#I also have the compulsive need to point it out in any bookstore I shop at

[an-absolute-travesty]

Saw KOTLC mentioned in the wild (random tiktok from a bookseller) and the shock of it really threw me off

#every time it’s mentioned in the wild I flip #it’s entirely involuntary #I also have the compulsive need to point it out in any bookstore I shop at #I really never stopped being 12 💀 #kotlc #keeper of the lost cities

[ace-in-a-shopping-cart]

The Second-Hand Bookstore

Credit for idea goes to @starry-knight-skies. I also got a bit carried away with it, oops.

Summary: Logan owns a  bookstore in a small town. Virgil is a vampire. Nuff said.

Word Count:  2,219

Main Taglist: (Send an ask to be added or removed!) @starlocked01​​​ @spoopy-turtle​​​ @lizluvscupcakes​​ @more-fandon-than-friends​, @i-cant-find-a-good-username, @vindicatedvirgil, @star-crossed-shipper, @justaqueercactus

Logan walked down the stairs and did a once over of the store. He checked the shelves for dust, made sure any misplaced books were put back, and that everything was generally where it should be. He did this routine every time he closed up as well but never knew if his exhaustion clouded his judgement or if he missed anything. Being ready for business, he went and unlocked the front door.

The shop was a little out of the way second-hand bookstore so he didn’t expect many visitors so early in the morning. Only, there was a customer that came in almost as soon as Logan sat down behind the cash register.

The man was dressed in black jeans, a black hoodie with purple patches and white stitching, and a ripped purple shirt. His hood was up when he walked in and he didn’t even seem to pause to adjust his eyes, he just went straight to browsing. Having nothing better to do, Logan watched the customer. 

The man ran his hand along the spines in a way that both suggested he was looking for something but also that he was greeting old friends. Logan wondered if the man had read any of them before. The man walked deeper, a smile flitting across his face as he saw some of the titles. He chuckled at one point, pulling a book off the shelf with a muttered, “I didn’t know this still existed.”

Logan smiled, loathe to break the silence. The book was put back on the shelf as the man continued wandering down the aisle. He got to the back section where Logan kept the older books and his posture changed. He seemed to gain more energy and Logan could imagine his eyes lighting up. His fingers ran along the spines in a gentle and loving way that made Logan think of greeting long lost friends or family unseen for a while.

The door rang and Logan turned, ready to help the next customer. Thoughts of the other customer were pushed to the back of his mind as he was told of a specific book this one was looking for. Logan had to order it but told them it would be there soon. 

When his attention returned to the back aisles, the stranger wasn’t there. Logan’s eyes scanned the tiny store for him, sure he hadn’t gone out the door. He found him curled up in the corner chair, a content smile on his face as he read the book in his hands. Logan wasn’t close enough to read the title.

The day went on and Logan kept up with the now steady trickle of customers coming in. He paid no mind to the customer at the back who was steadily working his way through Logan’s whole astronomy section. That is, until he went on his lunch break and approached the man. 

Logan smiled. “Hi, I couldn’t help but see that you’re going through the whole section on stars.”

The man looked up, a sheepish expression on his pale face. He had dark bags under his eyes that suggested he got little sleep the night before. “Sorry, is that not allowed?”

Logan shook his head. “No, it’s perfectly fine. I was just wondering if you wanted to come talk about constellations while I grab lunch.”

His eyes widened as he put the book down, not even bothering to mark his place. “Really?”

Logan nodded. “Only if you want to.”

He nodded, standing to dwarf Logan by a few inches. Logan led the way out the door, turning the sign to lunch break and locking the door on the way out. “Do you have a preference for a place to eat?”

The man paused, a brief expression of panic crossing his face before it smoothed out. “No, I don’t.”

Logan nodded, humming thoughtfully as they walked down the street. “How about Subway?”

Thus, they sat in a booth and talked about the stars, bonding over the stories they knew of them and laughing when they came up with ones for the constellations they forgot. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Virgil had entered that bookstore that day to get out of the morning sun that stung his eyes. He hadn’t expected to find a spectacled man sitting at a counter, following him with his eyes. He hadn’t expected to run across books written by friends, written by him under a different name. Books that felt like friends simply because of the part of his life he was going through when he’d read it. His mind wandered back to his father’s words, spoken so long ago now: “If you keep your memories in books, you will never forget.” 

Out of all the books, he hadn’t expected to run into ones he’d owned at one point in his life, hadn’t expected to be able to pull it off the shelf and read the notes he’d scribbled into the margins, to see the tear stains on some of the pages, hadn’t expected to be hit with the smell of books that never changes, no matter what century he was in. 

He hadn’t expected to take the trip down memory lane right into his old profession, to be met with almost a wall of books written about stars. He smiled, eyes lighting with a life he hadn’t felt in a long time, and browsed. He saw books written by long dead colleagues, himself, teachers, mentors, students of his, students of his students, and so on. 

He hadn’t expected to be coming face to face with the charming man at the counter, who had been watching him the whole time, asking if he wanted to go eat lunch with him. He didn’t have the heart to tell him he couldn’t eat anymore, just went along with it for the sake of seeing him smile again the way he saw out of the corner of his eye. 

When asked for his preference for a place to eat his eyes grew wide at the thought of ‘the park’ that sprang to his mind. 

He surely didn’t expect to come back, this time in a leather jacket covering a shirt of a band that had long since broken up, purple fishnet gloves and sunglasses perched on his head, all paired with the same jeans as before. He didn’t expect to be spending most of the day talking with Logan, didn’t expect to be purchasing a bunch of the astronomy books he’d written a hundred years ago. 

When he had walked down those stairs and through the door into that store that day to get out of the heat, he had expected very few things. In return, he managed to gain so much more. He had shut himself off from people after the last person he’d thought was his friend had tried to sell him for his fangs. 

He found himself growing closer to Logan, smiling in his presence, almost showing his fangs multiple times. He enjoyed talking with him to the point that he almost let his guard down. He didn’t notice how close they’d gotten until he found himself sitting on a couch, an old show running in the background as Logan was curled up against his side, fast asleep. There were times when Virgil missed the need for sleep, the slipping into oblivion for a few precious hours, but right now he wouldn’t give up his vampiric nature for the world.

He felt Logan shift against him, settling deeper against his side. Virgil stretched his arm out, being careful to not move the rest of his body. He picked up the remote to turn the television off, grabbing the book sitting beside it before settling back into his seat. One arm was slung over Logan’s back and he unconsciously started rubbing his back, fingers threading through Logan’s hair as he read by the dim light of the lamp next to him. 

A few more weeks passed and Virgil knew he should start to get moving again. He normally didn’t like staying in the same place for long, the centuries he’d lived having instilled a wanderlust in him. His only regret at this point was having to leave Logan. He’d grown fond of the human in their time together, to the point that his heart stuttered sometimes when he saw him.

He was all packed and ready to go, his motorcycle waiting on the curb. Yet, here he was, standing in front of the door to Logan’s second-hand bookstore. He took a deep breath and pushed it open, listening to the jingle of the bell for maybe the last time. “Logan?” He called when he didn’t see him at the front desk.

“Back here!” His voice answered from the back room. 

Virgil followed and found himself in the back room. He walked over and took the box Logan was struggling to lift. “Where do you need it?”

Logan huffed, hands resting on the small of his back. “In the front, I need to reload some of the shelves.” Virgil just nodded and did as he was told.

He put it off, spending more and more time with Logan until the sun had set, the perfect time to be on the open road, and Logan was inviting him up for a dinner he couldn’t eat. He sat at the table, hands reaching to twist the tablecloth between his fingers, trying to get out the anxious energy he could feel building up in his gut. Finally, he took a steadying breath and spoke. “I’m leaving tonight.”

Logan turned to look at him, playfulness dancing in his eyes behind his glasses. “I didn’t intend for you to stay the night.”

