts, but not so about the light, fond kiss he presses to Aziraphale's temple the way he's always wanted to do every time they've met up at the park or for lunch or at the theatre or all the little haunts they shared through the years. The way he's especially wanted to when he crossed the threshold into their little sanctuary of the book shop, and Aziraphale was settled in his favourite chair by his desk looking particularly enticing when lost in a book.

Now they just... can. This is theirs.

I'm so glad it's you, Crowley thinks to himself, it couldn't be anyone else. But I'm so, so glad it's you.

There were plenty of clever quips that Aziraphale could have offered, insouciant as ever about receiving little gifts. This was an almost too well practised dance between them, one that required them to never deviate from the steps.

Yet they still danced. It was better to dance a lacklustre dance than to not dance at all, after all.

Aziraphale is about to take the next practised step, to make an unfavourable comparison and catty statement about chocolate mostly for the sake of amusing his friend, but then Crowley steps first.

It's a different step.

A sudden dip and a twirl placed in an otherwise tired routine. It's a little exhilarating and nerve-wracking at the same time. So is the reminder that they could move however they'd like.

He lets out a quiet, breathless laugh as he catches Crowley by the wrist.

"Thank you," Aziraphale says, tone immensely fond. His hand lingers, just holding him for a moment. Simply because he may.

Edited 2023-08-30 06:14 (UTC)

How such a small thing can feel so monumental, how such a little brush of his lips to the side of Aziraphale's head can leave him feeling giddy, that the ghost of a few stray hairs still tickling his lips leaves him incandescent with exhilaration.

These small things they have been starved of for millennia, things so many take for granted, and yet Aziraphale could never just take Crowley's wrist as he does now, could never hold him in his hand.

Look at them and their little rebellions. Lucifer would shit himself with envy if he ever stooped to having bowels.

"Any time, angel. You looked like you could do with some new supplies."

His wrist slides up until their palms are pressed together, fingers laced, as feels right and proper. Holding hands out in the open like this should set off every instinctual alarm bell he has (and he has a lot), and yet he feels safer than ever as that roiling chaos in him that has defined the entire background radiation of his existence since the Fall finally settles.

"Want to nick something boozy for your hot cocoa?"

A demon is still going to demon.

"We might as well."

An obvious answer. Crowley had hardly even needed to ask. With how aggressively dull the nights are without any books to read or any glimmer of nightlife to speak of, alcohol was simply a necessity to have on hand. They really ought to grab some extra all things considered.

Aziraphale is about to suggest the notion of making hot toddies (to keep with the theme), but something in the air changes. Shifts in such a noticeable way that Aziraphale thinks he might be able to feel all the hairs on his vessel standing on end.

Then there is a scraping noise, sharp and metallic.

He can feel his hand tighten on Crowley's as his head sharply turns to look for the source.

"Did you hear that?"

The other shoe finally finally drops.

Crowley had been waiting for it to, knew that it, inevitably, would. Because this place felt wrong; pieced the echo of either previous inhabitants, or put together from bits of other worlds like a jigsaw with all it's pieces from a different box. From a distance, it looked like a city, but cities were living, breathing things, built on foundations of countless lives lived before. A long-lived organism, thriving or festering depending on the time and place, but so very alive.

This city was like a carcass. No, not even a carcass because those still invited life; bugs and fungus and decay. This place was like sun-bleached bones, picked clean. Sterile. Deader than dead. Maybe the bones would one day fossilize into stone, but whatever had inhabited them once was long gone.

Now something was trying to get these bones to get up, to move around, to imitate the facsimile of life without really understanding what it is to live.

The scraping sound has Crowley moving in front of Aziraphale, searching, searching and -- there. A distant silhouette in the gloom. Not a person and not in the way Aziraphale, himself, and a handful of others aren't people, but in a very distinct way he can't describe.

It's some part of a relief to have his paranoia confirmed. He also really hates it.

"Angel," he says, "I reckon we might want to cut this little shopping trip short."

The exit isn't far.

Or it wasn't. Were there always so many stores between them and the main entrance...?

