bigapplesauce | Entries tagged with retired: crowley

It's been a long time. Right? Hasn't it? It's been a long time.

Passage of days is nothing to Aziraphale. He did without Crowley in a very real, very cosmic sense for a whole entire month, or was it two, he'll be buggered if he's going to be specific about these things - for that whole time, and he was, well, he was miserable, but he made it, right? Only because the Rift in all its bloody capitalized capitalization saw fit to reunite them, but details, details. Here's the point. The point is this. Aziraphale is drunk.

He's been drunk every day for several weeks now. He spends the bookshop's various erratic hours at the back, drinking, while Spike handles the absent business in his champion-like way. Every evening he sobers himself up, returns home to the room Crowley is no longer allowed to enter, and spends a wonderful bunch of hours with Melanie, having tea, cakes, and raw meat, reading books, letting her stroke his wings. That sort of thing. It's lovely and it exists in its own bubble, where no other thoughts are allowed to intrude.

This, though, the rest of it, is awful. He could spend more time with Melanie. It's not like his presence is required at the shop. But he goes there all the same. Sometimes to fawn over the modest collection he's acquired, mostly to wish Crowley would appear. Just slither in like he does. Hissing. Skulking. Lounging.

It's not that Aziraphale misses him, well no, all right, it's exactly that, it's that and a handful of change, he misses Crowley ridiculously, painfully, infuriatingly. What is he to do? Lucifer is still very much a Thing, as the kids are saying, and Aziraphale's not going home to Melanie with freeze burns on his face.

But Crowley is so very dear to him, a truth he evades as often and aggressively as possible, and yet, this itch is still there, this itch to do something impulsive and bloody stupid, something because something is, after weeks of nothing, better than another week of nothing.

This is how, somewhere in there, he winds up inside Crowley's flat with a half-emptied bottle of wine (his fifteenth) in his hand, fixing the demon with an abnormally pleasant smile and thrusting an index finger toward him in a specifically non-accusatory fashion.

"Oh, hullo!" he says as though he has absolutely no idea how he got here. "How's things?"

Current Location: Crowley's flat (Gabriel's Radpad)
Current Date: 30th November, 2013 (mid-afternoon)

interndana

Dana sighs in relief when she enters the shop in the morning. The summer heat is nothing like what she's used to, all sticky with humidity and the particular city smell that gets everywhere. It gets a bit monotonous, between that outside smell and the sterile recycled air of the office. So the flower shop is a welcome change, the air full of the smell of potting soil and growing things instead of asphalt and garbage.

She first discovered the store on a meandering quest for bloodstones, and to be honest she didn't expect to find any in the city. But it would be nice if she could have a little reminder of home, and the searching kept her mind busy when all she was doing at the Romac offices was filing and faxing and getting food. It's not that she was ungrateful for the way the faction set her up with a place to live and work to do, but Dana felt like she could be doing more. She needed a way to ground herself, to remember where she came from, even if she would be staying here in this world for, possibly, quite a while. Hence the bloodstones.

The rock shop she eventually found tucked away in the midtown flower district was much better than some of the strange 'new age' stores that claimed all their crystals had special healing properties. Dana was never terribly religious, but she could tell at a glance that the selection at more metaphysical stores was not going to be what she needed. 'Rock Star Crystals' however, is much more down to earth as far as these things go. The fist-sized chunk of raw bloodstone that immediately caught her eye on the chalcedony shelf is far out of her price range, but the staff were friendly and willing to hold it for her for a while.

On her second visit (settling for some beads to make a bracelet, if she can't have the large piece just yet), Dana noticed a sign on the door of the adjoining suite advertising the need for an assistant. It would be nice to have a little extra money, she thought, and a change of scenery, a reason to frequent the place in the city she felt most relaxed. So she went to the little flower shop and asked about the job and smiled. People seemed to respond well to her smile.

Two weeks later she's started to settle into the rhythm of the floral business, the contrast between the quiet thoughtfulness of being surrounded by plants and the rush of processing and sending out orders. Dana's sitting at the workbench pruning an arrangement that'll go out for delivery tomorrow, when she hears the bell ring on the front door.

"Come on in!" she calls brightly. "I'll just be a moment."

Current Location: 150 West 28th St
Current Date: July 25 (I'm not backdated YOU'RE backdated)

bibliophale

Aziraphale arrives at his shop on the morning of the 4th, only some hours after meeting Crowley in the park, after meeting Gabriel at the diner, after his difficult discussion with Melanie, after that dream, and finds Illyria sitting in the back just as he'd left her. All that had gone on and she'd just been here, contemplating space. Right. His mind's been made up. It was a trying night for many, many reasons, but he's refreshed now, and he's ready to finally face this unfaced problem.

"It's time for you to move out," he tells her sternly. "Come on now. We're getting you a proper place to stay. Can't have you in here all the time. Up you get."

He will suffer no further God-Kings. He'll put her somewhere close by, where he can keep an eye out - he's still concerned about Winifred Burkle showing up again, for instance - but his shop will go back to being his, thanks very much.