Virgil shook his head, feeling bravery mix with the anxiety. “I mean, I’m leaving town tonight.”

Logan paused, turning the burner off before coming to stand beside Virgil. “Why?”

Virgil shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Logan nodded, resting a hand on the table. “Is it something I did?”

Virgil was quick to shake his head, even as he felt his walls try to rebuild to brace against the heartbreak he knew was coming. “No, of course not. It’s nothing either of us did. It’s just something that happens every once in a while.”

Logan hesitated. He swallowed and Virgil tried not to show that his eyes were drawn to the vein in his neck. After a long pause, Logan spoke. “If this is about you being a vampire, I already know.”

Virgil startled, his head jerking back just a bit. “How?”

Logan chuckled, eyes rising to lock with Virgil’s own. “How many spoons do I have?”

Virgil didn’t even have to think about it. “Twenty five.”

Logan nodded. “The compulsion to count arbitrary things, the lack of actual eating, you always being awake no matter when I wake up if you stay over.” He sighed, exasperated. “Virgil, you came in with blood still on your chin one time, for goodness sake!”

Virgil swiped at his chin, checking for blood there. Eventually, he nodded, moving to stand. “Alright. I guess I should be going then.”

Logan put a hand on his shoulder, gently pushing him down into the chair. “Why are you trying to leave me? I just told you I don’t care that you’re a vampire.”

Virgil huffed, leaning forward to put his forearms on the table. “I don’t age as fast as you do, Logan. By the time you’re old, I’ll only look a few years older than I do now. Besides, people will be suspicious that I don’t age.” He held up a hand, pausing whatever thought Logan was going to share. “Before you say it, I can’t just turn you. You’d be able to be with me, yes, but you’d also have to move every few decades as well. You’d never see this bookstore again. Is that what you really want? To move like you’re on the run, having to watch your every step?” Virgil shook his head, letting his bangs fall into his face. “I don’t want that for you.”

Logan put a hand over Virgil’s. “What if I could give you a reason to stay?”

Virgil looked up at him, hope bubbling below the surface, desperate to breach. “What do you mean?”

Logan smiled. “You do realize that half this town is full of vampires, right?”

Virgil leaned toward him, hand gripping his gentle but forceful at once. “Explain.”

“Half of the town is vampires, the other half is humans that know of them. Heck, my own great uncle is still here and he doesn’t look older than I do. Why do you think my store has such old books? People still read them, still enjoy them. None of them treasure them the way you do, nor do they greet them like old friends like you do, but they still remember the books from their times as humans. I want to be with you, Virgil. You don’t have to leave, you don’t have to run anymore.”

Virgil felt tears gather at the corners of his eyes as the realization that this could be home set in. Logan's arms came around his shoulders, offering comfort. Virgil smiled through his tears. “You’d really have me?”

A kiss was pressed to his temple. “Fangs and all.”

Virgil chuckled. “Fangs and all.” He echoed softly.

#fluff #angst #happy ending #vamp!Virgil #virgil sanders #logan sanders #analogical #ace writes

[impishnature]

Feather Fall (Part 2/3)

AO3 Fandom: Good Omens Rating: T+ Summary: What is an Angel without a connection to Heaven? A/N: Again please check the warnings. Part two as promised c: this may be the part where I made myself lightheaded haha...  

Warnings: Thoughts/talk of falling. Graphic violence. Panic attacks, blood, self harm. 

.

He didn't know if it was because he'd finally paid attention to them, but his wings seemed to itch far more often now that his mind had focused on their existence.

It became a habit, every time his mind strayed to worrisome thoughts, his fingers stretched out to caress unseen wings, pulling them out with only a short flick of a miracle to lock the book shop's door. It was almost a compulsion, a necessity to stem the rising tides and no amount of fear of discovery seemed to be able to pull him quite out of the sudden rush of need. 

At first, it had only been once a day, then twice, and then the need had grown bigger, more all consuming.

Now his wings prickled against his skin, right where they met his spine, the reminder of them ever present at the back of his mind. Every subtle shift of fabric sent irritation through invisible bones and ruffled feathers he'd rather were left untouched.

It made his teeth grit and his jaw ache with the near constant pressure.

It took every ounce of self restraint to get through the day before releasing them from their confines.

He'd never felt so constricted before, so dejected and discontent within his own skin. 

Even Gabriel's barbed words hadn't hit him quite as hard as he felt in this moment. He didn't need anyone else to make him feel dissatisfied with himself anymore, to feel broken and confused and not enough.

But as long as he kept preening, as long as he kept reminding himself that beneath it all, deep down under it all, he was still an angel, then he could get through this.

He hadn't changed.

And one day, everyone else would see that too. 

He wasn't in the wrong. He couldn't be.

So, why weren't his ministrations working any more?

The shop light was dimming as the evening drew in, but he hadn't yet had the heart to turn on the lights and truly judge himself again. Even as he stood, staring balefully into a slowly darkening mirror, wondering where exactly everything had gone wrong.

Or perhaps what truly stopped him lighting up the room, was the fact that normally, even in this low a light, his wings would normally catch enough of it for him to relax. 

It was strange how easy it was to miss something that you'd never even truly noticed before until it was gone from your sight. His wings had been like the moon before, reflecting any small traces of light to keep him from succumbing to the darkness. They had no source of light of their own, of course, but all the same they had given warmth and refuge from the shadows wherever and whenever possible.

Only now...

Now there was nothing.

They felt lifeless, heavy against his shoulders. The sheen that had once permeated them had all but gone, lost somewhere along the line but he wasn't sure when or how exactly. He was sure it had been a slow process, sure that every time he had preened them before the mirror in the last few weeks he had squinted at them, noting something was off but he hadn't been able to put his finger on what exactly he was doing wrong. He was going through the motions he had always been taught to, dutifully doing exactly what he was told to make himself presentable- holy even. Appearances may not have been everything but they certainly had to keep up some kind of reverence from the masses when required. 

He'd never really known why before. He'd always thought it would be better to be a soft presence that was barely felt but known all the same. The kind of helpful nature and soft miracles that guides towards faith instead of extravagant shows of power dictating it. 

But now... now he felt like he understood at least a little bit more.

What human would look at him now and see an angel? A bedraggled pale shadow of a man, hiding away in the back of a bookstore, with no connection to Heaven aside from what he saw in the mirror.

A poor excuse of an angel.

He ran his fingers through the edges of his feathers, hissing in dismay at the feel of them. They were ragged, and almost sharp, like a coarse layer of dirt clung to them and glued them together. He didn't understand. His eyes prickled with warm frustration. He was grooming them meticulously, cleaning and tweaking them but no matter what he did, he still felt dirty, felt suffocated, like nothing he was doing would ever be enough.

Was this it? Was this how it would start for him? Feeling unclean and rotten until his entire demeanour followed suit?

Why else would his wings never come clean? The filth clung to him to remind him of his past deeds. Every blemish smeared and added to the sticky tar for more dust to settle onto.

Why else would they refuse to shimmer? Their holy essence dimming further every time he struggled to find it again with shaking hands and scouring fingers. He scrubbed and rubbed until the dirt came off, until the grease of years of sins slid clear and his feathers felt soft and light like a comforting warm blanket around him. 

But the next time he looked they would always be worse than before. Ruffled and twisted as if the slightest action disjointed the mirage he was trying to keep hold of and settled them back into their now natural form.

Dishevelled, mangy, mangled- just like him. An inconvenience, a burden.

Not even bad enough to fall. 

The thought was a jarring pain in the side of his head, like it physically landed there and ricocheted around his skull. Because it was true wasn't it? At least if he fell he'd know. He'd know he'd done wrong, he'd know that all of his efforts had been for naught. But this waiting, this painstaking, agonising drip of losing himself was almost too much to bear. Every second through the hourglass was another second of punishment from the Almighty and he knew it to be so.

