logsinthenight | I want to break free

Entry tags:

I want to break free

characters: Crowley and You
location: The Invincible or your wildcard of a location
date/time: October 5
content: It's been five days since the ferry incident. Crowley has been going into the last stores of the town's liquor.

Isn't it about time someone properly told the ringleader of this whole shebacle off? Isn't it best if that person was you?
warnings: Excessive drinking

Crowley is still feeling miserable. He can't believe everything went so incredibly wrong. People got hurt. Now, if he were just a normal demon, he'd probably be thrilled about this, but he's not and it matters and that is really just overwhelmingly annoying.

If he'd had the time, he'd just curl up and sleep this all off until he wasn't pissed off at himself anymore. In fact, the last time something went this pear shaped it was the whole business with the Archduke Ferdinand. If he'd known planning a simple assassination was going to cause a Great War, he'd have absolutely said 'No Thank You' and moved back on to simpler temptations. So he just slept through the War and his annoyance at the whole thing. He figured a twenty year or so nap would be plenty and he'd wake up feeling refreshed, but no, another War was already in progress by that point.

Now, he literally can't just sleep off a decade or two to get over his irritation at himself and the situation. He has to eat. He has to move, otherwise his muscles will decay. He's trapped in his own corporation, now. And with his leg propped up on a chair in the Invincible, broken and splinted, he feels especially trapped in it.

And also, this town smells horrific. Just when he thought he couldn't hate it here any more than he already does, everything smells like rot.

So, since he can't sleep, he's going to drink. There's only a limited supply of liquor left, and he feels more than a little entitled to it. He has a bottle on his table and one glass in front of himself. He's been here a while and appears to have no intention of going anywhere.

Certainly not to help fix things.

Why should he?

[OOC: Please feel free to come by and bother Crowley. Violent intentions and actions towards him are OK, just don't kill him without a ping in my direction first. You can meet him here at the Invincible where he is feeling sorry for himself, or elsewhere. Feel free to message me at

rude_not_ginger with your wildcard, and we can make it happen!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"It's not that easy. There's programming, protocols. Even without HYDRA, I don't fucking know how to." The plates in its metal arm ripple once, and it makes itself unclench its fist. "I don't know how."

The need to be told what to do. The inability to find anything to do with all its free time. The continued instinct to seek out handlers. The intense need to not be a person. How does one even cope with all that? How does one even get by when there's no mission?

Crowley's voice is relaxed but certain. "You can undo programming. You can fix the way people treat you. I've seen it, I know it can be done."

He tries to think what Aziraphale would do in this moment. Would he touch the human soldier person? Pat his hand and tell him everything would be all right? Give him a biscuit and show him how to be a person again? Crowley isn't like that, he doesn't even know what biscuits are supposed to taste like.

"You're not going to be alone in this. We're friends, remember?"

That sounds like actual confidence. The Soldier looks up briefly, trying not to show hope or despair. Those are easy ones to hide, thankfully, having lots of practice, so the look is just blank. (Thank you for not touching it, Crowley. There would have been twitching.) "You've seen something like this. Like me. When."

"Cults," Crowley replies. "Dictators. You see all kinds of brainwashing in humans over the years. It takes time, it takes work, but you can be free of it."

Crowley doesn't say that he was responsible for some of those cults. Some of those dictators rose to power because of him. It's better left unsaid some of the things that he did because of orders. But, then again, he imagines the human soldier person would understand that better than most.

"And I'm definitely about free will."

(HYDRA definitely counts as a fucking cult.)

The Soldier doesn't even guess about Crowley's involvement. It doesn't care. It cares that he knows how to fucking unprogram people.

That's an almost overwhelming thought. A frightening thought. (What the fuck else is new.) A hopeful thought. It's going to take time to work that properly into its brain. The Soldier is silent for a long moment, then pushes its chair back. "Come on. Let's go back to the house. I'll make you lunch or something." So it has something to do with its hands while it thinks about that.

Crowley scowls. More eating. He only likes eating in the context of lunches and brunches and afternoon tea. But still, his stomach grumbles with the annoying hunger that he's been experiencing since arriving here, and he relents.

"Oh, all right," he says. "But no more canned peaches. I've eaten enough of those to last a lifetime."

He waves a hand to gesture the human soldier person over to be his crutch.

"It will be something better than canned peaces." The Soldier is, in fact, very proud of its new cooking skills, even while aware that the only things it can make are still very simple. Small steps.