Current Location: Aziraphale's bookshop, 1st & 87th
Current Date: 4th August (backdated)

bibliophale

He's sunk very low, he thinks, since he came here. He hasn't really given himself time to think about it properly, keeping himself busy, pretending everything is fine as he has always done, but tonight, inebriation has brought an unusual clarity. His conversation with Gabriel helped but did not heal. He has to tell Crowley what's happened.

He feels truly destitute for the first time since that awful month before the Rift took him, when he was alone, no idea where Crowley had gone. He's standing in the park in the small hours of the morning, hidden in one of the many dark spots of the Ramble, fussing angrily with his phone. Bloody thing. He has half a mind to throw it into the woods. When he's finally made it clear to Crowley where he is, or clear enough anyway, he pockets it and stands staring into the dark.

Crowley will likely scold him for making him come out here over something so inconsequential - it is inconsequential, he tells himself - but he doesn't care. He doesn't sober himself up, either. It will make this easier, if not more pleasant. It feels like he's about to deal drugs. Or something else, equally clandestine - isn't that what this area used to be for? He can't help but chuckle a little at that. Imagine them, meeting in the park like this, like-

Well. Like they used to do. More or less.

He sighs, takes his glasses off to rub at the bridge of his nose, and then looks up, replacing them, when he feels Crowley appear nearby.

Current Location: Central Park - The Ramble
Current Date: 4th August (backdated)

endless_epithumia

Desire is restless. There’s an itch underneath their skin and everything they look at feels sour, stale, their flesh and blood palace is all too confining now. They need to be out and about. They’ll find some distraction, someone or something to play with to take their mind off all that foolishness Delirium was on about, trying to find their brother. Desire doesn't want to waste any time in maudlin nonsense remembering the way things used to be before Destruction left. Delirium acts as if that was the moment when things started to go wrong for them, but Desire knows different, it was always heading toward this point, because that’s how things go. The difference between wanting and having, and then the hollow absence in the aftermath. They won’t mourn the loss, because of that. It was an inevitability.

And this makes their current feelings of dissatisfaction all the more irritating. They don’t like thinking that they can be drawn into the kind of sentimentality that gets their youngest sister going off on doomed little adventures, and they certainly don’t like knowing that they’ll probably have to go and pick up the pieces if Delirium falls apart again. So they resolve to distract themself, find something to pick and poke at so their interest is turned toward something more entertaining than irritatingly moral feelings of familial concern.

That odd little patch of the Dreaming, for instance. Desire smiles at the memory, such a strange environment full of desperate minds, and no sign of their brother's handiwork anywhere. It's like a little snow globe someone designed just so Desire could shake it up and see what happens when the blizzard starts. Yes, that would do nicely.

They stand up and brush nonexistent dust off their trousers and concentrate their attention on the feelings they got from that dream environment in order to find its source. The thread is there, practically tangible, unguarded and gleaming with possibility and easy prey. Desire almost thinks that it seems odd that such a place would have escaped Dream's notice and is just lying there, for anyone to find. Desire almost thinks this, but they are a creature of the moment and of impulses, and that kind of second-guessing does not suit them. So they tease the thread out from the weft of realities and brush themself up against it, just to get an introductory taste.

They aren't expecting the catch as the little world snags against their essence and tugs them with more force than they'd expect. Desire pulls away, indignant that someone in some paltry dimension would presume to summon them, but they find they cannot disentangle themselves from this...whatever this is, and it's not like sneaking into a dream at all. Desire holds on everything they have, everything they are, their gallery and their Threshold, but the hold of temporal-spatial gravity is stronger, and after too brief a struggle Desire falls, sick and furious, into the world.

Desire is standing on a sidewalk in a city, some version of earth and humans, and all the noise and chaos and emotions that go along with them. They narrow their eyes and observe their surroundings: tt is a throbbing hellscape of metal and concrete and neon, streets and buildings reaching up and intersecting at acute angles to force the pulse of life to bend from rigid lines into this swirling, sweating mass. Now this is very interesting indeed. It's all so shiny and full of wanting that it distracts Desire from their anger for the moment. It's some small consolation, Desire thinks, because the streets are (somewhat) cleaner and the skyline is sharper and there's no brothels or pornographic theaters like they remember, but they've been here before, and the beat is familiar. They've been pulled from their own palatial heart to a heart of a different kind, the heart of a city they've always rather enjoyed. If this is meant to be a trap for them it's baited well.

Desire smirks up at the advertising, conceding to whoever or whatever caused this displacement that it was a hand well-played.

"Hello New York," they murmur fondly. "My, but you clean up nice." They wonder what sordid enticements the city has to offer behind the ultramodern facade. They step away from the curb and cross the square in seamless rhythm with the pedestrian traffic. They'll keep a low profile for now, just another face in the crowd until they can find the party or parties responsible for bringing them here. Perhaps they'll take in a show.

(ooc: Desire will be ambling up Broadway towards the park, feel free to bump into them!)