Because surely- surely if that wasn't the case- if She actually was proud of his actions, if he had done the right thing- She wouldn't let him- She couldn't let him-

But She did.

She let him languish in this pain.

Was She testing him? Waiting for him to account for his sins and repent?

But what should he repent for exactly? She'd know if he was lying. And even in his misery he couldn't bring himself to regret his decisions.

The humans lived on, never knowing what had almost befallen them and he couldn't bring himself to wish that he had never played his part.

So why did She still wait? Why didn't she cut his strings already? Her unwieldy puppet that refused to do what it was told without tying itself in knots first. 

What even was he at this point? He wasn't an angel, that was for sure. But he wasn't a demon either, not yet at least. And regardless of his love for them, he could never truly reside among the humans, not completely and without exception. There was too much knowledge in his head, too much time on his hands for his life not to bleed with pain as their fleeting lives left him one by one.

So if he wasn't any of them- what was he?

Nothing.

His reflection flinched at the word, wings fluttering ever so, even though he couldn't feel it himself, not when the word struck such a chord.

Nothing.

It sounded about right. He felt like nothing. Hollow and cold and tired. He could fade out of existence and no one would even notice. 

No, that wasn't quite right. They would rejoice. 

It would have been better if I had just walked into the Hellfire.

Aziraphale jolted again, a tremor of glass digging into his chest and rippling through his entire body. The second vicious thought brushed past the first in a burning line of fire, suffocating it. It prickled down his cheeks, warm and wet and seeping into his collar. 

He couldn't pull the thought back into the depths though, he couldn't shove it away because deep down he could feel it in his core. Deep down he knew that it was true.

Rather a quick death than this painful, slow, agonising stumble into the unknown. 

But...

But that would have meant Crowley dying too, burned away by a substance meant to protect.

And he could never regret saving Crowley from Holy water. Never.

Thinking about Crowley brought a small swell of hope, a dampening, lingering thing that threatened to keep him from giving in to his fate for just a little longer. 

After all- he would care, wouldn't he? He would notice if he disappeared? He wouldn't rejoice at his sudden departure from his life, not like everyone else. Not like those he had thought were family, no matter how much they disagreed or argued or got on each other's nerves- Crowley would still care. 

Perhaps, he wasn't nothing. At least to one person, he wasn't less than nothing.  

Besides, if he made it clear that Hellfire could hurt him... then he was also opening Crowley back up to his abhorrent fate.

No, he couldn't do that to him.

He could bear this torment to keep him alive, to keep him whole.

He wouldn't leave him, not now that they had both chosen this path away from their respective sides. That would be terribly unfair. To leave him to this fate all alone. Crowley had already fallen once before from grace, now he'd fallen even further, shunned even by the demons he had had to make roost with. It wasn't fair to put his current troubles against his, wasn't fair to leave him in that languish when he'd already been through this before. 

Just because he couldn't deal with falling, didn't mean Crowley should have to be alone. 

After all, it surely couldn't be for much longer, right? Surely, soon She would see reason and cast him aside already. 

This was a punishment. That was all. He should have known there would be consequences. 

He would endure it all. He had to. 

For Crowley.

Perhaps that reaction was cause for punishment as it was.

An angel accepting a painful fate to stop a demon receiving the same. 

...Maybe he'd never been a very good angel to begin with.

A soft whimper left him, the sound eclipsing everything else as he came back into the room, eyes filling with disgust at the vision before him. His hair was a mess, as ill kept and listless as his wings. There were tear tracks staining his cheeks, his lip still trembling under the force of them as his eyes shined brightly with a heat that burned more and more tears from him. 

"Stop it." 

His reflection ignored him, voice shaky at best as it exited his lips.

"I said, stop it." 

He willed the light beside him to come on, the harsh beam doing nothing to hide his flaws, showing off every infinitesimal vile detail back to him in stark contrast. But it was what he wanted, what he needed. He needed to take a good long look at himself and sort himself out. 

"You're an angel- at least for now. Act like one. This is beneath you." He found his voice channelling someone else, others that he wished not to think about lest their voices return to continue their tirades at him. He stared and stared, eyes growing brighter and brighter as he began a meticulous task that he had never performed before. 

Instead of grooming, he miracled.

He glanced upon every feather and healed and soothed, bringing back their heavenly glow in the only way he knew how. Every small speck of grey back to gleaming snow, every twisted quill miraculously straight, soft and warm as if he'd basked in the sunlight for hours instead of standing for hours in a darkening hall. It took almost no time at all, before he was stood, staring once more at himself, as if nothing had ever happened and all his efforts over the last weeks hadn't been for nothing. As if he hadn't fallen to pieces, hadn't crashed to the floor in a mess of feathers and salt water that would stain the floor for years to come.

"See? Good as new." 

The words sounded fake even before they left his lips. 

As fake as the wings glittering at his back.

As fake as the smile plastered across his face.

As fake as the heart beating in his chest.

~~~

His cycle began anew after that night, changed but ever present.

Locking up shop and hiding from the world became an earnest craving throughout the day, his words barbed and biting at any who dared enter before he finally gave in and snapped the sign to closed. Every morning became a slow arduous task just to keep things running how they should, even as he tried his best to ignore the mirror and his urges and pretend just for a moment that he was fine.

But all he really wanted to do was watch his descent- though perhaps it was more of a need than a want. To keep track of just how far he had fallen. Every second felt like another tug down towards somewhere he refused to go and the need to check, to observe, to try and halt the process, became a consistent compulsion that could very rarely be dissuaded. 

It started with an itch that would grow stronger the more he tried to ignore it. His eyes would stray to his now familiar mirror, as he chewed at his lip, the need to just check thrumming through his head. Then his fingers would begin to tap, restlessly moving as the impulse to tweak, to straighten out unruly feathers he knew were hiding in the ether, would take over and before he knew it he was staring at his reflection once more, hands already dancing across his wings subconsciously.

Then the light would begin to fade and his actions would get more rigorous, filled with righteous fear and shame that his efforts weren't working. He'd find feathers wherever he rested for a moment. Soft, greying, frayed little wisps of fluff that couldn't stay tight where they should. The more he stared at them, the more he contemplated how repulsive they were; half formed and malnourished. They were strange, twisted, little things, as if someone had forgotten what a feather should look like but had stuck them on him all the same.

Yet for some reason he couldn't bring himself to miracle them away. Destroying them felt like a kindness that he shouldn't afford himself. So instead he whisked them away out of sight of anyone else, a burden only to himself. A growing pile of all his sins burying the upstairs rooms in a layer of his shame.

Another punishment, another test. 

But then his fear would ignite into anger- at himself, at the world, at heaven, at anyone and anything that dared frequent his head at the wrong time. He would miracle away the shoddy, sagging excuse for wings his body had dredged up from existence, and bring them back to their former pristine glory. Sometimes he'd even go a step further, thinking of others wings he'd seen so long ago, letting those recollections bend the reality of his own. They were always better wings, brighter wings, not his own useless, disappointing ones. But those times only made everything worse. 

After all, wasn't that a sin in itself? To want more than he had been given? To covet things that were not his own and besmirch something She had made?

And so he'd go back to his own. His gleaming, snow white wings that no longer held any relief when he saw them.

After all, it was all a ruse.

Just a mask, as fake as the lies he kept trying to tell himself that everything would be over soon.

What did it matter what he looked like when deep down he knew he was already rotten to the core?

But still he tried. 

Appearances mattered, after all. 

And so the cycle would continue, the newly moulded wings, heavy and stiff upon his back, still aching from the torment he was putting them through day after day, night after night.

He could deal with the pain. He deserved that.

It was when the itching reemerged that his mind flared up with oozing, twisting thoughts. Their words and snarls bit worse than the physical pain ever could.

They sent him racing back to the mirror, clawing at his back, to fix the newest mistakes he had made.

