Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!

[callada]

characters: EVERYONE??
location: General Store + around Beacon
date/time: October 18-31
content: This is the costume prompt from the TDM, delivered to you all in mingle-style by popular request and with mod approval
warnings: n/a for now but will update

Although the month is already well underway, residents of Beacon will notice a brand new shipment being delivered to the general store—only this one comes via the forest, as a small legion of spirits quickly drop off crates of boxes at its doorstep before scampering back into the woods. Hopefully nobody is riding too hard on hoping for further rations or supplies, because opening them up quickly squashes any notions of a full month's restock. Instead, it looks like each crate is bursting with costumes! Coming in all shapes and sizes to fit anyone of any age or decree, there’s plenty to choose from. Something scary? Magical? Clever? Or maybe even a bit on the sultry side? Dig deep enough, and you’re sure to find something to suit your tastes, props, accessories, wigs and all!

If nothing else, surely you can find an alternate use for a bit of spare fabric in your size, but what's the harm of having a bit of fun? But, oh, be careful if you're playing dress-up while the hallucinations from the event are in play... These costumes might just have a funny effect on you. 🤔!

Comments

[sauntered_downward]

"Aziraphale!"

Crowley catches the angel immediately in his arms. Carefully, cautiously, he lowers him down to the ground.

What does one do in a moment like this? Someone suddenly caught up in a magical sleep? Unable to wake? Crowley carefully leans over the angel.

He takes him by the shoulders and gives him a shake.

"Wake up!"

[lunchbreaks]

Aziraphale does not, in fact, wake up, and somewhere someone has started playing some very sad violins.

The birds appear to be crying.

[sauntered_downward]

Crowley turns his head to look at the birds. "Will you shut up?"

He turns back to Aziraphale. He's an angel now, right? He puts a hand to the angel's head and tries to channel healing into him.

[lunchbreaks]

Aziraphale glows with divine energy, head tilting back, eyes moving back and forth madly behind his eyelids.

But he doesn't wake up.

[sauntered_downward]

Why didn't that work? Crowley knows he healed him, he felt it. He could feel divine energy, something he hasn't felt in a very, very long time, flowing through him. So why isn't Aziraphale waking up?

"Aziraphale?" He gives him another shake. "Aziraphale!"

Think, Crowley, think. When did all of this start? Today, it started today. It started a few minutes ago when they----

He looks around at the costumes laying around, and reaches up a hand to the plastic halo on his head. His face falls into something like resignation. Of course. Of course, the costumes are cursed. And Crowley dressed up as an angel. He hasn't been forgiven. The divine light he feels is just part of the curse.

But what about Aziraphale? What the hell is he dressed up as?

[lunchbreaks]

Aziraphale's heart is slowed, and his breathing is almost nonexistent, but his cheeks are still rosy, even as a frost starts to grow on his eyelashes. It makes them look like delicate lace.

The birds appear to be singing a dirge.

[sauntered_downward]

The animals, the dress, the singing. It all means something. It's all part of some curse on the costume. Think Crowley, think. Use your two damn brain cells for one goddamn minute.

If there's one thing Crowley loves, it's movies. And he especially loves children's movies. There's no violence in them, just people being happy and happy endings. He loves a good happy ending. He thinks back to all the happy endings in children's movies, and all the stupid musicals he's watched.

Is Aziraphale---a princess? Singing, all the happy animals coming to him? Why would he be asleep, frost on his eyelashes?

"Aziraphale?"

What happens when princesses fall asleep in the movies Crowley has watched? A handsome prince wakes them up with a kiss?

Crowley looks around. Oh, god. He has to find a prince.

[lunchbreaks]

Wow, a riddle he didn't need to ask Aziraphale's help for. Too bad he's terrible at this.

Still asleep, Aziraphale seems near death, but somehow gives off faint whiffs of marshmallows and deadly funerary flowers.

The birds start to cry.

[sauntered_downward]

No princes around. Crowley could use the network, he supposes. Has to be a prince on there, he's sure of it. What the hell would he type? Hello, handsome prince needed for kiss, please be quick about it friend appears to be dying.

But there's something else about the fairy tale isn't there? It's not just a handsome prince it's---it's---

True love's kiss?

Crowley makes a face. "Oh come on."

He doesn't hesitate, though. Just leans down and presses a kiss to Aziraphale's mouth. As an angel, he can feel the love between them, this has to work.

[lunchbreaks]

Aziraphale feels the life come back to him, and it starts in his toes and tingles all throughout his form. Eventually, he's awake again, and he blinks with innocence.

"Crowley?" he asks, song stopped. This is the part where Crowley is supposed to carry him home.

"...What just happened?"

[sauntered_downward]

"We need to get you out of this dress," he says. "Right now."

A pause. An awkward one.

"It's cursed. You need to get out of it because it's cursed."

[lunchbreaks]

"Is it?" he asks. "It doesn't feel cursed. Why didn't you say anything before?" he asks, as he tries to take it off. But in Crowley's arms and with one of his own out of commission, it seems like it's going to be hard to do. Particularly since the birds are now trying to drown him in sashes...?

[sauntered_downward]

"Yes, it is," Crowley says, and he reaches around, trying to help undo the back of the dress. "It's turned you into some kind of fairytale princess----down to falling asleep and needing to be woken up by a prince."

He gives Aziraphale a pointed look and then shrugs.

"I had to step in for that one, sorry."

[lunchbreaks]

"It's-- it's true love, darling. The princess gets woken up by true love," he responds, and then blushes slightly pink.

"Yes, please help me out of this dress," he quickly veers, trying to slip it off even as the birds try to keep sewing it on.

[sauntered_downward]

"Get out of here before I blast you with holy smiting or some such shit," Crowley says, batting at the birds. He isn't one who usually blushes, but his face is definitely hot at the idea of true love being what just woke up Aziraphale. He's known for a very long time that he loves Aziraphale, of course, but it's a whole nother thing to have the whole cursed dress confirm it for them.

[lunchbreaks]

"Well, I do hate to say this, dear, but you're hardly a prince. Not even a duke," he adds, as he's wrapped up in silks like a mummy. "Dear oh dear, how do any princesses get anything done?"

[sauntered_downward]

"I don't know," Crowley replies. "They usually fall all over themselves to get a prince and then end up singing about it." He doesn't follow the plots of movies very well.

He lifts up the sashes, tossing them aside to try to get to Aziraphale's dress. "At least I'm not in a prince costume, otherwise I'd end up singing some duet with you and that would just be embarrassing."

[lunchbreaks]

"You don't want to sing a duet with me, Crowley?" He looks at his wings again.

"Ah, right. No music in heaven." He smiles cheekily.

Eventually, as soon as he manages to get his head out of the dress and toss it to the ground, it seems that the birds decide to fly away after all.

[sauntered_downward]

"No, nothing but celestial harmonies," Crowley agrees.

The birds disperse, flying off into the woods. Crowley looks back at Aziraphale and reaches out to brush off his suit.

"Better?" he asks.

[lunchbreaks]

"Yes," Aziraphale replies. "And you? Going to keep the angel thing?" he asks, reaching over to feel his wings.

"It's a good look on you, but..." He prefers the Hellish variety.

[sauntered_downward]

Crowley looks back at his white wings with more than a little sadness on his face. He hadn't meant to Fall, he'd always say. He hadn't meant to----but he did, and he is a demon now. He's a demon, and he's not been forgiven. All the false light he feels with the white wings and the light of love around him aren't real.

He looks at Aziraphale, taking just a moment to enjoy the feeling of love he gets from the angel, from being next to him.

He takes a breath and reaches up to take off the plastic halo. His wings immediately begin turning black, and all of the love he can feel vanishes.

[lunchbreaks]

He might not be able to feel love anymore, but he may be able to feel Aziraphale's, bright and shining and so very obviously written on his face.

"There you are," he says, allowing himself to lean in on his chest.

[sauntered_downward]

Crowley looks down at Aziraphale. Aziraphale, who wants him to be the demon, be himself. He'd been an angel, once, Aziraphale had said, and Crowley had dismissed that as being a long time ago. Now, it had only been moments earlier. It felt strange, to lose it again so quickly.

This place had a cruel way of tormenting.

He puts an arm around the angel's shoulders. "Can't trust anything around here," he says.

[lunchbreaks]

"You can trust me," he responds, quietly, turning his face into Crowley's shoulder. "Always. Do you doubt me?" he asks, sounding worried. He'd never want this place to change how they feel about each other.

[sauntered_downward]

"Always, angel," he replies. "But this place----it, well---"

How to explain in really great detail what it's like living here? How to explain how tormented they are here? How it messes with their heads and their bodies and goes right down into their very beings? How to go deep down and explain that?

"This place is fucked."