There is something striking about the fact that Crowley chooses to stand in front of him, immediately providing a shield for him through his own vessel. For as much as it lights him up inside, like a lightbulb with just a little too much power, it also bothers him. That's not what he wants for him. Not what he wants in general.

He's swift to grab an umbrella from a nearby caddy, pulling it off the rack with the plastic still attached and all. Aziraphale would rather not grab anything at all, but there's a niggling feeling in his chest that demands that he does. A part of him that's bracing for an unpleasant confrontation.

The scraping continues; a long, purposeful drag of a sound.

"I believe this might be the mall's way of deciding that for us," Aziraphale comments. He's trying to be light about it, but there's a rapidly blooming sense of dread within him. "We can get drinks elsewhere."

Then, from a distance, there's an echo of Crowley's voice.

"Leaving already, Angel?" it asks, the voice both right and wrong at the same time.

There's always something very jarring about hearing your own voice. It's always just that bit off from how you think you sound, but this is some new level of uncanny.

And what is that scraping sound?

It doesn't matter, Aziraphale has already grabbed a makeshift weapon and Crowley is ushering back the way they came, away from whatever is talking with his voice. The dark and spooky mall should have been their first indication that something was wrong but apparently they were so used to things in the city being odd but otherwise harmless, they thought it wouldn't be too bad.

They really are a pair of idiots.

"Definitely leaving, let's go Aziraphale."

It doesn't need to be said twice. Whatever will to fight might have been festering within him burns out the very moment that he recognises the imitation of Crowley. That's not an opponent Aziraphale thinks that he could fight. There's just something too harrowing about that.

Something that would feel like a betrayal.

"Mhm," is all he says as he grabs onto Crowley's sleeve. He'll teleport the both of them out, neither of them could afford a potential misfire considering the current situation.

Except that doesn't work. There is a familiar chime and the usual rush of power, but then it fizzles out into nothing.

Aziraphale's grip tightens on Crowley.

"I'm not able. Teleport us out," he urges.

Crowley doesn't even need to be told - he's drawing his hand up in the familiar gesture. He knows it's going to bounce off whatever is inhibiting their powers and it bounces hard.

There is a sensation that goes something like whoomph, which abruptly knocks all three of them back.

On the bright side, Crowley had the foresight to brace himself against the backfiring miracle and the resulting rush of air put a bit more distance between them and his doppelganger. He's already scrambling to his feet, offering Aziraphale a hand up.

"Got to leg it," he grunts, still a bit winded from the blow. The exit wasn't far, they'd only been in the mall half an hour!

Not ideal.

Aziraphale had been fairly confident that Crowley could relocate them. Nowhere good, probably, but at least away from here and from something that Aziraphale could firmly say he wanted nothing to do with.

Instead his back is hitting the floor and they're not really any better off than they were a moment ago.

"Great," Aziraphale says, not hesitating to grab onto Crowley's hand. He's up on his feet again as quickly as he can manage, unwilling to linger too long.

"Why is it you?"

A department store in the mall is a great place to lose a particularly persistent pursuer, and Crowley is a master of wriggling his way out of trouble.

...For the most part.

There's an unholy racket from outside the supply closet that sounds like someone who is approximately 70% limbs slamming blindly into a coat rack and toppling ass over tit with it, accompanied by muffled rude language.

There is the approach of footsteps and the closet door swings open, and for a moment, Crowley is dumbfounded at the sight of another person.

"Oh thank... someone, you're human. Budge up, I think I lost it back in home goods, but I'm sure it's got the scent again."

By now, Vanessa has lost all sense of propriety. Her tangled hair is loose, her dress has ink stains, and she's had to make do with using the washroom sinks to keep herself clean. If only Vanessa could appreciate the 'modern' conveniences on hand, but everything here is too bright, too exposed, too loud.

Perhaps it would be best to simply curl up under the pile of coats and go to sleep; at this point it's so very tempting. Better to return to her nightmares. At least there, Ethan wasn't the enemy. It is a concept she can't accept, and there's a redness around her eyes from old tears shed over the torment — for him, for Mina.

But there's no time anymore for tears or sleep, no matter how exhausted she is. She isn't alone, and it's a voice that's familiar in a different sense from home. She's heard him on the network, and the knowledge that he isn't a ghost from home immediately calms her. When she stands up to shake off a letterman jacket, though, she doesn't expect to spot the figure speaking to her...to be standing in a closet.

"It?"

Does he mean to suggest they're all the same entity? She had assumed a curse of sorts, but that isn't quite the same.

"It, they, whatever's been chasing us around the mall," Crowley explains, "it isn't friendly. Come on, before it gets us both."

He has been smote once today by the illusory hand of God. He'd prefer not to repeat the process, and negotiating with stubborn humans really is not on the agenda for today.

There's a distant crash that sounds like something rummaging through the cookware looking for a particularly elusive demon that escaped its clutches.

She may normally hesitate to hide in a closet with a practical stranger, especially when she knows it's no long term plan, but she can't think so long as she's forced to race around to avoid the clutches of this building's curse. Pushing her hair out of her face, Vanessa hurries into the closet with him, pulling the door shut behind her with a shaken sigh.

"Thank you."

She keeps her voice to a whisper, softening the edge of her rasp. Of course, she doesn't know what she should be grateful for anymore. It isn't as though she fears death itself, but she refuses to die at the hands of her captors if she can't take them down with her. For that, she needs their true forms, not their mirages.

The proximity is a bit tight, but not impossible. Enough that she might be able to consider remaining here for a bit. Would it be possible to rest her eyes for a few minutes? No, she still knows too little about her companion other than his familiarity with literature and book stores.

"Has it hurt you?"

Naturally, she's a bit concerned. It's a focus that can break through the jumble of her own fears.

Edited 2023-08-22 01:58 (UTC)

Crowley hesitates. It hadn't hurt him, nothing had been done to him physically. But in a flash, he'd got to re-experience that feeling of spiritually being cracked open and severed from all encompassing Love, before being thrown away like garbage into pit of boiling sulfur.

It was an echo of the Fall, the worst had long since already happened, but between Aziraphale vanishing and that, Crowley is a little... on edge.

He peers out the keyhole once they're both safely inside. He can still hear it - whatever it really is shuffling around somewhere, but it's further away now. Either it's toying with him, or hiding actually works.

He wants it to be the latter.

"Yeah. Reckon whatever it is, it's whole purpose is to purpose is to hurt us."

He pulls away from the door, and sinks down across from Vanessa.

"...And you? You look as though you've been having a time of it."

Towards the back of the closet, she's glancing over the supplies for anything that might seem useful, but she doesn't recognize the chemicals on the bottles. The mop bucket, overturned, can at least provide a seat, to which she'll momentarily settle. Palm pressed to her temple, Vanessa blinks back the migraine that has been threatening since the day before. She knows what it is, she knows why it is. How tired she is of running and hiding, how much she wants to end this now, but thus far any attempts have left her more helpless.

That thing that lives within cannot stay asleep. Even now, supposedly hidden in this tiny room, it convulses and hisses as though she still walks over burning coals with bare feet.

Blinking into the darkness, having long since adjusted, she nearly smiles at his remark. 'Having a time'. How often she carries a curse alone, but now everyone around her has been infected with it. Even now, she feels guilty for it. Even now, she thinks this to be her doing. This world was made to twist her, and she can't let it manage, no matter whose blood spills.

"Aren't we all, then?"

Vanessa wonders, as she always will with the most interesting souls, which demons or monsters haunt their waking moments. Which ones haunt their nightmares? Are they the same as the sweet dreams? She wonders, but she doesn't ask. She dare not cause more pain than has already been delivered.

Instead, she pulls out a knife, but it's turned on herself as she makes a small cut to her thumb. She wants to confront the source. Whatever is out there taunting them is merely an illusion, she understands that now. Better to guard against it and seek the witches who cast this curse.

"This will help," is the most she offers in explanation as the blood begins to smear onto the wall. She's a fair enough artist; it may be easy to see what she's painting once she gets far enough along, even in the dark. The blood scorpion carries her power, and in such a small space, its strength is complete. Once she finishes, it should keep out any demonic forces—anyone who has been touched by Satan, who exists as more than human. Lucifer himself couldn't dare cross the barrier.

But it will take a few moments for her to finish. A few moments of grace.

A noise from outside draws him away from his spot to go peer out of the keyhole again, but he can't spot anything. The scent of blood also doesn't drag him away - he's learned that some humans just bleed for no good reason sometimes. Another one of Her petty little punishments for Eve's horrible transgression of Eating a Fruit While Pregnant.

Still an over-reaction, in his opinion. Everything was always such a production with Her.

"Mm," he agrees, as he lets Venessa do whatever it is she's doing. Everyone has their little rituals for feeling better in times of stress and the young lady looks like she's been through it. He's not going to judge; he'd be alphabetizing his music collection at the moment if he had the option.

He doesn't even notice the sudden, growing pressure, chalking it up to his own rattled nerves, until it's almost too much to bear. By the time he realizes something's going very wrong, it's too late; Vanessa is almost done.

"No, wait what are you --"

He's about to lunge forward, to miracle away the blood, but the rush of demonic power bounces clean off, and he suddenly finds himself flattened against the door as the anti-demonic field builds and builds.

"Erase it! Erase it! For fuck's sake!"

His lunge shocks Vanessa enough to send her reeling back, the bucket slipping out from under and sending her sprawling into a clatter of cleaning supplies. Pushing aside the broom crossing her vision, she can see now that her hiding partner is no human at all. The rush of her pulse floods out all sound, and her eyes widen with understanding. Finally, finally she has come across something familiar. Someone belonging to her oldest friends, oldest loves, oldest enemies.

"Demon."

She's been tricked. He must be the source. Whether he is Lucifer himself, or merely one of his pets, Vanessa has been left in a state these last days where mercy has long been snuffed out. There will be no more tricks. She wants out.

The bucket and bottles are shoved aside, and she moves forward on hands and knees. Slowly, she bares her teeth, all the image of a wild animal stifled in black lace. In hiding from whatever is out there, he's been caught with whatever is in here. Whatever that is, it stirs within to fill her bones and tense her muscles. The growl that escapes her is beyond human; it burrows into the shadows and claws at the ears.

The words that come next are old, but not as old as the evil that utters them. Her already raspy voice drops so low that it rakes the coals of Hell, with words spat out and gasped in guttural sounds no human should manage, with nails dragging against the ground until they bite bloody through her skirts.

"Etsi nüllaan an oge en...Kailfernum troovea eksdamnaskek!" I banish you now to the pit of Hell!

It's the language of angels torn down and corrupted into something perverse, and how fitting it is that she uses it against the most perverse creatures of all.

Edited (messed up a tense, cannot be allowed) 2023-08-22 19:07 (UTC)

It's not quite as bad as repeating the Fall; it does rank a close third, topped only by that time during the plague when Crowley sneezed and Aziraphale had reflexively blessed him.

They managed to put out the fire eventually.

The door hinges snap as Crowley goes flying, toppling various racks and displays as he skids across the linoleum. Unfortunately he's not banished to the pits of Hell. He does, eventually, come to a rolling stop at the foot of a help desk, having left his shades snapped in two and a trail of black feathers in his wake.

His wings did a good job shielding him from the worst of the chant, but it still feels like someone stuffed a hornet's nest inside his skull, and he might be smoking just a bit. He peers out from behind his wings, his snake eyes glowing like pools of sulfur in the gloom of the dimly lit mall.

"What the Heaven was that for...?" he hisses, gingerly getting to his feet. Oh ow, everything hurts. And his shoulder is on fire.

He blows that out right quick.

Edited 2023-08-22 19:44 (UTC)

The vision of black feathers cascading down draws Vanessa slowly to her feet, her gaze pinned on the demon as he further reveals the truth of his twisted existence. Something older than time watches from behind the mirrors in her eyes, and there is a pull. It wants to cradle him, to bring him to her bosom and whisper the love only a mother can give. Dear monster, sweet demon, you are mine. It wants to hold him so close, so close until his bones break and his gasps are blood and awe. Do you love me, child?

Her boots are silent as she steps through the doorway, slowly carrying her forward with a tilt to her head and pale eyes that refuse to blink. With lips curled in a snarl, she snaps and hisses, "Itsi sist." Stop.

She has forgotten of any monster that may be lurking beyond; it means nothing to her. This is the enemy, and she has been waiting for him. Her patience has run thin, and so has her mercy. The knife in her hand is clenched until knuckles are white as she stops to stare. Heaven, how dare he. Is this how a demon blasphemes? Is this Hell, after all? Some empty corner created just for her torment.

"Emi nebratronak nüllaan." I am your master now.

Edited (g-grammar) 2023-08-22 21:04 (UTC)

Crowley remembers a love like that; all encompassing, commanding, demanding, the kind of love he thought he couldn't live without. Unconditional love, they called it, but the terms and conditions just weren't written down until a good two thousand years later. Fine print.

Not that he could touch the books, so much as read them, but still.

He had a mother - or something like a mother - once long ago. But She'd cut him off, silenced his questions, cast him aside and thrown him away. He wonders if She ever realized all She'd really done is break his chains.

His body jerks to a halt at the command and he can feel the fetters closing in around his throat, and he staggers back.

"Ssstop it!" he hisses through clenched teeth. It feels like like sinking into a nice, hot bath, but Crowley struggles because it may as well be a tub full of poison. Or, more aptly, holy water.

In the end, even he cannot resist the compulsion to bend, to obey; it's something innate, hard-coded into his very being, and Vanessa's words are overriding every failsafe in him to get at that singular core of him.

His free will can't fight it, it just means he's alert and aware of whatever he's about to be forced into, and Crowley's terror is very, very real.

This is why he didn't want to bother with the ruse of being human and have his demonic nature to come as a surprise to people. This is the exact scenario he was worried about here in this place of people with special powers. He'd actually quite like it to come out on his own terms, preferably with some good distance and a screen between him and any potential angry mobs and a nice long AMA where he can clear up any misunderstandings.

If he survives this and gets out the mall, that's going to be the first thing he does.

It seems that even with her power stifled, she can manage enough to do what needs to be done. Vanessa is aware that time is of the essence, though. Nothing here is assured, not even death. She's had trouble believing such a thing could be possible.

That doesn't mean she isn't willing to find out. Perhaps his death will be the final one to free them all. But first she lets him cower, she lets him know of his mistake to underestimate her. Lucifer and his pets have always underestimated her, but that is because she had allowed it. For too long she thought she was powerless to his pull, but she has tasted the dark. She's embraced evil. It isn't his, it never was.

She birthed it, and she can end it.

Even as her lips twitch into something nearly resembling a smile, Vanessa's cheeks are damp from silent tears. Her heart is going to burst, and her blood will wash away the filth of this city. The thing in her bones screams for her child even as it wraps its claws around his throat and squeezes. The inner struggle nearly has her convulsing, both weeping and growling with her curses.

"Etsi an nat ashgagna non dünasse. Itsi maa’ ebdee nüllaan." You can't fight. You must die.

She shivers, the gaze of both eternity and finality keeping him ever in-between for a deathly silent stretch. Then, nothing but a whisper.

"Maa'."

Die.

Crowley screams.

It's anguish, pure and simple, but the thing about being a demon is that you really, really get used to that sort of thing. Crowley, in particular, has built up a bit of a tolerance over the centuries. Between his forays into holy cities, mad dashes across consecrated ground, and the general Torments of Hell whenever they managed to rumble some of his kinder deeds, Crowley can deal with pain.

After the initial burst of blinding, excruciating agony, things subside into a fairly typical migraine. That, and the spiritual fetters slide off as his own will takes back over.

"What," he says with just a bit of an indignant whine, "was that...?! ...Ow."

He winces. Right. Hurts to talk, hurts to move.

"You could have discorporated me," he snaps. "Do you know how much paperwork I'd be saddled with if you did that? That's if I even went back to Hell and wasn't stuck here floating around as a nebulous spirit-y thing without a body!"

He makes another sound of pain, rubbing his brow.

"Please tell me you have an aspirin on you."

For Aziraphale

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For Vanessa

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cw: blood, scorpion imagery, no-no magic

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