~~~

"You're never going to let me rest, are you?"

The words were said to his reflection, but they were meant for someone else. The one who he'd been taught was always listening.

"This is it, forever, isn't it?" His eyes had lost their shine, his skin pallid, his voice insipid. He was tired of fighting a losing battle. Tired of pretending, of hoping for better. He couldn't go upstairs anymore. Not without the burden of his sins instantly pressing down on him, a sea of feathers dusting the floor as if he'd decided to create a carpet of them. 

He wished they'd rot away to nothing already.

Rot just like he was, until there was nothing left of any of him any more.

"I should have realised that falling wasn't the only fate you had for us. You've tormented humans rather inventively for thousands of years. Why wouldn't you have had new ideas for how to treat us in the meantime?" He didn't care how ungrateful he sounded, how ignorant or careless his words may be. He'd already done enough damage. "Am I your newest Cain? Is that it? Cursed to forever wander this Earth of yours, but to never find a place to fit? To forever be different and never truly find home now that I have forsaken the one you gave me?"

Silence was his only answer. 

"Or did the humans give you new ideas?" His mind felt like it was stuck with tar, clogging up his mental workings as his fingers, fidgeted and fiddled with a particularly stubborn feather. "Am I Sisyphus and these wings are my boulder? A task I will never complete but cannot bring myself to turn away from?" He glared at the feather, yanking it again. "How long before you decide this is not enough and invoke Tantalus too? So that all the things I love on Earth turn to dust and ash and nothing brings me joy anymore?"

A strange laugh echoed through the corridor, so cold and dismal, that it took a moment to realise it was emanating from himself.

"See? I'm even giving you ideas now. It doesn't take long, does it? I wonder if I could come up with worse punishments for myself than you-" His teeth grit hard enough to hurt, his teeth groaning under the pressure. "Blast this infernal feather, will you just do as you're told-" He wrenched it down, trying to make it lie straight like its brethren, just as it was supposed to- just as he was supposed to- "Fuck." A sharp pain coursed through him, his wings curling inwards reflexively as the feather tore from the skin, plucked out in its entirety.

He stared at the feather crushed tight in his fist. His heavy breathing and the pumping of blood through the veins in his ears, the only sound in the vicinity. 

His fingernails began to bite into his skin as he crushed the feather tighter, watched all his hard work and efforts into grooming the feather crumple beneath his own willing hand. It had hurt, his wing still smarting slightly at its removal but his mind turned even slower than before. It wasn't a struggle to think, though, not like before, it was just a slow, simmering heat, like the storm had finally broken or that there was a brief respite from Her all-consuming disappointment in him.

This felt... right.

There was a shock of adrenaline coursing through him, a sudden, stomach swooping feeling of relief. Like he'd plucked a rotten fruit from the vine and now the rest of the plant could live just that little bit longer.

Was this Her? Was she giving him an answer?

Telling him to endure the pain, keep pulling out the decaying parts of his soul until he was on the right path again.

Would that be enough for redemption? To physically pluck the sins out by the roots and let Her know that he knew he deserved this. That he would do anything to be in Her good graces once more.

He dropped the feather like it was poison, letting it flutter off to join the other decaying resentments upstairs. There was a new vigour to his actions, a new clarity as his fingers dug into the still aching space where the feather had been, gouging and scratching at the area as if he could pull out any remaining poison from it. 

His ministrations carried on until the skin was raw, his fingernails too blunt to pierce the skin but enough to leave thick red lines that stung to even shift against, a gasp of pain flinching out of him as he braved touching the area once more.

He finally let the wings fall, let his gleaming, half maddened eyes find themselves in the mirror, his chest heaving as he panted.

It hurt, hurt more than it had since all of this had begun. He couldn't occupy himself this time, could feel the pain like a pulse, beating in time with his heartbeat and searing through his flesh every time he moved.

But it was a good pain.

He found shelter in it, rejoiced in it. 

She would forgive him, surely She would forgive him.

~~~

He tried to miracle his wings a lot less after his revelation.

That had been pride talking, he was sure of it now. Vindictive pride trying to stop him from taking the path that he was meant to be taking. 

His appearance wasn't what mattered, it was his remorse, his apology to the Almighty that truly mattered.

She would see him through. Of course She would. 

He gave each feather a chance, pushed it back in line and groomed it, waiting patiently for it to make its mistakes and ignore his new resolution before he did what was necessary. Each one deserved a chance, he'd give them that, just like he hoped She was giving him a chance. And then when it was clear that they would never fit with the others, forever disobeying him and ignoring the righteous cause, he would tug them from their home, pull them out of their safe space and show them that their behaviour would not be accepted. 

It was what they wanted him to do right? To prove he understood why all of this was happening.

He'd stepped out of line. He'd chosen to do that. He had to prove he could go back into the fold if he were to be accepted there again.

He tried not to think about it too much. Every time he did he knew that once his penance had been fulfilled they would question him. They would ask him about his actions and what he would do in the future.

And he would lie. He would say he understood, he would say he'd never step out of line again, and the lies would drip like black tar from his lips, suffocating him in their falsehoods and adding more and more sins to his belt.

Because none of it was true. If given the choice to go back, he'd do it again and again.

No matter what, he couldn't regret saving them.

He couldn't regret choosing Crowley.

And every time he thought of it all, another feather would begin to burn, would feel hot and wrong when he groomed and he would focus his attention on it instead of thoughts of the future. He would watch it, wait for it to decide its fate and then give it its due punishment.

It was not his fault they refused to obey, it was not his fault that they were to be punished for it.

And every feather pulled gave him another surge of endorphins. Another latch on his heart opening back up to let him breathe again.

He was doing the right thing, they'd all understand, soon enough they'd understand.

His resolve would crash upon a knock on the door though. 

The sudden appearance of a dear old friend who knew nothing of the turmoil in his heart. 

He couldn't tell him either. Couldn't tell Crowley that unlike him, She had given him a chance to stay. Had given him a task to atone himself. He didn't know how he would react, felt a new bout of shame at the thought that Crowley had never had the chance and how unfair that was, but also a dismal lurch of fear that he would try and stop him. That he would recoil at the prospect and ask him if falling was really that awful a thought to him. If being like him was that awful a thought.

And at this point, it wasn't. He just wished She'd let him fall already if She was content with him to do so.

It was this blasted waiting that broke him so. The constant trails of what if, what if, what if-

He couldn't bear the silence. He couldn't bear the emptiness. 

Everything was hollow in this strange new world without a connection to Heaven.

But he couldn't let Crowley see that.

He couldn't let him know how much of a failure he truly was.

Before he'd even truly thought about it, his wings would be back to their former glory, hidden back in the ether where no one would be able to see them for what they truly were. He'd keep the act up, keep the mask on all the time the other was with him. Sometimes he'd even forget, for a moment, that the burning on his back was not from the sun but from his own infected wings. 

Crowley always had been good at distracting him from important issues.

His temptations were so freely given and so easily taken.

But then he'd return to the quiet. To the dark, unending solitude and he'd remember all the rotten feathers he'd haphazardly glued back into his skin.

He'd spend those nights ripping them all back out, grim satisfaction fuelling his movements as he tore each and every last one of them from raised, red, heated skin. The skin never healed quite right with the miracles, it itched and burned where he rubbed and scratched it raw, so each feather hung limp and buckled, held in only by the force of his earlier misguided miracle.

It was only when the skin finally ruptured each night, breaking under his unending barrage, that he finally relented. Fear of his own tainted blood marring what was left of his pure heavenly essence stopping the flow of his ire.

He'd spend the rest of the time hissing, washing away the blood before it could land on fragile, fleeting white, hoping against hope that his own blood wouldn't tarnish them any further than they already were.

~~~

"...Shit."