Current Mood: bored
Current Location: Times Square
Current Date: August 9

anguiform

The Devil hadn't wanted much with Crowley after he'd returned from dumping Aziraphale back at his bookshop. That, apparently, had merely been to reinforce the terms of their agreement; Crowley did what Lucifer said, and Aziraphale might get strung up and horribly tortured, but he'd be alive at the end of it. He'd had no immediate tasks that He wanted Crowley for, and, satisfied that Crowley had got the message (he had), He'd buggered off. Crowley had cranked up the heat as high as it would go, and crawled into bed to pass out, feeling more miserable than he had in centuries.

He wakes up a day and a half later, according to the fancy digital clock on his nightstand, and he still feels cold.

His flat is a wreck. Crowley spends a moment simply standing in his living room, gazing at what had once been a row of almost obscenely verdant plants, and is now a spill of shattered pottery, spilled dirt, and withered and frost-scorched stalks. One wall has scorchmarks on it, courtesy of his own infernal fires, and he feels an awful twist of guilt somewhere under his diaphragm. Crowley has never had much truck with guilt; it's bloody pointless when you're a demon, but occasionally, and more often as time has gone on, it's shouldered its way in anyway. And he shouldn't, he tells himself firmly. Aziraphale had as good as given him permission, and even if he hadn't, Crowley had saved his life, more or less; he doesn't doubt that Lucifer would simply have killed him if Crowley hadn't acquiesced to his terms.

So guilt, really, is pointless. Pointless.

It doesn't work.

Crowley goes to take a shower.

He turns the water up so hot it probably would scorch a human, but Crowley luxuriates in it, and scrubs himself pink under the spray.

He knows, of course, that he shouldn't go check on Aziraphale. The angel's fine, of course he's fine, and even if he weren't, the Devil is probably watching and the last thing Crowley needs is for Him to see him going to make sure his pet angel is all right like some kind of-- well, like whatever Crowley actually is. Aziraphale's flat and shop are both warded, and if Lucifer wants him for something and can't find him because he's behind a ward, he doesn't imagine that it'll go well for him. But he also knows that channel surfing will only entertain for so long, and so it's not at all to his own surprise that he finds himself, uncomfortably anxious, at Aziraphale's shop some few hours before noon.

There's no reason for the anxiety, he tells himself; he has never been anxious about seeing Aziraphale, but there's something twisting up his insides nevertheless as he slinks into the bookshop, the ever-present layer of dust muffling the closing of the door behind him. The angel is not in immediate evidence, and Crowley slides past the front desk towards the back room, where he suspects he's most likely to be, lifting his voice as he goes. 'Oi, Aziraphale! You here?'

Current Date: 23rd July, backdated

bibliophale

[ooc: this post will cover the evening of the 30th to some point on the 1st when the rain effects wear off.]

After the day he's had, it's quite a relief to go home, and it's nice - very nice, and a little strange - to know there is actually someone waiting there for him. Of course ordinarily he'd have tried to see what Crowley was up to and if he fancied getting drunk, but they've been giving each other a wider berth than usual lately, as though Lucifer might pop up the moment they got alone together. It's an unpleasant situation, but Aziraphale doesn't dwell on it. He transports himself directly into his flat and shucks off his coat, which is still a bit damp from the morning's rain.

"Hallo," he says to Melanie, who is currently engrossed in another of his books. He strolls into the kitchen and starts setting things about for tea. "Was your day all right?"

It's only a moment of fussing with the kettle before he realizes Melanie hasn't replied, and that's very strange indeed. He blinks and turns back. The book must be very engrossing indeed. "Melanie?" he prompts gently.

Current Location: Rebel apartments
Current Date: 30 July - 1 August

bibliophale

It takes Crowley a few hours to get back to his initial query, and when he does it is with the grim but unsurprising news that ROMAC does not intend to let their fungus child live in peace in her little dungeon hideaway. Even if their intentions are pure, as they might well be in this instance, Aziraphale doesn't like the idea of Melanie as a test subject, and something tells him she won't like it either.

More importantly, it just doesn't sit right with him, a little girl living in a place like that. It would be heartless to just leave her there. Rescuing her is the right thing to do. The angelic thing.

As soon as he's decided, he closes up the shop and vanishes, leaving his phone on the counter (not on purpose, though it's probably for the best, the way Crowley keeps going on).

He doesn't quite know where he's heading. The Base itself is easy enough, but he's only got a fair guess at which level is Melanie's. He finds himself in a corridor more or less resembling the place from his dream, and takes a moment to fish around, seeking something young, human, and also not quite human. Her consciousness doesn't exactly stand out, but it is odd, and after a moment he gets a faint sense for it, lower in the earth.

He slips into a stairwell and hurries down a few flights. He passes a few men and women with security badges, and all look right past him. He's no one. He's definitely supposed to be here. On the cameras, of course, he won't show up at all.

