EVENT LOG: BURY A FRIEND

[inthenightmods]

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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Comments

[sauntered_downward]

"I don't stay with people," Crowley says, because that's his usual default response to being told to stay with a group. "I'm better on my own."

But maybe not with this. Maybe being able to know what's real or not will require people to help him, like the human soldier person is suggesting.

"But this is why you needed your fear removed."

[worthallthis]

"Yes. I kept seeing the Chair. The one that wiped me before every mission. Or handlers, actual handlers with actual punishments, actual technicians trying to do experiments." It shakes its head, hard and sharp, as if shaking that away. "And these Words, in Russian, one at a time. I don't know what they are, but they felt dangerous, and each time one more came it got worse. I didn't want to find out what would happen when they finished."

[sauntered_downward]

"Do you remember the words?" he asks. "Aziraphale could translate them---figure out what they mean. They could be something else related to your past."

[worthallthis]

"I speak Russian," the Soldier reminds him with the faintest hint of amusement to its voice. It fades immediately, though, as it explains, "They're nonsense. Things like 'rusted', 'seventeen', and 'furnace'." It purposefully goes out of order and skips around, and makes sure to speak in English, just in case (though it usually speaks English around Crowley, anyway). If there were any fear left, it's pretty sure it couldn't say them even that way. There's still a faint shiver of unease somewhere buried deep, even now. "It feels like the order and the language both matter. The more of them there were, the worse it felt."

[sauntered_downward]

"Like a code," Crowley theorizes. "Or a password."

He thinks of the many spy movies he and Aziraphale watched in the 1960's. How spies were woken up by a series of words said in a certain order. Is this like that, or is that just another piece of movie magic?

"We'll figure it out," he promises. "Besides, they can't get you here, remember. You're out of their reach."

[worthallthis]

Even after a terrible scare like that, Crowley is still trying to make the Soldier feel better, more safe. That's more kindness than it deserves, surely. It's enough to let it put the unease aside and smile a little. "I know." Even if it is moderately sure that if it hallucinated the whole set, something awful would still have happened, it feels like talking about it won't help anything. "And you're out of hell's reach, even if you see things that suggest you aren't."

[sauntered_downward]

Crowley gives the human soldier person a dubious look. "Hell has a long reach."

He wonders how many people from Hell work with HYDRA. He imagines more than a few, considering what they've done to the human soldier person. He'll stop them all. They won't get away with this.

He looks out to the woods, where hands reach out for them. It's like something out of a nightmare.

"Is this how it's going to be now? Nightmares and visions from the past?"

[worthallthis]

Why are you so cute and protective, Crowley.

The Soldier doesn't sigh, but it absolutely wants to. "I hope not. There wasn't anything like this last month... and before that there were tombstones, but we missed that. I read about it. And the flowers with their smell, that brought the Sergeant out. It's like things happen for a short time, and then go away again." Really, it doesn't understand this place at all.

[sauntered_downward]

"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.

[worthallthis]

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?"

[sauntered_downward]

"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."

[worthallthis]

"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?"

[sauntered_downward]

"Morse code?" Crowley says, raising an eyebrow. "But that's such a human invention---how? And, you know, why?"

Oh, no. This means the human soldier person has been like Aziraphale, trying to communicate to the spirits. Does this mean that Crowley is the only sane person in this town, staying as far away from them as possible?

[worthallthis]

Not nearly as prolifically as Aziraphale; the Soldier's only done it once, so far. It's tactical, a source of potential information and as an experiment in communication. Plus, weirdly, the spirits don't actually freak it out the way people sometimes (often) do.

"I have no idea. It's the last thing I'd have expected, either." Well, not the last, but. Pretty close. "But it's easier than trying to use metal fingers on those whistle things."

[sauntered_downward]

"What did they say?" Crowley asks. "When you---" he gestures. "Morse coded at them?"

Crowley doesn't even like that Aziraphale has one of those little instruments in the cabin. If he had it his way, he'd burn all of the forest spirits away and protect their little town. But, then again, the forest spirits were here first, he supposes. That sort of thinking is what got a lot of humans in trouble when they started expanding.

sorry for the slow, waiting on what HAPPENS in that exploration XD

[worthallthis]

"I only spoke to one. Offered to help it, because I couldn't think of anything else to say first. And it said it didn't need anything. But did I need anything." It was kind of sweet, that it had asked. But the Soldier's idea of sweet is a little skewed, even it will admit that.

no you're so good I was worried I owed you a tag somewhere

[sauntered_downward]

This changes a lot about how Crowley sees the forest spirits. He's heard a lot about them, and it's changed his opinion a lot.

"Sounds like they're being controlled by that Lighthouse keeper," he says. "Maybe they saw a kindred spirit in you."

[worthallthis]

You know, the Soldier can almost kind of see that. That makes it a little more sad, and definitely more determined to talk to its new spirit-friend again. "I didn't think to ask if the Lightkeeper really controls them. I did find out that they have names."

[sauntered_downward]

"Like people?" Crowley says, raising an eyebrow. "Look, I know you don't want to be a person, but----you could do with a name. Aziraphale might even be able to dig your real name out of your memories if you'd let him."

[worthallthis]

The flinch isn't as dramatic as it could be, without the fear, but it's still there, and still automatic. The idea of finding it's name from Before HYDRA is even worse than someone just dubbing it with a new one. The idea almost hurts, makes a tightness in the throat and it's heart stutter. It's protest is immediate and firm: "I don't want it."

It tries to settle it's ruffled brain against the idea of a name and suggests, "Give me a nickname if you want. Something that's not an actual name. Scarlett calls me Tinman, and that's okay."

[sauntered_downward]

"Tinman doesn't have a heart," Crowley says. "And I think we both know you do."

It doesn't make sense to Crowley, of course. One of the first things he did when he Fell was rename himself. When he decided he didn't like that name, he just picked another one and he's been expanding on that name ever since. It feels wrong to not give the human soldier person a name.

But if it's what he wants...?

[worthallthis]

Right now? Abso-fucking-lutely what it wants.

Also, that mention of actual Wizard of Oz canon is enough to make the Soldier stop in the middle of the path and blink a few times as the association loop completes in its brain. "No," it says. "The Tinman wanted a heart, but in the end you know he had one all along. That. Sounds stupidly fitting. Actually." Occasionally it does have actual moments of self-awareness. When it lets itself.

[sauntered_downward]

"Is that what the movie was about?" Crowley says, shrugging. "I don't know, I just saw it because Aziraphale wanted to." And, of course, it was in color which was incredibly cool and Crowley couldn't miss out on a human invention like that. He rather likes the cinema, though he tends to go watch children's movies far more than anything else. Always more fun than the things that are supposed to make him think.

"If that's what you want me to call you, that's what I'll call you. It's all up to you, you pick your own name---nickname, whatever."

[worthallthis]

Ironicaly, that's why Bucky originally saw it, too... because the innovation of seeing it in color was amazing, and because Steve wanted to. Not that it remembers either of those things now. The film just exists, semi-complete, in its head, with no real context. Memory is weird.

The Soldier gives him a vaguely annoyed look, but does start waking again. They're almost at the Invincible by now. "Why is this so important to you. I did the math. I spent at least sixty years being called either Soldat or Asset. Either of those are fine." No, no they're not, but it can't accept anything else yet.

[sauntered_downward]

"I just think you deserve to be a person. Pick whatever name you want or don't want, but stop thinking of yourself as a thing. I don't think of you as a thing. Maybe that makes me a lousy handler, but I was never very good at it to begin with."

And Crowley doesn't think he'd be friends with a thing. He's friends with a person. And the human soldier person is a person.