Aziraphale winced as he stared, almost callously, down at blood stained hands. There had been an odd nub in his wings when he'd gone to groom them that morning. A strange lump that kept catching on his fingers as he tried to run them through sparse feathers. It had irritated him, the heated pain of touching it fuelling his motions to get rid of it all the more. It wasn't meant to be there- whatever it was- so no matter how much it hurt, he was going to get rid of it.

He'd carried on tugging at it, twisting it this way and that without even looking, without paying attention to the rest of his wings as his frustration at the world focused solely on this one scant prickle, as if soothing this particular thorn in his side would make the day seem at least numb again instead of frantic and .overwhelming

It had finally come loose, snapping with a strange sucking squelch, a warm, wet pain flowing out of the spot it had lain as he sighed with relief.

It was only when he drew the offending object into his line of sight that he saw the folly in his endeavour.

It was a new feather, one that had been slowly forming in the patch of grazed skin where the first plucked feather had been. It was bright crimson throughout its core, hardly even barbed with how quickly he had pulled it.

The sight troubled him for a moment, but not for the reasons it should. He'd stopped looking in the mirror a while ago, using only his fingers to guide him to unruly specimens that needed disciplining. It made him wonder how many others were the wrong colour, how many others marred his gleaming white wings with hideous flecks of polluted red.

The worrisome thought evaporated quickly though. The crimson had begun to leak into his palm, sticky and cold as it cooled in the still air. There was something... urgent about it, something that said he shouldn't just be morosely observing the broken shaft and should instead be doing something about it.

The viscous material seeped through his fingertips and, just as it dripped to the ground and his eyes followed its descent with detachment, he noted the droplets of red that had already splattered across the wooden flooring.

And just like that, it clicked, like a fire alarm ringing in his skull, that he was bleeding.

He was still bleeding.

"Shit."

The liquid was still pumping out of him, warm and insistent, cooling as it trickled down and slid in rivulets through his feathers. It stuck them together in an awful mess, drying them in clumps even as more blood fell from the wound. There was a chunk of feather shaft still caught there, as he found his way to the crux of the matter, pumping out blood like a leaky faucet that he could only internally freak out at.

He didn't know what to do.

All of his efforts to keep himself clean, pure, were all futile. His own poisonous blood leaked over what was left of his damaged wings and peppered the floor with his failure.

"No. No, no, no, no." He could feel it staining him, feel his transgressions clinging to him instead of being yanked out like they usually were when he plucked feathers. All his sins, wrapping their spindly fingers around what was left of him, thick vines choking the core of a tree until all that remained was decaying wood and a fruitful vine.

The feather shaft rattled again the kitchen sink as he all but threw it in, darting over to it as if he were about to be sick. His hands clenched at the side of the metal before the nausea subsided long enough for him to twist the hot water tap to full and press both hands beneath it, shakily clawing at the congealing substance on his skin as if mere persistence would make it disappear. He hated the pink streams that ran between his fingers, hated the dried red clumps that refused to budge from beneath small fingernails. He found himself choking on pained gasps, little soft whimpers as the stains became less but never really seemed to go away.

The notion that his hands were going red from his ministrations and the heat of the water never even entered his head.

"Aziraphale?"

Even though his hands were burning, his insides went cold as ice.

No.

No, not now. Any when but now.

#good omens #Good Omens Fanfiction #Aziraphale #Crowley #hurt/comfort #Feather Fall #tw: blood #tw: falling (religious) #tw: self harm #tw: mental breakdown

[mostfacinorous]

Whumptober 11th

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]

(I think this one is my favorite so far)

Whumptober 11th: Stitches

“Crowley-- what’s happened to you?” Aziraphale stood quickly, upsetting the book that had been resting in his lap and sending the empty saucer plummeting to the ground. 

“The miracle of modern medicine, or somethin’.” Crowley answered, waving his bandaged hands and working hard to only speak out of the left side of his mouth, as the right side was stitched at the corner-- to match the stitches high on his cheekbone, and the swelling that kept his right eye shut. 

“Well, certainly, I can see that, but what happened before that?” Aziraphale pressed, setting his tea down and coming out from behind the low table to approach the battered demon. 

“Bit of a reprimand from below. Guess they didn’t like my report about failing to escalate things and start a war. Nothing too impressive. But I lost consciousness towards the end of it, and they left me in the gutter, so some good samaritans called an ambulance, and--” he gestured again, to encompass all of it. 

“Oh, I wish I could help, Crowley, but you know how heavenly power hurts at the best of times for you-- I wouldn’t want to make matters worse.” Aziraphale had begun wringing his hands, and Crowley responded with an eyeroll that, oddly, made Aziraphale feel better. Hurt though he was, at least he was feeling like himself.

“I’ll heal up fine, angel. I just need some help with the stitches. My fingers are a bit, ah--” 

Of course-- if he healed with stitches in, the stitches would heal into him, and, vain as he was, the scars would be horrid. And the unfinished sentence, the potential words hung on the air, each worst than the last. ‘Ruined’ ‘destroyed’... Aziraphale firmly refused to think of any more.

“Certainly, my dear. Oh, let’s go into the kitchen, though? The lighting there is much better, and I’d rather see what I’m doing.”

Besides the kitchen, small and cramped as it was, had no rugs to suffer stains if Crowley started bleeding again, which Aziraphale thought he might. 

Crowley was entirely too agreeable, given his usual views on Aziraphale’s kitchen, and he couldn’t help but suspect that Crowley was either in substantial amounts of pain, still under the influence from his hospital stay, or also wanted to preserve the back room, which he definitely found more comfortable than this one. 

Regardless of the reason, when Aziraphale pulled out the chair for him he sat willingly, and only winced slightly at the landing. Aziraphale did his best not to be too obvious as he looked him over, hiding it behind the process of removing his coat and rolling up his shirt sleeves. 

“Is there-- that is, I don’t suppose they limited their attacks to your face and hands.” He gave Crowley a much more open up and down, somewhat afraid to see signs of further damage, but all too aware that it must be there. Demons didn’t tend to be particularly kind-- or restrained. 

Crowley shrugged, though it looked like it cost him.

“It’ll all heal.” 

“Right.” Aziraphale said faintly, wishing he could ask to see, but afraid that it would be overstepping a boundary. And it wasn’t as though he could do anything to help with it, at any rate. Besides, he was sure anything that needed doing, the human doctors had seen to. 

Having run out of things to distract him or delay with, Aziraphale snapped and summoned his wing care kit onto the little kitchenette table. 

It was probably imposing seeming, the highly polished wooden box decorated with golden inlay. 

It had been a gift, and used to contain a golden vanity set, but it had become home to a host of tweezers and small scissors, specialized combs, soft cloths, and the feathers that came out when he made the effort to straighten them out-- far less frequently than he ought to, he knew. 

He lifted the lid away and moved aside the velvet bag of his molted feathers, glad that they were covered, though he had no doubt that Crowley would guess what they were and say something about it. 

He flushed faintly at the possibility, but Crowley remained polite and quiet-- subdued. 

Almost worrisome, that. 

Though, it was hardly a mystery as to why.

Aziraphale lifted his scissors and carried them to the small sink. 

“I’m just going to wash them-- they’ve been unused for a while, and I don’t want any dust getting in your wounds.”

“‘M not gonna get an infection, angel.” Crowley protested, but it wasn’t a strong argument. 

Aziraphale washed them anyway, and returned, stepping between Crowley’s spread legs to be as close as he could-- the better to see what he was doing, of course. 

“Hold still now- I’m going to take them out of your lips first.” 

He caught Crowley’s jaw, hand wrapping under his chin to steady his head, and made the mistake of looking through his sunglasses and directly into his eyes. 

He swallowed compulsively, and had to turn his attention to the stitching in his lips, though that wasn’t precisely a safer place to be looking. 

Crowley was, after all, made to be a temptation. 

Aziraphale took a steadying breath and brought the scissors to the widest of the stitches. He slid them gently under and snipped-- one down-- and checked in with Crowley’s eyes, looking for any sign of pain. Not, of course, that Crowley made it easy, hiding behind his shades as he did, and averting his eyes.

When he didn’t call a halt, Aziraphale did it again, then again, working his way through all of them. 

Once the loops had all been cut, he sat down the scissors and retrieved the tweezers, beginning the unfortunate process of pulling the threads back through the holes, which were still bright red and inflamed, swollen and painful looking. 

Crowley hissed softly as the first one tugged through, and Aziraphale paused. 

“Forgive me,” He murmured, and reached for the sunglasses. Crowley froze, eyes wide behind the smoky lenses, but he didn’t protest.

“I just want to see when you react-- be certain I’m not hurting you too much.” He spoke gently and, he hoped, convincingly-- though it was only half-lie, and thus only half-selfish, the way he drank up the sight of the burnished gold of Crowley’s pupils, the way he soaked up the proximity, knowing he shouldn’t, and wishing that so many of their circumstances were different. 

“Get on with it.” Crowley sounded cross, and Aziraphale knew that meant he was more uncomfortable than he wanted to let on. 

“Right.” He said, and began pulling the next through, careful to draw the knot side out, lest he tear Crowley’s dear lip. 

Crowley had to work hard not to wince or flinch, and Aziraphale paused again. 

“‘S fine angel. Just-- talk. Say something. Distract me.”

His lips could move more freely now, and Aziraphale turned to summon forth a handkerchief to dab away at the slow trickles of blood that followed. 

“Oh dear me, I wouldn’t know what to say.” He started, fishing around for a suitable topic. 

Which oughtn’t be hard, he knew; he often spent the majority of their dinners nattering away while Crowley watched him with a look that, on anyone else, might be adoration. 

“A pair of women came into the shop yesterday,” He started. 

“Oh no,” came the demon’s sardonic reply, and Aziraphale felt his own lips twitch upwards, absurdly comforted by this bit of normalcy, even as Crowley’s blood dripped down the tweezers and onto Aziraphale’s fingers, stinging lightly where it fell. 

He wiped it off, barely sparing it a thought. It wasn’t the first time he’d had Crowley’s blood on his hands, and while he hoped it would be the last, he knew better than to expect that to be true. 

“Well, they wanted to request that I make a list of the books I had, and list them online. So that more people might come to buy them.” He knew he oughtn’t sound scandalized and horrified at the thought; Crowley had pointed out more often than not that traditional bookstores sold books. 

Crowley’s lips pulled into a smile, and Aziraphale was glad to see that it didn’t hurt him any more. 

Pulling the last bit of thread through the holes in his cheek, though, clearly did, and just like that, the tiny glimmer of a smile disappeared. 

He must’ve looked stricken, because Crowley patted at him with one of his wrapped hands. 

“What did you do to drive them off?” He asked gently, and Aziraphale shook himself, turning back to his task.

“Ah, I explained to them that neither computers nor the internet are allowed in the shop. And do you know what they said?”

He goaded for a response while he began snipping at the next set of strings, these somewhat harder to get to due to the relative firmness of the skin over his cheekbone. 

“Mm?” Crowley asked, his eyes drifting closed. 

“Apparently there is something called a Yell Page, with reviews of my shop, and they intend to leave a bad one. Can you imagine! A website to tell people not  to come to my store. Modern technology is wonderful.” 

A warm chuckle rolled through Crowley’s chest. And standing close as he was, Aziraphale could feel it. 

“Yelp. One of mine. Invented specifically for me to leave scathing reviews on this place.” 

Like the rumble of his laughter, his words vibrated through Aziraphale’s core, followed by an unrestrained surge of fondness that he was sure even a demon could feel. 

“How very dastardly of you.” He said, though without any accusation or bite. 

“I’m going to cut this last batch as well, and then we can pull all of these and have done with it.” 

“No rush.” Crowley mumbled, and Aziraphale wasn’t certain whether he was meant to have been able to hear it or not. 

Regardless, he elected to ignore it and focus instead on the work at hand. 

For all that they had been harder to cut, the stitches slid out of this skin more easily, though Aziraphale was careful to hold the skin steady with his other hand, so that it didn’t pull or twist in the process. 

Once all of them were removed, Aziraphale lifted Crowley’s left hand. 

“This next, and then you can heal up, hm?”

“Aziraphale, I should warn you-- it’s not-- it isn’t pretty.” Crowley was looking away, refusing to meet Aziraphale’s eyes, and he had to swallow around a lump of worry that formed in his throat. 

“That’s alright-- your hands will be lovely and whole again soon enough. This too shall pass.” He promised him, resolving to hide any reaction he might feel as he unclipped the outermost edge of the bandages and began drawing them away. 

It wasn’t pretty. Whatever they’d done-- and Aziraphale’s mind was providing entirely too many options-- they’d twisted, broken, and shattered his fingers until they barely resembled hands any longer. The doctors had set them as best as they could, and there were clearly places where they’d put screws in-- and that would be trouble later, if Crowley healed them that way. 

“Will you be able to snap at all?” He wondered aloud.  

Crowley grimaced.

“It’ll hurt.” He admitted. “But better than the alternatives.”

“Can I-- I can’t heal you but I think, I could remove the metal with a miracle, if you can snap it better after.”

Crowley tilted his head. 

“Would you?” He asked, almost as if he were surprised, and for some reason that made guilt swell in Aziraphale. What had he ever done to make Crowley think otherwise? 

Whatever it was, he would have to be sure to remedy it from here on out. 

He got both hands unwrapped, and sat them gently on Crowley’s thighs.

 “Alright. As you said, this will hurt--” He cautioned. Crowley nodded, and Aziraphale snapped, the screws joining the bits of suture string on the table at his elbow. 

Crowley groaned and swayed, looking for all the world as though he might pass out and slump out of the chair. 

“Alright?” Aziraphale asked, grabbing hold of his shoulder to keep him upright, and then pulling his hand away like it had been burned, when it appeared his touch had hurt Crowley. 

But maybe the pain was the grounding force he needed. Crowley squeezed his eyes shut and lifted his mangled hand.

The snap looked like it hurt, but its effects were instantaneous. 

And, no doubt, costly. 

Crowley swayed in his chair again, but this time he lifted his hands to steady himself with a grip on Aziraphale’s hips. Crowley leaned in, and rested his face against his stomach-- usually Aziraphale considered it too plush, too soft, but for the job of being a temporary pillow, he found himself incredibly well suited for it.

“Would you like to stay here and rest for a bit?” Aziraphale asked softly, loathe to end the contact, but well aware that sleeping might be better for Crowley right now, and he had some mess to see to in the form of surgical debris. 

“Mhf.” Crowley answered, or didn’t, but Aziraphale knew what he meant. 

“Come along then,” He said, shifting and pulling Crowley gently to his feet, then up off of them. He carried his demon friend into the back room and laid him out on the soft couch. 

“Don’t you worry. I’ll watch over your sleep.” He assured him. Crowley seemed already to be drifting off, but he smiled gently at the words, and Aziraphale couldn’t help himself. He leaned down and brushed his lips against Crowley’s forehead in an affectionate and blessedly-- damnably?-- chaste kiss.

Crowley would wake with his glasses and a good whiskey beside him, and Aziraphale in the chair across the way, reading and sipping cocoa. And everything would be perfectly normal again, hurts and temptation alike banished.

For now.

#whumptober #whumptober2019 #blood cw #removal of stitches #finger trauma #bandages #medical content cw #good omens fic #that writing thing I do

[assistant-archivist]

Pallid

“Statement of Arianne Delaney, regarding a strange man she has seen frequently as of late. Recording straight from subject, research and investigation by [REDACTED], assistant archivist at the Magnus Institute. September fourth, 2019. Please, Ms. Delaney, begin.”