Coming out the stairwell into Melanie's cell block, he immediately finds himself face to face with a guard, who raises his gun with a sharp "Hey!" Aziraphale steps around him with the grace and nonchalance of a professional spy. The guard fires a warning shot, a thin stream of water grazing Aziraphale's upper arm (sometimes old tricks are the best ones). Aziraphale passes a hand over his arm to dry his blazer, and, as an afterthought, encourages the guard to take a quick lie-down, and just forget about that odd little dream with the mild-mannered intruder.

He hones in on Melanie's room without further incident, passes a hand over it to undo each of the five locks, and steps inside.

She's there, as small and innocent as she looked in the dream (can this child really be dangerous?), reading a book that looks much too complex for a ten-year-old.

"Hello again," he says pleasantly.

Current Location: ROMAC Base, Rebel apartments
Current Date: 24 July 2013

wentdowntogeorgia

Lucifer supposes that it's about time that he drops in to speak with the only other fallen angel in the city.

He isn't particularly difficult to find, nor is the place where he rests his head at night-- sleep? Really, Crowley?-- and the Devil is pleased to note that the apartment has not fallen victim to the rash of warding sigils that have cropped up around the city. A wise move on Crowley's part, because Lucifer would not have at all been pleased if he had had to find a way to remove the ward or track the demon down.

Instead, he pops right in to the demon's empty apartment to wait for his return. It's adequate, as far as human dwellings go; small, perhaps, though they all seem small to him, and appropriately furnished for human habitation. He understands the purpose of all the furnishings and possessions, that there are certain necessary functions that must be satisfied and particular objects to meet these mortal demands, but the specifics are not something he bothers to familiarize himself with.

He pokes around a little anyway, out of idle curiosity.

By the time Crowley returns, however, he is sitting in a lordly sprawl on the couch and the temperature in the apartment has plummeted a good twenty or so degrees. Centigrade.

Current Location: Romac Apartments
Current Date: July 21st

rae_of_sun

Well, if there's ever been a reason for Sunshine to start pushing herself in the magic-handling department, the arrival of a mega-toxic kali nightmare goon from wherever-the-hell - and a subsequent text containing a ward symbol against said nightmare goon - definitely qualifies. Gods, has she missed wards. And, okay, she finds it a little hard to fully trust the effectiveness of a ward symbol drawn by… well, anyone aside from an accredited wardsmith (herself included)… but if there's even a slight chance that it'll work, she will gladly wallpaper the entire damn building with the thing.

Better to start small, though, especially if what she's going for is 'permanent.' Which is why she's standing outside her own apartment door with the little image of the symbol pulled up on her phone. She examines the picture with a tight little frown, memorizing the details in case intent is not enough. Then she tucks her phone into the back pocket of her shorts and braces her palms against the door.

Okay. She can do this. It's big - far bigger than anything she's attempted before - but it's only wood. Easy compared to metal or stone. And her grandmother said she could do anything in bright sunlight, and there's plenty of that shining in through the window at the end of the hall, all of two feet to her right. So.

Sunshine shuts her eyes, pictures the ward symbol as clearly as she can, and shoves.

A bolt of power runs down her arms and into her door, the recoil strong enough to force her back a pace. She opens her eyes, regains her balance, and takes in her new door.

At first, she thinks it was a bust; the change is so subtle. But then she realizes that the ward symbol is there, right in the middle of her door and as large as a dinner plate. It's visible only because the grain of the wood abruptly changes direction, like an incredibly fine inlay. She steps closer and runs her fingertips over the line where symbol ends and door begins, but she can't feel a seam.

"Gods," she breathes. Could she darken it? Probably, yes, if she tried again. Make it a bit more obvious, if that's what's needed. A smile tugs at the corners of her mouth. It worked. How's that for permanent?

Okay. She'll come back to her own door later. First, she has to do Spike's. And then the main entrances. And then the windowsills. ~~And then literally every other flat surface she can reach.~~

[ooc: Sunshine is gonna spend the day WARDING ALL THE THINGS, so feel free to have your character run into her in any given hallway, down by the front door, or even up on the roof. Pretty much anywhere in the rebel apartment building is fair game. And hey, she'll probably ward your door if you ask nicely.]

Current Location: Rebel apartments
Current Date: July 16th, 2013 (backdated)

anguiform

It takes Crowley perhaps half an hour to wear out his panic into a sort of indignant fury that has him pacing the length and breadth of his flat in agitation. The angel's fine, or more or less fine; he's not dead, at any rate, and that's more than most could say after a sodding fistfight with the Devil. Crowley had laid him out on his bed, attempting the awkward job of arranging his wings under him (which, with wings a good eleven feet long from root to tip, is bloody difficult) and perfunctorily stripped him to make sure there weren't any vital wounds under his clothes. There'd been more bruising, blossoming spectacularly all over Aziraphale's stomach and chest, but nothing worse. His inspection carried out, he'd miracled him a pair of pyjamas, and then lurked by the bedside for a while. It was bizarre to see him asleep, though; unlike Crowley, who was terribly fond of sleep, Aziraphale had rarely seen the attraction, certainly not when Crowley was around and awake himself. He looked... not quite like himself, unconscious, the tics of expression and awareness that made him look like Aziraphale gone, leaving just a face that might have belonged to anyone.

And now, all Crowley has to do is wait for the irredeemable idiot to wake up. He recognises, distantly, that the jittering energy that's fuelling his trammelled irritation has sprung from his terror at the thought that Aziraphale might have actually died, but it's a lot easier to be annoyed than it is to worry. Crowley isn't especially comfortable with that kind of worrying, nor any of the associated feelings it carries with it, all the more because they lead inevitably down the path that now Lucifer is very likely going to have some kind of vendetta against Aziraphale for daring to lay hands upon His person, and that is the last thing they bloody need. And there'll likely be little point in Crowley trying to play agreeable and fly under the Devil's radar, after what Aziraphale had said.

'Bugger,' he mutters, as he paces down the shiny hardwood-floored corridor between lounge and bedroom. 'Bugger, bugger, bugger and bollocks, of all the stupid times to decide to play the bloody hero, the idiot. When he wakes up, I am going to murder him myself. And if he's got any idea of repeating that little performance, I'll do it again.'

Current Date: 14 July

wentdowntogeorgia

Lucifer falls.

This is old news for everyone involved. He fell from Grace, he fell from Heaven, and after the so long awaited confrontation in Stull Cemetery, he and his once-beloved brother and the promise of violence, he fell back into the Cage in the body of Sam Winchester.

Now, when he falls, he feels a shift around him like the universe cracking open at the seams; there is the smell of ozone and a lightning-snap that’s louder than even Sam’s fearful internal monologue, louder than the terror that pounds his frantic mortal heart at the sight of Perdition yawning wide beneath him. He is yanked sideways, sudden lateral movement that would be dizzying if he had a center of balance to upset, a rip-tide pulling him in and down and through the rabbit-hole, shadow-thin and darkling deep.

The body that is supposed to be his—that has had his name written over and across and around every fiber of its being since its conception—is suddenly far away, and he is wrapped in the old, familiar skin of a vessel he’d left dying in Detroit, flesh given freely rather than claimed by divine right. And then he is a streak in the sky that hits water and sinks like a stone.

Under the water, cold and getting colder from the seed crystal that is his freezing Grace in its mortal house, he can feel the vast emptiness where Heaven should be above him and isn’t; the universe is silent and it is deafening, a tinnitus ring where there should be angels’ voices. Lucifer grabs two fistfuls of space-time and pulls, moving himself from under the water to standing in the shallows at the bank, and behind him the lake’s surface is already frozen over thick like it’s the dead of winter. The water around his feet is sluggish and barely liquid, filmed over top with a thin frozen layer that breaks and flows around his ankles.

Someone approaches him with a towel, and there is no Hell below him and above him only sky, and he makes no reply; he banishes the water from his clothes with a thought before he puts his fist right through the man’s chest.

[[ooc: So this is going to be the hottest of messes; see mod comment for post instructions and fun stuff like that.]]

[[TW: gore, major character death.]]

Current Date: 14 July

bibliophale

Aziraphale is very happy to be doing nothing.

Spike's not in and it's Sunshine's day off, which is fine as well. Aziraphale's already proudly purchased a scone and even made small talk with Liz while she watched him hawkishly, clearly expecting him to ask after their absent baker, then attempting to conceal surprise and even disappointment when he didn't. He felt rather pleased with himself for that.

Crowley slouched on by before long, playing hooky with his ROMAC duties, of which he as yet has very few. Now he's draped in the back, presumably entertaining himself or dozing, while Aziraphale busies himself with idleness. He creates a computer for the shop, to track the real books he's collected - not very many, so far - and to add to the general ambiance of the place. True to form it is a very old, miserable-looking desktop Macintosh, dusty and barely functional, with a noisy dial-up modem. He's frowning thoughtfully at it, working on an overcomplicated spreadsheet and munching on his scone, when the door surprises and offends him by opening.

Current Location: Aziraphale's bookshop, 1st & 87th
Current Date: 11 July (backdated)

erratic_hematic

It's either incredibly late or incredibly early, and Spike is leaning up against the equestrian statue in front of the Natural History Museum looking, in general, like someone you wouldn't want to meet in the middle of the night. He's wearing his long leather coat despite the warm night, smoking a cigarette, and contemplating the front of the building.

The last time he'd been in (his universe's) New York, he's had a little storage room to himself down in the basement of the building. He's curious if it's still there in this universe, so many years later. Curious enough that he has both his lock pick set and a pry bar stored in his coat. Not quite curious enough yet to go and check out what the alarm systems look like.

Current Location: the Natural History Museum
Current Date: Early July 8th, 2013

bagropa

Croach is wrenched from his dream by an explosion. It is followed by a hissing noise not unlike the sound of a laser pistol cutting through and cauterizing flesh. He is alert immediately, abandoning his nest to seek out the danger in the park. Danger that... he does not sense. Instead, he hears the sound of human laughter, and he remembers the significance of the current date. It is some sort of human holiday, celebrated (increasingly, of late) by the baffling tradition of colorful explosions, perhaps as some sort of attempt to recreate a successful battle in their history. Regardless, it is unsafe, and Croach tracks the source of the explosions and warns the younglings away from using explosive devices. (It does not require much to convince them; they are eager to leave once he arrives, surely guilty upon being caught.)