It's coming at support from a more stable internal configuration, today, so there's no trembling or hesitation. It just ducks under Crowley's arm and hoists him up. It'll even half-carry him with that arm wrapped securely around Crowley's waist, since it certainly has the strength to do so, so as to keep as much weight off the broken leg as possible. Crowley just has to hold on and maybe step a little.

As soon as they get outside, though. The smell of the carrion flowers-- there before, but not as strong until coming outside into it-- combined with supporting someone else is. Familiar. The Soldier stops short as something resets hard inside, shudders once all over, and then picks up the pace again. Faster.

Crowley feels it as the human soldier person stops short, and he immediately looks around. Did he see something? Is it one of the forest spirits out to get them? Did the Lighthouse keeper do something?

"What was that?" he asks. "Did you see something?"

"Shut up," the Soldier hisses. "Keep it down, buddy. We gotta get back to base camp. Can't do that if you fuckin' bring them all down on us."

He's looking around furtively as he half-carries Crowley along, keeping to the side of the building. The village and trees beyond are keeping them shielded from HYDRA's big fuck-off tank, but there are soldiers. The Captain went down, and he'd been the only one left with the rank (and the fucking good sense) to shout the retreat.

Oh, and he sounds Brooklyn again.

It's possible that this not actually the Soldier Crowley's used to. Ever had experience with somebody in the middle of a flashback, Crowley?

Crowley, in fact, hasn't.

All he knows is that suddenly the human soldier person's demeanor is completely different and he's keeping to the side of the building, keeping them out of view. And suddenly there's a them that Crowley was about to bring down on top of them, and that doesn't surprise Crowley at all because he's always suspected someone was about to attack this stupid little town at any moment.

Oh, if only his leg weren't totally out of commission.

"How many? Where are they coming from?" he whispers. "Which direction? I can get us back to the cabin fast, but we'll be a target."

"They got those fuckin' vaporizing rifles, pal, being a target is a bad idea," he says with a snort, pausing at the edge of the Invincible and looking out. His free hand comes up to absently flick the shutters closed on the lantern on his back. "Unless you wanna go up in blue smoke. Let me get us there, and you worry 'bout not bleedin' out. Okay?"

But Crowley's not bleeding.

"You wanna cover that light?" he suggests. "Get it under your shirt or somethin'."

Crowley doesn't register that he's not bleeding, he figures that's the human soldier person's way of telling him that he might be bleeding at any moment. His eyes go wide and he looks around in absolute terror.

"Vaporizing rifles?" he gapes. "What the fucking fuck?"

He tucks his lantern into his shirt as quickly as possible, and starts looking around, trying to see what the hell it is that the human soldier person has seen that has fucking vaporizing rifles and is going to get him bleeding any moment now.

"Did you hit your head somewhere, private?" he asks, somewhere between annoyed and amused and distracted. "Whatever, we'll work it out once we're back at base. Ain't my job to know what the fuck a concussion looks like. Just don't get in the way, yeah?"

And then there's a quick dash across the open space between the Invincible and post office, and from there around the back of the post office to the village proper. Unless he struggles, poor Crowley's feet hardly get to touch the ground, the Soldier's practically carrying him the whole way.

Private? Back at base?

Okay, it's at this point that Crowley gets the idea that something might be wrong. He's being all but carried by the human soldier person and he can't hear gunfire anywhere. And the human soldier person is talking with that accent again.

Maybe this is what he's like when he sees something frightening?

"Where are we going?" he asks, though he doesn't struggle. "Are we going back to the cabin?"

"Yeah, pal. Base camp. The top brass has gotta hear about that tank. We're fuckin' lucky we're almost there."

Because yeah, there they are, hurrying up to the front door of the cabin, which the Soldier pushes in with a foot before setting Crowley back on his feet.

Only once they're inside with the door shut behind them does he kind of look around the dark cabin and go, "What the...." Still Brooklyn, but maybe a little more present. "This ain't...." This isn't actually the base camp.

And he feels weird. The smell of the dead from the battle isn't as strong in here, and his arm feels-- wrong. (And he can't remember his name. He shies away from that thought.)

"What tanks?" he asks, turning to look at the human soldier person.

He regards him carefully. He almost doesn't want to break him out of this, doesn't want him to lose whatever it is he's found.

"What is going on? What are you seeing?"

Right. The private. Can't remember his name, but he's the Sarge here, he's gotta keep it together. After a steadying breath, he says, with his best bravado, "Right now? I ain't seein' shit, pal, it's fuckin' dark in here." There's. A lantern on his shoulder. Right? Not sure why he was carrying a lantern through the woods outside Azzano, when he'd just come form a battlefield, but... he knows it's there.

He starts to pull it down, but what little light there is glints off that arm that feels wrong and he stops, staring at it. "What. What the. What the fuck is wrong with my arm."

"It got damaged," Crowley says. "In the water when the ferry went down. I did some work to fix it a few days ago, but I'm sure it's not 100% yet."

He reaches out a hand for the arm, but then pulls back, thinking about the human soldier person's need for space.

He doesn't know what is happening to the human soldier person, but he's having a memory right now. Some repressed part of his brain is coming out. It's coming out now, right now. Crowley should help, he should do something. He should try to get some sort of information out of him, something that he can give to the human soldier person when he's lost it all again.

He goes for the first thing that comes to his mind. "What's your name?"

The arm starts making noises. Whirring. That is so fucked up, why is his arm making mechanical noises.

He does finally break his gaze away from something he can barely see to get the lantern off his shoulder, to flick open the metal shutters fixed to it, so he can see both the fucking metal arm and the private he dragged here. Who is not in any kind of military uniform, and also who he vaguely recognizes more as "friend" than "subordinate officer".

What is fucking going on here.

He starts to answer the question. "Sargent--" And he stops. That stupid arm is making noise again, the light starts to jitter as his hand shakes. "I don't remember."

"Sergeant," Crowley repeats. "Is that a title or a surname?"

He reaches out and grips the human soldier person by the shoulders, willing him with all his imagination and might to try to hold it together for just one more minute.

"You can remember. You can remember, and you can tell me."

He has no idea if his powers can work now. He has no idea if his imagination can influence the human soldier person, but he has to try, he has to help somehow.

Oh, don't do that, Crowley. He might not have his name, he might not be comfortable with having his arm made out of fucking metal, but grabbing a guy in the middle of a panic attack who has an ingrained fear of being restrained is not going to go well for you.

In this case, the Sergeant (if he doesn't have a name, he'll use his goddamn rank) brings both arms up to break the hold and follows up with a slam to the chest, thankfully with the non-metal arm so there aren't any fractured ribs or broken lanterns or anything. "Get the fuck off me!"

Then he back himself into the corner nearest the door, panting, lantern hanging from his metal hand and his metal hand held up between him and Crowley. "Sergeant. Sergeant is a rank. It's my rank. In the war. That we just came from, that I thought we just came from. Serial number... number 3255... 7038. I can remember that but not my fuckin' name."

Edited 2019-10-07 01:03 (UTC)

Under normal circumstances, the hit to the chest would probably do very little to Crowley. He is, after all, a demon with some supernatural strength of his own. As it is, he takes the hit to the chest and immediately moves his leg back to steady himself, and finds that it definitely can't support his weight. He spills backwards onto the floor with absolutely no dignity intact.

"In the war, yes!" Crowley says from his spot on the floor. "Been through a lot of wars, me. Tell me about this one. Who started it? Which side are you on? Sergeant 3255-7038. Come on, tell me which war this is."

That question is so bizarre he almost forgets to hyperventilate. He lowers the lantern just a little bit, scowls in confusion at the man now sitting on the floor looking harmless. (He is, he's harmless, don't hurt him again you asshole.) He shakes his head hard and says, "The war. The world war. With the fucking Nazis. What rock are you even living under, buddy?"

"World War with the Nazis," Crowley repeats, giving him a nod. "Lived through that one. Took credit for that one. That's good. Right, okay, Sergeant 3255-7038. You're American, you're fighting for America, right? Do you remember your---" What are they called? "---I don't know, platoon or whatever it is?"

Anything he can get from him right now he can give to the human soldier person later. He doesn't even know if the human soldier person is going to want it, but Crowley is going to have it for him to take.

Took credit for the war. What the fuck. "The 107th. Deployed to Azzano against HYDRA with their crazy weapons." Which reminds him. Metal arm or not, he's got to get that intel to the higher ups, got to see if any of the rest of the division survived. He pushes off from the wall, knees feeling shaky, but stable enough. And the metal arm (what the fuck, seriously) has stopped making those noises. "I... I gotta get to base camp."

Because this isn't it. Even if it feels like it should be.

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