logsinthenight | EVENT LOG: BURY A FRIEND

EVENT LOG: BURY A FRIEND

characters: everyone.
location: around town.
date/time: october 9-17.
content: the hallucinations begin...
warnings: psychological horror. please cw tags appropriately.

it's probably something that shouldn't be said out loud

October 9 feels like a normal day at first, save for the red lighthouse beam cutting through the darkness overhead. You know by now—or you've heard—that the lighthouse is only active during ferry arrivals and events... And there's definitely no ferry docked at the, er. Beach. The town is quiet, the forest spirits behave business-as-usual, Rastus doesn't know what's up. Whatever's going on, you'll have to figure it out for yourself.

And you will, though the hallucinations are subtle at first: objects moving when they shouldn't, people's proportions looking just a bit off, voices in an empty room, and so on. Is it just your mind playing tricks in the darkness? Might be! Will did warn you all about the effects of living without a sun and a proper day/night cycle.

As the days go on, the hallucinations are harder to ignore, no matter how much you may wish to wave them off as flukes. What's wrong with everyone's faces? When did all the howling start? Who do you hold onto when the world drops out from under you? And those hands...

While you might know it can't be real, it certainly feels real. But at least it can't last forever!

...Right?

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To-- to put it lightly, yes.

Have you, as well?

And are you... are you quite alright?

[ He's definitely acting differently. Speaking differently, too. It's uh. Weird? ]

"Yeah, uh," he replies quickly as he tries to gather his thoughts back into the present. The hallucinations have done great work dragging up a lot of things he'd managed to try and move past in his adult years. He's stronger than that, he just has to remind himself of it more persistently right now.

"The Invincible. Top floor on the end, room three-ten. Staying there with Mary, the little blonde girl who's always drawing. Have you met her?"

[Oh, shit. Now, Aziraphale thinks the lanterns aren't real. Which, fair, could be a possibility that Crowley has definitely considered, but he's never once considered putting his lantern out in a great big body of water. And most certainly not Aziraphale's.

He holds his hands up, his own lantern firmly in one of his hands]

Is that what they're telling you? Telling you that this is all fake? Funny, my broken leg didn't feel all that fake, but all right.

[Shitshitshitshitshit]

So I can just put my lantern out then?

[He lowers his lantern towards the water]

[This would be a lot easier if this were Crowley. The demon's met the Sergeant, even helped him get what passes for a name. The Sergeant is not great at sounding anything other than Brooklyn.]

Seeing, and hearing.

[Speaking of: an explosion rocks the air from somewhere behind him, along with a flash of smoke and heat. It makes him twitch, but not worse than that. (Not real. It's fucking not real.) He can be slightly less of a basketcase about all this than the Soldier is, since the idiot is counting on him to not accidentally kill anybody.]

I'm... I'm holding up okay. Promise. Not gonna punch or shoot anybody if they startle me, and that's the important part.

"Like tests," Crowley says.

He looks back out to the hands.

"Or punishments. How very Hell-like of them all."

Aziraphale doesn't deserve to be here. He could understand being here, if this were Hell. Maybe even the human soldier person, for his past (even though Crowley would argue it isn't his fault), but not Aziraphale. Not the little girl he met at the party. No, this place is something else, something more dangerous.

[ Oh, Gabriel says, and he laughs. This is good. This is great. No matter who's right, he's going to die. For you. ]

Crowley, don't--!

[ Drop the lantern, Aziraphale. It's the only way to save him now. Or did you change your mind? He is a demon after all. And you've won. Look at him, at your mercy. You could let him die. Do you think that'd be enough to grant you a pardon? ]

I don't care about that!

[ Alright, I'm done this game. ]

And you're wrong!

[ 1... 2... ]

Crowley, I'm sorry.

[ He lets go. ]

Oh, yes. Very important. Sorry about that, earlier, you know. I really just-- I didn't know, and I couldn't very well let you-- well, you know.

[ He knits his eyebrows. ]

Are you sure you're alright, dear boy? Perhaps we'd better get back inside. I don't know what you're seeing, but you don't have to tell me.

[Crowley doesn't even hesitate. He tosses his own lantern behind himself without looking----which lands on the beach with a small thud----and dives for Aziraphale's lantern. He doesn't have more than a second to catch it, and he dives for it, landing directly onto his broken leg as he does. He cries out in pain, but his arms stay straight up, keeping the lantern above the water]

If this goes out, you die, Aziraphale! You know this! We can't risk this! I'm not going to lose you!

Whatever your visions are telling you, they are lies!

"Mary. Yeah. I killed a dragon-bush for her," the Soldier says with something that's actually mostly a smile. "She wanted to be a princess and said I could be her knight. Apparently knights kill dragons." And she also told it she wasn't a person, either, and got really creepy. (The memory still twinges, a little.) "Is she all right? I saw her earlier, and. She didn't seem like she was taking all this. Well."

Crowley!

[ Like this, all I have to do is shoot the water. ]

No, no no-- Just drop it, drop it in the water--

[ You've chosen badly, Aziraphale. ]

A stream of water comes towards Crowley anyway, and he sees it-- lasting not even the second it takes the vision haunting over Crowley to explode, but it seems to go on for ages. There's a shout of anguish as ghosts of Crowley's watery form slip through his fingers and his vision blurs so hard that he can barely see his own lantern still being held up right next to his nose. ]

--Crowley?

[ He asks, softly. ]

--Crowley--!

[ He reaches down to lift Crowley up, and pulls him in for an embrace. ]

Oh, thank Go-- thank-- thank someone!

