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?

QUICKNAV
comms	\|	network • logs • memes • ooc
pages	\|	rules • faq • taken • mod contact • player contact • calendar • setting • exploration • item requests • full nav

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Demons are, in general, pretty terrifying things. Crowley, being a bit on the softer side, hasn't been terrifying in a very long time. But Hastur, Ligur, all of them, very terrifying. And Aziraphale, right now, is completely terrifying. His head spins around, feathers sprouting out of his face, and it's absolutely everything in Crowley not to shove him away in complete fear.

Falling is a horrible, horrific experience. And if Aziraphale has Fallen, then Crowley has to pull through his terror and be there for his friend, he has to.

"You Fell----Aziraphale----you Fell and----"

Did Aziraphale die? Did Aziraphale Fall? Crowley can't pull himself together enough to work it out.

"Dear, I have done no such thing-- oh. Oh!"

He could slap himself in the face, it was so obvious. "Crowley, it's not real. It's an illusion." He frowns. "Can't believe you didn't think that first, and jumped straight to thinking I had Fallen. Really!"

He just assumes Crowley knows about all this mess.

Crowley stares at Aziraphale, whose head is still on upside-down. Crowley's eyes are wide with fear, and he moves back, not exactly shoving Aziraphale away, but sliding back, closer to one of the burning walls.

"It's an illusion," he repeats, and it sounds verymuch like he doesn't believe him at all. "Which part, angel?"

"Well, what are you seeing?" he asks, head righting itself with a flurry of feathers round his neck, though as Crowley backs away, Aziraphale's neck cranes forward so that his face is closer to him though his body is the same distance.

He blinks, several times in rapid succession. "You see me as Fallen. I have not, I assure you. But in curiosity, what do I look like?"

He turns his head to the side, again, and it would look quite broken if he weren't an owl.

"You're a demon," Crowley says. "An...owl-demon. Bit of an unusual choice, but pretty terrifying, nonetheless. You'd give Hastur a run for his money, that's for damn sure."

Another section of the second floor falls down, and Crowley raises up his arms to shield himself from the splintered wood.

"We have to get out of here!" he says. "The Hellfire is everywhere!"

"It's really not," Aziraphale responds, looking all around him at the still house that they've tried to breathe to life with the help of books and plants. He reaches for Crowley's shoulder.

"Besides, if you're a demon and I'm a demon, the Hellfire wouldn't affect either of us, now would it? Now come, sit down, I'll make you some tea. You should really have something to ease the visions, will you close your eyes?" he requests.

Meanwhile, he turns but his face is trained on Crowley, head seemed screwed on backwards, mass of feathers to cover up the seam where his neck should be twisted. His clothes, too, have changed, now looking a bit like they had in 1793, which is apparently what owl demons wear.

Crowley jerks back from Aziraphale's touch in fear.

"Aziraphale, what's happening?" he says, voice serious. "What's happening to me?"

Because it's not Aziraphale. Not from the way he's talking. He's talking like it's not happening. Unless he's already being a Very Good Demon and frightening Crowley very well, which Crowley doesn't think Aziraphale is capable of.

"Are you having auditory hallucinations as well?" He takes a deep breath and tries to get Crowley to come sit down with him. "You are merely seeing things, Crowley. It's not real."

He shakes his head. "Crowley, I don't know what's causing all this but you're going to have to trust me."

"Angel, I can feel it----I can see it----It's real, it feels real!"

He stays where he is on the floor, which appears to be the one place in the building that isn't on fire. He tries to will it into normalcy, he tries to imagine it back the way it was, but he can't. None of his powers are doing anything. He's frozen in this hallucination where Aziraphale is a terrifying demon and he's trapped with him in a burning building.

"Aziraphale----why is this happening?"

"I don't know, I couldn't tell you," he answers, as he stoops down to sit with Crowley.

"It's alright," he tries, reaching over to rub his back with one long taloned hand. "Even if it looks real, and sounds real, it's not. Can you just focus on my voice?"

Crowley cringes away at first, but shuts his eyes immediately, trying to do nothing but focus on Aziraphale's voice. It isn't real, he tells himself. Aziraphale didn't Fall. The Hellfire isn't real. None of it is real. All that is real is that the angel is with him, now. They're here, they're together, they're safe.

"I couldn't bear it," he says, eyes still screwed shut. "If I made you Fall."

