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[Open] with some [Closed] prompts

WHO: Crowley (

inlovewithmycar) & you & others

WHAT: August event log

WHERE: The Mall

WHEN: 19th - 26th

WARNINGS: Metaphors for religious trauma

Starters below...

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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."

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)

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.

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."

"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.

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."

Any momentary hope that begins to flower at the sound of his screams is flattened underfoot once the demon manages to recover. She's just about to repeat the curse, prepared to send him to his knees again and again until there's nothing left to beg. Then, he has the nerve to complain, and in such a way that it startles her out of her trance. The rush in her ears falls silent.

...Paperwork? Is he attempting to jest with her? This hasn't been Lucifer's way, but she can't discount that he's merely trying to confuse her. Nothing about this city has been his usual style of torture.

Blinking through her tears, Vanessa holds fast. Her eyes narrow.

"If you don't wish to die, then take me to him. Now."

"I'd love to," he simpers, with a sarcastic little bow and then begins to pace as is his wont when his anxiety mingles with his anger.

"One problem though -- you haven't exactly specified who the fuck he is! So! Can't exactly help you there."

And here comes the rant.

"Not that I'm particularly inclined anyway given I've lost my one bloody friend in this capitalist hellscape of a rat maze, and, oh, right. Nearly just got murdered for existing-while-demonic. So maybe consider we've all got our own little problems at the moment, hm?"

He finishes with a smile. Well, less a smile and more a pained grimace, but it should get the point across.

How does he have the nerve to complain and show indignancy when she can simply cast him to his knees again? It's likely meant to throw her off kilter, and it's working just enough that she doesn't immediately move back in for the kill. Even her tears have stopped, but the hatred still burns in her gaze.

She nearly takes a step back when he begins to pace, but her own indignancy pushes her forward instead, marching at him with intent to drive him back towards the desk. Small as she is, her shadow looms. He is wrong to think she will show mercy simply because he would rather not die.

"Cease your games. He wants me, does he not? The one you call master."

"Wait, hold up."

Crowley's pacing stops abruptly, and he looks Vanessa up and down like she may have grown a second head.

"Okay, right. Yeah. Might need to clarify a few things. First off, the word you're looking for is 'called'. Past tense. Retired. Don't have a master any more, not that I ever paid much more than lip service when that was technically the case. Hell wasn't any more my scene than Heaven."

Deep breaths Crowley. Deep breaths.

"Second; why would you want to go anywhere near Lucifer? Even if he's here - shit, he's not here is he? ...No, can't be, he'd have wrung my neck by now. Anyway. Point being, he's a bit of a tit. Do yourself a favour and give him a wide berth. He's probably still smarting from an eleven year old putting him in his place."

To be fair, it isn't the first time she's been appraised with that sort of look, and it's not going to be the last. To receive it from a demon, as if he didn't already know of her leaves her so befuddled that she halts her advance. The grip on her knife doesn't loosen, but words are becoming more difficult to find.

She cannot waver. He's attempting to trick her, to save himself. Perhaps even Lucifer's minions can be trapped here without their master, but what would that mean? If they are less favored, does that make them any less a demon? Does it make them less of a threat? Yet, she has trouble believing Lucifer would permit a creature like this to exist in any part of his realm. For all his lies, the dark prince's pride couldn't allow any of his minions to so openly insult him. He is nothing without belief, after all.

"I—" She stumbles over her response, but only for a moment, then lifts her chin with a glare that goes right through. It isn't for him. "I am through hiding. I have survived his torment for long enough, but he will not have my friend."

Her friend, dear Sir Malcolm, who she knows must be long dead by now. Yet she has to hold onto something, or else what is she fighting for?

"Tormenting you," Crowley echoes, his anger and frustration subsiding, replaced with a slow, dawning understanding.

Normally, he'd chalk it up to mental illness. Demons don't, as a rule, generally torment mortals. There's all sorts of rules and regulations about hauntings and possessions, otherwise a demon could find themself in a lot of trouble for breaking them. And Lucifer Himself sure wouldn't stoop to pestering mortals; that kind of dirty work was usually left to Crowley and his ilk.

Not that Crowley's torments mustered to much more than cut phone lines, bad traffic, and coins glued to the pavement. He'd learned a long time ago that humans were much, much better at thinking up horrible little ways to hurt each other all on their own, no demonic influence required. All Crowley had to do to keep his cushy little job on earth was be in the right place at the right time and take all the credit.

The commendations just rolled in.

"Look," he says like he's trying to talk someone back from whatever precarious ledge they've perched themself on, "whatever you think is going on here, isn't. And if my ex-boss is actually around in this city, then we're both in a lot of trouble."

He approaches, slowly, like one might approach a skittish deer, hands raised to show he isn't going to hurt her.

"We should find my friend, Aziraphale. He and I can keep you safe."

Probably. He's not actually sure what they could do against Lucifer, but he'd be blessed if they wouldn't try and at least put their heads together and come up with some harebrained scheme.

They were good at those.

Edited 2023-08-22 23:49 (UTC)

"No one can keep me safe."

A lesson painfully learned, and there is no stumbling over that claim. It is as resolute as her hatred. What else does she know for certain? She knows that she can make her own fate; she is the only one capable. It's why she seeks Satan and his little pets. And still, for a creature as this to even make such an offer? How twisted can it be?

Why would Lucifer go to such pains to confuse her when she is ready and willing to face him now?

The grip on the bloody knife weakens, and her shoulders sag. She is exhausted. It's unknown when she last slept, and this isn't the first blood sigil she has cast. To that, the summoning of Verbis Diablo draws so deeply from her being that it leaves her shaken once she permits herself to feel again. Trembling, too baffled to know how to respond, she backs away.

"He is here, I know he is. This is his dollhouse. Even in silence, he taunts me."

Silence, she says, just as a loud clatter startles her into looking away. Someone several aisles over seems to have tripped over something. Someone that fills her with the same dread she felt earlier.

"Miss, I really think you have the wrong idea, this place isn't connected to Heaven or He --"

The clatter has Crowley freeze like a deer in headlights, his head swiveling to the source the commotion.

Oh that's just what they need. Of course the commotion they made would attract whatever's stalking them! Of course! Like this day couldn't get any worse!

He shakes a few loose feathers from his wings, blessing under his breath. Honestly, all this stress can't be good for him; he's even starting to moult. He hasn't done that since the Fall.

"Right. Yeah. We need to run. Now. You can do the pity party later, let's go."

"No. No, I am through with running."

Said with as much certainty as with her 'pity party', and she's ready to march past this demon with a demand for him to stay away, only for every nerve inside of her to begin pricking through her skin like needles. Still, she tries to force herself forward, only to freeze as the vision of a woman with hair as pale as her dress begins to step out from behind one of the aisles.

"Vanessa..."

Immediately, terror seizes her to backpedal, bumping right into the very demon she's so determined to keep away from. Yes, she's ready to run. She shouldn't be, she should be ready to fight, but there's no sense to her fear as she pushes past the man to rush back to the closet. Even with the door gone, if she can finish her sigil she should be safe.

Edited 2023-08-23 00:51 (UTC)

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For Aziraphale

For Vanessa

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cw: blood, scorpion imagery, no-no magic

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