Just things blowing up, mostly. Tables with straps on them sometimes. The damn hands, though they don't bother me as much.

[Still, he does take a step towards the Invincible, since it's closer then the house, pausing to see if Aziraphale is coming.]

And it's okay. You don't have to apologize. I get it.

[Aziraphale goes in for an embrace, and Crowley immediately struggles against it]

No! Absolutely not! Lantern staying out of the water, don't fight me on this! I'll just miracle myself to the moon to keep it safe, don't think I won't!

[Struggling against Aziraphale's embrace is difficult for multiple reasons. 1) Aziraphale is stronger than Crowley is. 2) Crowley is holding Aziraphale's lantern desperately above the water, and 3) He's still lying on his broken leg.]

I-- I know, but I think you're owed one anyway. I could've hurt you. I'm very sorry.

I'd never-- we'd never, strap you to a table. I hope you know that. I think it's horrific.

[ He trots on after Bucky, but he appears very awkward doing so. ]

I'll-- I'll let you know if there's an explosion. A real one.

"Sounds noble," he sighs. Dragon-killing probably usually is. But then he shrugs. "I haven't seen her much this week. Might have to go track her down."

Because man, it's not great to hear she's not doing well. But he's been intentionally avoiding her, especially after the first few days once he realized the consistent patterns in the hallucinations, because he doesn't want to frighten her.

"I'd be surprised if anyone at all is taking this sort of thing well. That would require a pretty strong lack of awareness."

[Her strike does hit something-- it hits a metal arm, raised to block her, and holding a knife in equally metal fingers. Then said metal arm shoves hard, aiming to knock her back and out of immediate strike range before she can follow the attack up with anything else.]

I'm not attacking you! Calm down!

[The guy attached to the metal arm doesn't seem particularly calm. Pale eyes wide, breath hitched, plates on the metal arm whirring and clicking.]

The Soldier snorts once. "Regular punishments like this would almost makes me miss being electrocuted. Almost." They're at the bonfire now, at least, and the dark bulk of the Invincible is up ahead. "What could something like this be testing for, anyway?"

"Resilience?" Crowley theorizes. "Sanity? Hard to say."

He looks back to the light of the Lighthouse. He scowls at it.

"I'm still going with punishment."

[ Now fully ignoring Gabriel's deafening screaming about how lousy an angel, how terrible, how wasteful Aziraphale is, he pulls out his wings and reaches into the water to lift him up entirely, wings visually bisecting the illusion as he holds Crowley close to his chest, lantern and all, and starts to head towards the shore. ]

It's Gabriel.

[ He explains, briefly. ]

He was holding up a mister. He blessed the water.

[ The way he says those words are steady but empty and drained of energy. Then he looks down at Crowley in his arms, Crowley who'd offered to die for him regardless of what happened, who hadn't even seen the illusion. And his mouth twitches into a frown as he cries out: ]

What if you had died?

Yeah, I know. Thanks, pal.

[The Sergeant can at least recognize that Aziraphale is definitely not that kind of technician. (If only you would realize that, you dumbass.) As usual, the Soldier doesn't reply, though he can kind of feel it listening in. He walks slowly enough for Aziraphale to keep up.]

And if you see somethin', you can ask me, and I'll tell you if it's really there. We oughta stick together, you know? So we got somebody to tell us what's real and what's not.

"Once this calms down. Maybe I'll find someone to ask." Because the Soldier does kinda maybe have a contact among the spirits. Maybe. "Did you know at least some of the spirits know Morse code?"

What if I had died? You dropped your lantern! In the water! It would have gone out, Aziraphale! You'd be dead, right now! Gone completely!

[Is Crowley incredibly furious? Is Crowley incredibly distraught? Every guess is a winner!]

I protected this lantern for three days! Never once thought about dropping it in a great big bloody body of water---how could you possibly do that? Whatever he said to you is not worth you dying over!

[ Pal. He likes that. He likes this version of the Soldier. Is this the man he was meant to be, the one before all the brainwashing? Is this the goal they're looking for? ]

I agree wholeheartedly.

--Thank you.

[ For what, he doesn't quite say. ]

Do you drink? The first round is on me.

[Nice thought, but probably a waste of good alcohol.]

Yeah, about that. Can't get drunk. Crowley tried to get me drunk with him once, and it just don't work. Probably shouldn't waste the stuff we have left on tryin'.

[He does consider briefly, and suggest,]

If you've got any more of that coffee you were guzzling after the failed mission, though....

[The Soldier didn't recognize the smell, given the poor bastard had never been able to have any. The Sergeant absolutely did and he wants it, almost as much as he wants Rosinante's cigarettes.]

He was threatening your life! And then you were threatening your life!

[ He drops Crowley off on the shore by his lantern, but by that I mean he lowers Crowley gently to the shore and kneels down with him to talk. ]

But if I'd died, there's a chance I would've come back! But if you'd died by holy water-- or if you'd woken up in the church -- Crowley, it doesn't bear thinking about. I am not losing you! Not after all this!

How could you even think it was... remotely equivalent?

Coffee? We've got plenty of coffee.

[ He's definitely been drinking that more than tea these days to stay up. And he'd also been really considering going back to smoking cigarettes. Shitty habit, took him ages to break. Well, ages for a human. ]

Possibly some at the inn, but I'd like to think I make it better.

[ Possibly because he grinds his beans by hand, like in Bucky's childhood. ]

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Page 17 of 72

EVENT LOG: BURY A FRIEND

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Beginning sorta-kinda?

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