“Well… Thank you for seeing me. Um, begin at the beginning I guess, yeah? Uh, it began- that is, I saw him for the first time a few months ago. Actually, the two year anniversary of my fiance’s death… She’d been an angel, you know. Beautiful, kind, generous, I still miss her. Oh- Sorry, I’m… I’m getting off track. 

Anyways, I had been making coffee in the morning, just like I do everyday. It was around… Seven thirty. Nothing at all seemed out of the ordinary, I didn’t feel strange, nothing odd had happened prior to this, everything was just as it should be, as it always was. I looked out the window absentmindedly and, if he hadn’t been looking right at me, I think I would have missed him entirely. I was still rather tired, and nothing aside from him seemed to be amiss. At first glance, he wasn’t particularly remarkable. He didn’t have horns or a forked tongue or anything like that, the only strange thing about him was all of his clothes were white - his hair and beard too, all white. 

So, I looked like I said, did a double take because I thought I’d seen a dog or something, and I saw him. Right there, staring right at me. Two stories up and fully clothed, doing something mundane like making morning coffee - I didn’t know why he was looking at me, but he was. He was staring right at me. Right into my eyes. This might sound strange, but… As soon as I met his eyes, I felt… I felt calm. I can’t really explain it, I don’t think. I just suddenly felt all the panic drain from me, no tension, no fear, no worry of any kind was left. When he smiled, I swear I could nearly hear him promising me that he meant no ill will. His smile wasn’t one of those creepy stalker ones, it was… Polite? Yes, it was polite, kind, gentle, maybe even a little sad. Though I couldn’t even begin to guess why. He felt sort of… Fatherly? That’s the best way I can describe it, I suppose. He looked so, so… So austere, so stark against everybody and everything else, now that I’d noticed him. I couldn’t unnotice him. I practically couldn’t look away from him. Couldn’t even blink. For a moment, I felt a compulsion to go outside, to go to him. 

I finally forced myself to blink and as soon as I did, he was gone. Just as quick as he’d come. 

When he’d gone I felt… I felt this profound sadness, like I had just lost somebody I held very dear, but- I had never seen this man in my life, I swear it. I tried so hard to remember if I had ever met anybody that looked like him, that had that same… aura, but I just couldn’t. I just couldn’t think of anyone.”

“Are you alright, Ms. Delaney?”

“Yes- Yes I’m sorry, just… When I think about him… Him going away like he does when I’m not looking at him- I just, I get so sad.”

“Well, take all the time you need. We’re in no rush.”

“Thank you, Mr. Bright. I’ll… I’ll keep going, then.

The next time I saw him was 3 days later- He always comes by every three days, and I’ve noticed- He always comes round the same times too, between seven to seven thirty am, 11 am, 3 pm, and 9 pm. I tried to think of what the pattern is- if there is one, but all I could really connect was that all the times are odd numbers. 

Anyways- Anyways, so three days after the first time I saw him. I was in a coffee shop, trying to work on an essay I had to write - I’m working on my Master’s degree in theology. So, I was writing an essay about something to do with Jainism, their uh, practises and such, and I looked up from my laptop and notes, and there he was. Standing on the other side of the window. He had the same look- the all white and that, he was smiling the same too. I stared at him, like I had at home, and the same calm came over me. I felt so relaxed, like I hadn’t a care in the world. And I felt the same compulsion too, to go to him. But something kept me from doing it. Looking back, I was too distracted to see it then but… I think I saw another man staring at him, out of the corner of my eye, one of the baristas too. I felt so… Comforted. Just from him being there. I remember thinking that I never wanted him to leave.

Then a group of people passed by in between him and the window, and I lost sight of him, and when they passed he was gone again. I had to pack up and leave in a hurry, I was on the verge of tears. God, I don’t even know why, but I missed him so much. I think I would have been content to just stare at him forever, though I couldn’t even begin to explain why. 

Oh… God…”

“Would you like a tissue, a cup of tea perhaps?” 

“Y-yes please, that… That sounds lovely, thank you.” 

“Martin! Would you please fetch a box of tissues and bring Ms. Delaney a cup of tea?- Thank you. Please, Ms. Delaney, continue when you can.”

“Yes, thank you. Well um… I suppose, I saw him for a while after that, frequently, as I said every three days I would see him. Seeing him became a part of my ordinary, some days I even looked forward to it. I would get so excited when his days came round, just for a few moments of being in his presence. 

I suppose, it wasn’t until about a month in that I realised other people can see him too. Not everybody though, only a few seemed to see him. Though it looked as if his presence affected everyone, even if they couldn’t, you know. See him. The first time I took notice of other people looking at him, I saw him standing near the doorway of the bookstore I was about to enter. He gave me that same smile, I felt that same calm, I even began to walk towards him. I… I never planned on following through with going to him, but today I thought, well, why shouldn’t I? At that point, I don’t think I’d ever wanted anything more. I took a step towards him, when I saw another man, standing some twenty feet behind him, staring at him just as I was. Of course I only saw him out of the corner of my eye, I couldn’t bare to take my eyes off the man. I didn’t want him to go away before I could reach him. 

I was just about to cross the street, unknowingly about to step in front of a car, but… I was a little slow, fortunately. And it passed between us, and he was gone. I looked to the other man that had been staring at him, trying to hold back tears, and I saw- It was all over his face, he was just as sad as me. He was just as devastated. God, I… I still don’t know why I miss him so much. 

Anyways, I tried to reach the other man that had been staring at him, but he was gone before I was able to cross the street. I never really got the chance to talk to anybody else that had seen him until just a couple weeks ago. I managed to catch up to a women that had seen him, she had tears running down her cheeks when I tapped her on the shoulder. 

We talked, God we must have talked for hours, just about him. Her name was Beth- Bethany Miller. Another man I caught up to that had seen him was named Nicholas Harper, both of them are um… Both of them are gone now. They’ve both passed away. I miss them dearly, too. We shared something I may never share with anyone else again. But- That’s a different part of the story. 

Shortly after I met Bethany, I realized one day… I had never tried to talk to the man. I resolved that I would do it. I would talk to him. I would ask who he was. I… I never got that chance, though. To ask who he is. 

I have managed to approach him twice, but I still don’t know who he is… Was? I don’t know. Something like that. Maybe he’s a ghost, maybe he’s somewhere in between. 

Anyways. The first time I approached him - it was outside my home, I was returning from work, he was there. Just, just standing there, you know, like he does. He was smiling like always. I didn’t even blink - I hurried up to him and I asked; ‘Who are you?’ And he said the strangest thing. He said ‘I must go now, for I am going to be late.’ And then - He turned away from me, and walked away. He faded away, into the light of the streetlamp. I was so confused. He didn’t say where he was going or what he was going to be late for. I still can’t make sense of it. 

The second time I - I asked why he was here, why I was seeing him. He said the same thing, he said he was going to be late. When he turned to walk away I tried to grab his wrist and - I could, I did, I grabbed his wrist. He was so cold, I wasn’t expecting it. I thought he would be warm, the rest of him is so warm, so welcoming, but when I touched him - It was like ice. It was bitter, I could feel it all through me, he was so cold. He just… Smiled at me, and repeated his little… His little mantra that he has, and then he slipped out of my grip. I didn’t loosen it, he didn’t pull hard or force me away, he just… He just slipped away from me and disappeared into the light of a sign for the thrift store. 

That was two days ago, the day after… After I heard about Bethany and Nicholas. They both - Oh god, it’s… It’s so hard to say it. They both… they were found dead in their homes, on the same day. Supposedly it was suicide but I… I don’t know any more than that. 

I’ve thought about it, sometimes. I wonder if dying would get me closer to him, if dying would let me be with him. I wonder if that’s what they were thinking about, too…

Well, um.. Anyways, yes that’s… That’s my statement. Thank you for- For your time.”

“Statement ends. This is… Quite difficult to investigate. As of right now, it has been a week since the initial recording. I have conducted an investigation, and I have not been able to get back in contact with Ms. Delaney. According to police reports, she took her own life two days after she made her statement. She also used the same method as both Bethany Miller and Nicholas Harper… An overdose of sleeping medication. The strange thing is, all three were found with their eyes wide open. It is also, I believe, significant to note that all three of their suicide notes ended with the sentence; “I must go now, for I am going to be late.” 

It is unknown why these individuals were able to see this supposed man, or what makes one able to see him. It is unknown where he is going, and I have not yet been able to find anyone else that has seen him. 

I was able to recover a series of journals kept by Bethany Miller, in which she goes into great detail about her experiences with this man. There is an entry dated every three days, for the past three years. I would like to note that it is strange she was driven to suicide now, when she has been seeing him for several years prior, but… That, I suppose, is it’s own mystery. 

Ms. Miller says on several occasions that the man seems entirely calm, utterly unhurried. She remarks that this is strange, considering he apparently only says the phrase; “I must go now, for I am going to be late.” She also observed, towards the end of the first journal - of which there are seven - that even if a person does not seem to be able to see the man, his presence has a calming effect on them. She observed a - oh, I’ll just quote it. “Today I saw him in a bar, he looked very out of place. So clean, so pristine, so pure, in such a shit hole of a place. I was hiding in a booth, there was a fight going on at the bar. A man pulled a knife… I was going to run, but then I saw him. He was standing behind the bar, near the bartender. I couldn’t look away, of course, I never can. But I saw, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the man drop his knife. They both stared at each other for a moment, they sat back down… I was confused, but of course, I couldn’t question his influence.” 

Her entries get more and more… Fanatical, as they go on. She frequently describes herself, this man, and the people within his line of sight as; passive, serene, docile, tranquil, peaceful, and still. 

There is one… Strange, passage. It takes up nearly half a journal, I… I won’t go into detail. It’s rather confusing, and quite frankly, disturbing. Ms. Miller describes… Time stopping, when she approached the man. She goes into very… Graphic, detail about a number of strange happenings during this experience. I… I’ll be sure to add a note about it, in this case’s file. 

Statement ends.”

#horror #short story #writing #i did say im a nerd for the magnus archives #TMA #the magnus archives #i just really fucking love this style #original story #supernatural fiction #fanfiction #Bright's Personal Files

[theinvinciblenoob]

I admit I was a little reluctant to try this pack out, but in the end it was my favorite of the Chrome bags I tested for TechCrunch Bag Week 2018, perhaps not coincidentally, one of the least Chrome-like. If you’re familiar with Chrome’s bike messenger bag roots, the Pace feels like an abrupt departure, but it’s one you might fall in love with.

Wearing the Pace just feels…. fun? I don’t really know another way to describe it. For one, you can wear it as a tote bag or as a backpack and that is surprisingly liberating.

Plenty of bags, including Chrome’s oversized, industrial-strength packs, feel a bit like readying for a battle when you put them on. With a big pack on, you are no longer a person just shopping for groceries or going to the bookstore, you’re a person with a very serious backpack who is also doing those things. Maybe you’re some kind of hardcore bike person. And whether you are or not, wearing a huge backpack around town can just look like you take yourself very seriously.

The Pace is the opposite of that, while still managing that efficient, industrial thing that Chrome does so well. At 18L, it’s like you barely remembered to grab a bag at all, but here you are with a practical way (two ways!) to carry just the essentials. At first glance, the Pace looks tiny, but for me it comfortably fit a laptop, a 16oz water bottle, various pens, a book, my phone, charging cables and assorted other stuff I compulsively drag around every single day just in case because my anxiety medicine doesn’t work all the way.

Photo via Chrome Industries

The Pace, like the MXD Fathom, its less convertible twin, is tough black pack made from 1680d ballistic nylon and seatbelt-style webbing. The pack has a tote-style top-loading interior that zips up (why don’t all totes zip up?) and two stowaway backpack straps hidden behind a zipper on the back.

The Pace’s two external pockets are super thoughtful and great for a phone and sunglasses and keys or whatever other instant access stuff you need. From my experience, you need to be mindful about making sure those particular zippers are closed all the way around because it’s easy to leave them a little open. The zippers all felt great, though the main top zipper, which I didn’t even close most of the time because i’m living that #hybridbaglife, did snag on the material under it sometimes. It wasn’t hard to get loose, but still worth mentioning since it happened two or three times over five days or so of regular use.

My cat was inexplicably obsessed with the Pace. TechCrunch/Taylor Hatmaker

One complaint I had because I did get so comfortable carrying this pack around is that an optional sternum strap would be nice, even if it’d harsh the vibe a little. The pack is super comfy somehow, in spite of its relative lack of structure, but did slide out toward my shoulders occasionally. This might be because most Chrome stuff is designed for broad dudes doing broad dude stuff, but on the whole the Pace felt like one of the least big dude-centric designs that I’ve ever seen from the company. The Pace’s ability to casually transform into a sturdy little tote bag should be a selling point for women and other smaller-bodied folks who aren’t built like tree trunks.

TechCrunch/Taylor Hatmaker

Aside from carrying my laptop around (one complaint: no padding on the bottom of the laptop sleeve), I mostly used the Pace to haul a small assortment of stuff back and forth at a weeklong event and it performed well all around. I also managed to take it on a short, steep hike and it did just fine, though it’s such a breeze to carry I actually didn’t notice that I wasn’t wearing it, left it at the top of the hike and had to re-hike back up there to get it. It must have been pretty comfortable because forgetting my pack is not a thing that happens to me.

I’m usually a rigid-backed pack person but I actually liked how unstructured this bag is. One night I went out to cover an event and was surprised to realize that the Pace carried my Sony A7S II and a change of lens just fine, distributing its weight and carrying it so well I forgot it was in there. I’m not sure what kind of dark tote bag magic is to thank here, but usually carrying any kind of camera in a non-camera bag makes for an awkward, lumpy experience.

What else? The Pace has some great internal organization pockets, though a few felt redundant enough that I couldn’t ever remember where I’d put my chapstick or my notebook or whatever I was reaching for at the moment, leading me to check the non-mesh internal pocket, the main internal compartment, the outside zippered area and the zip area that the straps tuck back into, which was convenient enough that I accidentally stuck stuff in there a lot.

She’s still doing it. TechCrunch/Taylor Hatmaker

I liked the Pace enough that I’d consider picking up the Fathom just to see what it feels like. There’s something special about this design. The Pace is a clever, lighthearted bag and it genuinely feels fun to carry. If that sounds dumb, then get the hell out of here, why are you reading bag reviews instead of checking your altcoin portfolio or whatever?

The Pace is an excellent casual city bag for when you want to run out the door to do something fun and carefree and mildly edgy, but you don’t want to look too prepared or like you brought your laptop even though you totally did. Like you’re showing up to a music video shoot that you’re not cast in or just want to look casual lowkey famous at brunch. Or like sleeping over at a date’s house but looking like you are playing it very cool and not carrying a change of clothes, a toothbrush and your Kindle. It’s unassuming and cool and might just be my new everyday pack.

What it is: A small tote/backpack hybrid that is very cool and not dorky.

What is isn’t: Capable of hauling many massive, heavy things. Run-of-the-mill.

Read more reviews from TechCrunch Bag Week 2018 here.

Bag Week 2018: Chrome’s Vega Transit Brief makes your work vibe less uncool

Bag Week 2018: Chrome’s BLCKCHRM Bravo 2.0 backpack is a burly, stylish beast

via TechCrunch

#IFTTT #TechCrunch