He has been on this planet for fifty-seven days, he tabulates, as he dismantles the explosive to harvest the primitive chemicals within for use in new techno arrows. He has run out, unable to repair the damage done to the few he arrived with during the course of his travels and rescues. He has explored the length and breadth of the island and come no closer to discovering the purpose of his presence. He has learned that the denizens of the city are not always receptive to his assistance - in half of the assaults in which he has intervened, the victim has attacked him, often due to his appearance or 'nerve' or something called the 'patriarchy'.

It is... frustrating, he decides, emptying the black powder into a pouch and cinching it shut. He cannot identify the emotions this lack of progress causes him to experience and he is uncomfortable confiding in any of the - friends - he has made so far. He knows they are negative emotions - he recognizes the unpleasant feeling in his lower intestines - but they are either too foreign or too complicated to name in detail. Not that he has thought hard about that, really. He has actually put significant effort into not identifying the emotions. They make him agitated, and though he would deny it if anyone asked, he knows it has been showing. The way he treated the younglings he chased away was not kind, he will admit. They left abruptly because they were frightened, not apologetic. But he does not wish to acknowledge his emotions, because he fears - yes, he fears - that if he does, he might realize that there is no reason for his presence and, as several have insisted, no way to return to his home.

Croach returns to his nest with his find, hiding it safely in the cover of the roots of a tree. He has not ventured far from the area for the past Earth week, deciding instead to provide himself with a more comfortable and perma-- a more suitable place to live. In his explorations, he found a abandoned cave full of animal skins. He praised Nah Nohtek for the gift and took them to the copse he calls his own, intending to build a tent. He finds himself inexplicably reluctant to do so, though - to do anything, short of helping those within proximity who require urgent assistance. He has not visited Sunshine four Earth days. He wonders if she has noticed his absence.

That is not an entirely unfamiliar emotion, he realizes. He wondered that often about Sparks Nevada after he declared his onus complete and left, leaving Sparks Nevada with the author Rebecca Rose Rushmore. The Red Plains Rider had, concurrently, wedded Cactoid Jim. Croach had felt… superfluous. He had lied openly to Sparks Nevada in order to disguise his reaction, declaring that he would return to his tribe indefinitely. He did not feel successful when Sparks Nevada believed him. He had experienced - sadness.

Putting names to his emotions - frustration, sadness, loneliness - does not make them easier to bear. But something had, he recalls, and his feet carry him south out of the park with purpose that he has thus far lacked.

“I wish to begin a tabulation,” he declares with more confidence than he has felt since he arrived in the city, sitting heavily on a stool at the bar in Wilmot’s End. He has heard it is open to - that they would not be averse to his appearance. “One of your wheat-based beverages. You may entrust me with the bottle.”

((WHO WANTS TO GET SUPER DRUNK WITH CROACH because he is going to get pretty drunk. He will eventually be leaving with someone - not like that, gosh - but in the meantime he will be... an inappropriate drunk.))

Current Location: july 4th, 2013: 4 pm

bibliophale

"If you go home with somebody and they don't have books, don't f*** them."
--John Waters, a man who knows what is going on

Aziraphale leads Crowley from the bake shop, makes an immediate left, and stops only a few meters away, in front of the now unmarked and easily ignorable patch of leftover building, which used to be the Radio Shack. Half of it is now part of Glaser's; the other looks like a dingy little nothing. Just as he intended.

He smiles to himself and pushes the door open, which takes some effort. Heavy oak on rusted hinges, a far cry from the transparent pneumatic entryway-of-the-future it used to be.

"I just made it, so it's not quite up to par," he says, stepping aside to admit his counterpart. "It's a work in progress."

Inside, Crowley will find creaking wood floors, a dismal looking little countertop with a cash register that would look out of date in the 1970s, a thin layer of dust on every surface, and of course books. Not so many as Aziraphale would like, and none of them are real - well, real in the sense that they're tangible, but they're just for show. He needs to actually start collecting again, and that's going to be a bit of a trial. But at least he has a place to put them.

"More cramped than the old place," he comments, "but I think that adds to the overall effect, don't you?"

That effect being, the unfriendliest, most inhospitable bookshop anyone could ever expect to find on the Upper West Side. And a bookshop only in the barest technical sense. Perfect.

Current Location: Aziraphale's bookshop, 1st & 87th
Current Date: July 3rd

omnomnom_feels

Compared to how he was when he arrived, Rashad looks like a new man. Wounds that should have taken weeks to heal have left only faint scars that will continue to fade; in a city this large it has not been difficult to find sources of energy. He has lived on an emotional rollercoaster over the last half week, fluctuating through every intense feeling the people of New York have offered him. No one seems to have connected the death of the man in the park with his arrival. He is ignorant of the looming presence of the two factions, having escaped the attentions of one without knowing just what he was escaping; while the lack of a place to sleep has little impact on his health it has made it necessary to keep himself clean through magic, which is mildly taxing. He does not know this time or its people; the handful of professions he has learned to round out past personae are unlikely to do him a great deal of good here and he does not know even enough to fabricate a plausible explanation for his own existence. Fortunately, most people of new York are uninterested in strangers, and soon enough he learns of the prevalence of homeless shelters, though unsurprisingly these face more demand than they can supply and July 2 is the first night on which he is able to procure a place to -- importantly -- gather information about other resources and -- less importantly -- to lay down and pretend to sleep (that he does seem to sleep and to dream is certainly unexpected).

That this is not the world he came from compounds the problem of not even knowing what questions to ask. The absence of nonhuman mortals is glaring; in his first days here he thought he might be looking at the results of widespread segregation, but there are no signs whatsoever of the existence of beastfolk, dwarves, ogres, or any of the others here. For once it seems fortunate that his semi-mortal form is that of a 'Common Man' rather than the Eldren form favored by most angels, though he wonders whether it can really be true that the other subspecies never existed here or if -- as seems more likely to him, though it is still difficult to conceive -- they somehow went extinct in some past disaster.

Having recovered his health and obtained clothing from the shelter that is at least serviceable if not particularly attractive, Rashad sets himself the task of filling in the gaps -- no, the gaping holes -- of his knowledge of this version of the mortal world. The public library is, he thinks, one of the mortal world's most sensible inventions, and it is advantageous that such libraries have become more common rather than less since 'his' time. He makes himself as inconspicuous and inoffensive as possible as he plumbs the depths of the nonfiction section, not yet ready to approach the strange, intelligent machines many of the other patrons are using. Each day he visits a library he gathers a stack of history books and recent almanacs through which he slowly works his way, writing cramped notes in mixed alphabets to remind himself of names, dates, and facts that seem significant and to require more in-depth investigation. This will not tell him how to behave in this world, but it will help him begin to build the context he needs. For behavior he will have to look to the people themselves...and perhaps to their entertainment, though he has had only enough access to television to be aware that it exists and that it seems to happen very quickly.

When he is not at the library he can be found meandering through public spaces, observing the people he finds there. He does not venture into Central Park lest he encounter someone who might recognize him from his previous appearance there, but he roams the streets peering into shop windows, listening to the conversations of passersby, and watching for opportunities to create a more stable position for himself in this society. He doesn't know what to do, but drifting aimlessly is nothing new.

[OOC: If you need a hook, either talk to me to arrange something or just drop a tag about what your character is doing in whatever place you choose for them to meet and I can come up with a way for the interaction to start in my reply. I can put him just about anywhere.]

Current Location: various public libraries; around the city
Current Date: July 2-3 (please specify)

bibliophale

Rain.

Aziraphale stares out the window of his musty little apartment, which he has not yet bothered to furnish. The rain is coming down with an almost Biblical vengeance, pelting the windows and the streets, amplifying the noise of tires as the unending onslaught of cars rush impatiently to their various destinations.

He's just awakened from a rather bizarre dreaming experience. Pieces come back to him as he gazes out; he can't quite recount it all now, some of it quite jumbled. It's odd to have dreamed at all. It isn't something he ordinarily does. But it seems to have happened nonetheless. There was something extremely unnatural about it that suggests it wasn't really voluntary, anyway. Like something he wouldn't have been able to avoid.

There is one part of the dream, however, that he remembers with extreme clarity.

Poor Sunshine must be having a hard time of things on a day like today.

He sighs decisively, dresses himself the quick way (blue tartan jacket, gray sweater vest, red bowtie, and the ever traditional white shirt/brown trouser combo) and produces a nice sturdy umbrella for himself.

The walk is doable, but umbrella or no, Aziraphale does not feel in a mood to get wet. Rather, he is fairly eager to follow up on that offer of free samples. So he opens the umbrella, positions it neatly over his head, and promptly teleports himself a block away from Glaser's. That short distance will be enough to make him believably wetted. As he nears the spot, he passes by a tree that seems to have been imbued with some kind of unearthly energy - how unusual. But he shrugs it off for the moment. The call of pastries is a strong one.

Presently he steps inside the bake shop, which smells divine if he does say so, though it is rather smaller than he expected.

He smiles primly at the nearest clerk, who greets him and asks him how she can help him today. He approaches the counter and says, "I was hoping to speak to Sunshine, actually."

Current Location: Rebel apartments, Glaser's Bake Shop
Current Date: July 3rd (morning after dream party)

anguiform

Crowley is, all in all, rather pleased with himself. Not that his presence had necessarily had much effect at all, other than his being an accessory to watching Adam Young very neatly put shot to the whole Apocalypse thing. He can’t decide if he’s smug, embarrassed, or horrified in retrospect about the fact that he’d faced down Satan with nothing more than a tyre iron and an angel at his back, which he’s dealing with by not thinking about it any more than he can help.

The result, in any event, is the same. No Armageddon, the world free to continue on as it always had. Granted, they now had an Antichrist who was about to go through the throes of puberty to consider (it had never been in the plan for the boy to have time to actually grow up) whom he and Aziraphale seem to have accidentally found themselves sort of in charge of keeping an eye on, but it could be worse. Yeah, it could be a-- somewhere of a lot worse

At the moment, they’re celebrating the continued existence of the world by getting absolutely ratted. Crowley loves wine. He really, really loves wine.

They’re in the middle of a rousing (and increasingly muddled) discussion on the merits of toasting one’s spices before cooking with them (having arrived on that subject by way of the British Raj, previously by way of Oscar Wilde, previously by way of the confusing morass that is human morality) when a space-time event happens to Crowley. Crowley knows what it feels like to have all one’s molecules disassembled in a moment and reassembled somewhere else. He knows what it feels like to have his physical being squeezed down to the size of an atom and zip through the aether. The thing is, if he’s not the one doing it himself, he usually has at least a little bit of warning. Not so this time.

One moment he’s coiled over a tatty couch in the back room of Aziraphale’s shop, the next, he’s been left blinking and staggering in the sun in some park. He puts his hands out to balance.

‘‘Ziraphale? The...’ It takes him a few moments to settle on the right word. ‘The fuck is going on? Oi, angel!’

Crowley spins around to see if the angel is anywhere in evidence, and promptly falls flat on his arse.

‘Nnngrff,’ says Crowley, and shoves his face into the grass. ‘Bugger. ‘m too drunk f’this.’

And with an immense effort of will, he sobers up, every particle of alcohol in his system abruptly… no longer in his system. Immediately, intoxication is replaced by a ferocious hangover headache, which he similarly miracles away with a (much more casual) wave of one hand. Pulling himself up off the ground, any newly-acquired stains on his suit get the same treatment, and he takes a moment to adjust himself back into clean, sober lines. The centre button on his sportcoat buttoned, creases brushed out, sunglasses adjusted. There we go; much better. Now he’s prepared to figure out where he is.

It doesn’t take much figuring; Manhattan is instantly recogniseable, and Crowley scowls down at the grass. ‘Couldn’t you have given me some warning?’ he gripes.

Although, now he thinks on it, just plucking him up like that and chucking him around the globe is hardly Hell’s style. His superiors Below generally prefer to just tell him what to do and leave the actual getting-it-done to him. Not to mention, that kind of transport takes effort.

He continues glaring at the turf. ‘Oi! Dagon! Malthus? Labal, anyone? No-one listening? What is this, a relocation? I’ve got an Antichrist to look after, you know; I don’t see any of you clamouring for that job.’

His mobile’s in his pocket, but there’s no answer from Hell.

Current Date: 2 July

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The Big Applesauce

Page Summary

bibliophale - Disaster Man and his Disaster Plan
interndana - buying the flowers yourself [closed]
bibliophale - Eviction [closed]
bibliophale - Confession [closed]
endless_epithumia - Wake Up In the Morning Feelin Like P Diddy [open to multiple]
anguiform - finally you see things as they really are, and that is the most horrible thing in the world [closed]
bibliophale - Forgotten But Not Gone [closed]
bibliophale - The Girl in the Cage [closed]
wentdowntogeorgia - Everything You Say Can And Will Be Held Against You [closed]
rae_of_sun - She'll teach those hatches! [Open to Multiple]
anguiform - moral responses in reaction to questions of survivability [closed]
wentdowntogeorgia - I Thought of Angels, Choking On Their Halos [open]
bibliophale - There Goes The Neighborhood [closed]
erratic_hematic - You can't go home again [closed]
bagropa - this week's thrilling adventure: "make mine a double jeopardy" [open to multiple]
bibliophale - "We need to make books cool again." [closed]
omnomnom_feels - Learning. Assimilating. [Open]
bibliophale - Angel, Food, Cake, and Other Puns [closed]
anguiform - the first day of the rest of the world [open]

Page generated May. 28th, 2025 10:31 pm

The Big Applesauce

Entries tagged with retired: crowley

Disaster Man and his Disaster Plan

buying the flowers yourself [closed]

Eviction [closed]

Confession [closed]

Wake Up In the Morning Feelin Like P Diddy [open to multiple]

finally you see things as they really are, and that is the most horrible thing in the world [closed]

Forgotten But Not Gone [closed]

The Girl in the Cage [closed]

Everything You Say Can And Will Be Held Against You [closed]

She'll teach those hatches! [Open to Multiple]

moral responses in reaction to questions of survivability [closed]

I Thought of Angels, Choking On Their Halos [open]

There Goes The Neighborhood [closed]

You can't go home again [closed]

this week's thrilling adventure: "make mine a double jeopardy" [open to multiple]

"We need to make books cool again." [closed]

Learning. Assimilating. [Open]

Angel, Food, Cake, and Other Puns [closed]

the first day of the rest of the world [open]

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