"First of all, you wouldn't make me Fall, I would've Fallen all by myself. But I haven't." He starts to run his fingers through Crowley's hair, and it doesn't feel like talons. It feels like fingers.

"You can't make me do anything," he adds. "And I can't make you do anything either." Unfortunately.

"You can't Fall, angel," he says, leaning into the angel's touch. "You're too good to Fall. You always have been, you always will be."

It would be Crowley's fault if the angel Fell. One temptation too many, one question asked too many. He knows it.

"Dear, there's no such thing. We've already been over this." He shifts to sit cross-legged on the ground so he can pull Crowley's head into his lap. "And if that's the worst thing you can imagine, you needn't worry yourself."

There he is, sitting on the floor, trying to calm his best friend from his nightmares that all revolve around him. What has he done?

"It is," he says. "It's the worst thing that could happen to you and you wouldn't deserve it."

Crowley can't think of a nightmare worse. Perhaps the Earth being destroyed. Being separated from Aziraphale forever. But Aziraphale losing his goodness? Losing his angelic nature? It was the most horrible thing he could imagine.

"You being an angel, it's----it's what makes you you. The fact that you're too bloody good for your own good. It's what I---" He takes a breath. "It's part of who you are."

He opens his eyes and looks up at Aziraphale. The fire is gone. Aziraphale is there, and he looks like himself.

He looks at Crowley, concerned. "Close your eyes, dear," he says at once, not realizing that he doesn't need to be told that anymore.

"And I'm really not as good as you think I am. It's how we both ended up in this mess, isn't it? I wanted to defy Heaven, and you Hell. But you're right. I'm no demon, and you are no angel. It just wouldn't work that way."

"Well, if you looked anything like what I saw, you'd have made one Hell of a terrifying demon," Crowley says. "Given Beezelbub themself a run for their money, that's for sure."

Aziraphale is right, though. He's no angel. Hasn't been for a long time. And Aziraphale is far too good to have ever made it as a demon. So they sit here, neither fully fitting in with their own worlds, trapped in this strange dark place together.

"I don't think you ever asked why I Fell," he says.

"No," Aziraphale says, not realizing that he hasn't stopped playing with Crowley's hair. "Because you've never wanted to talk about it. It's not something I need to know, and it doesn't impact what I think of you. I don't want you to think that it does."

"Plus, it was so long ago..." He frowns. "I suppose I never asked if you'd like to tell me. Would you?"

"I just----"

He's spent so long justifying it to himself and blaming others for his Fall. Saying he just asked a lot of questions, saying he just hung around with the wrong people. He didn't mean to Fall, he knows that much. He just doesn't really remember where it all went wrong.

"Yes," he says, finally. "I will."

"Well, alright," Aziraphale says. "I'm all ears," he explains, now practically giving Crowley a scalp massage by complete accident. Seems that if Crowley should hiss while he forgets himself, Aziraphale would accidentally become much more physically affectionate when he forgot himself.

"I was never a very good angel," he says. "Questioned too much. Vocally. Regularly. Asked until I made friends who also asked. And----well, that was it, wasn't it? That was all it took back then. Questioning too much. Not having enough faith. I never had enough faith."

He thinks often if he had as much faith in God that he has in Aziraphale, he'd never have Fallen.

"It was never much, back then, to Fall."

"Oh. I don't know why you thought not to tell me that," he responds. "Seems unfair you should've Fallen at all." Lord knows Aziraphale has done more questionable things, he just never asked. Always did first, and requested forgiveness instead of permission.

Or, just. Never explained.

"I suppose that you were always curious," he says. "And I was always ready to accept things as they were."

"Not always," Crowley says. "You questioned enough, but you were better than I was. Much better."

He gazes up at Aziraphale and lets out a sigh. He could stay forever like this, he thinks. Just being touched by Aziraphale, being reminded that things are safe.

"Have you seen any hallucinations?" he asks.

Hearing that reaction, feeling Crowley relaxing, he digs the pads of his fingers against Crowley's scalp, getting him all the way from the front to the crown and then the temples.

"Yes, but none so terrible. Except the hands. Oh, I don't like the hands," he explains.

"Everyone sees the hands," Crowley says. "The human soldier person says no hallucinations are shared except the hands---think that's because they're real?"

He shuts his eyes again, focusing on the feel of Aziraphale's fingers on his scalp, on the gentle, intimate touch. Crowley has never been touched like this, he thinks. Not in his entire life.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject