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tramitem_log2020-04-01 01:34 am
temptationaccomplished) wrote in tramitem_log2020-04-01 01:34 am
ᴹʀ. ₐ.ᶻ. Fₑˡₗ's Aᴍᴀ𝓏ɪɴ𝓰 Aₚʀᶦʟ ᴇᴠᵉₙᴛ Cₐₜ𝒸ₕ₋ₐₗₗ ₗₒ𝓰
(Well. Not really amazing. I tried.)
Who: Aziraphale/Mr. Fell and OPEN
What: Oot & Aboot. Random encounters of the Aziraphalean kind.
When: April 1st-5th, the Truth or Lie event. Aziraphale is forced to tell the TRUTH.
Where: Various Locations, mostly Manhattan-adjacent since that's where he lives.
Rating/Warnings: Uhhh. ?? Warnings for witchcraft and witchery?
Mr. Fell goes to the NYC Public Library
Armed with his reading glasses, his book-bag, folders for organizing, a legal pad, and change enough for many, many xerox copies, he stationed himself nearest he could to the philosophy and religion sections... And set to work.
In short order, he had amassed a stack of books on various topics surrounding the art, history, mythology, and practices surrounding alchemy and witchcraft in Europe and North America. Several photocopies, post-its, and highlighings later, he had tangented into reading about Matthew Hopkins, about a James Stewart film, and about the definition of a warlock according to current iterations of a fascinating tabletop roleplaying game.
Research was going terrifically. By which I mean it was utterly frustrating.
Memories had led him to believe this was magical in nature, but nothing in any of the books were exactly what he had been doing. He had recreated some of the content[1] onto notes which were cluttering the table. A significant portion of the text wasn't in English, nor Latin, but the word Sundering appeared multiple times. The sigils varied, but there were two repeated independent of anything else in his notes: a simple glyph and a more winding shape doubling back onto itself.
He wasn't sure what Sundering ultimately was, but that appeared to be what he had been trying rather desperately, passionately to do. And he had been trying not to get caught doing it. Which was worrying, because... to sunder, by definition, seemed rather alarming.
(Later he would treat himself to a cupcake at the attached bakery and try not to think too hard about the fact that he was going to try it anyway.)
For now, though, he had his nose turned down to his bag in an urgent search and hadn't even bothered to look up to greet the newest occupant of the table: "Terribly sorry, but I seem to find myself without a pen. May I borrow one of yours?"
Mr. Fell takes a walk (after a truth-telling)
In a moment of undesirable candor, he had admitted that he was NOT sleeping well, had been accosted by men in suits, and was pretty sure he was some kind of wizard in another life.
Bridget laughed. "You've cracked. The paint fumes have finally gone to your head." He would have said more, insisted he wasn't kidding (and why? Why did he feel so suddenly free with this information? To Bridget of all people), but she had waved him off, blowing a stream of smoke from her upturned lower lip before fanning it away. "Get some fresh air, smoke a joint, get laid. Go see a show. Do whatever it is the kids do these days. You'll be fine."
She pushed a cigarette on him despite his protest of: "I haven't in ages," and then snuffed out her own with the toe of her boot.
"Then you're due. Look, I better get back in there, do the rounds, thank them all for attending, et cetera. Like I said, you'll be fine. It's a ...late midlife crisis or something."
Which left Aziraphale alone on the curbside at dusk among the dwindling crowd of gallery attendees, fidgeting with the cigarette and wholly without a lighter or match.
A walk would do him some good.
Mr. Fell goes to the pub
It was late evening and friends had cancelled, so he was alone under the reddish amber glow of the low-ceiling pub, enjoying the atmosphere. It was one of those places that looked like it had history, and did. The building and original establishment pre-dated Aziraphale's own grandfather and had once been a working-man's pub until sometime after Prohibition.
He liked it. The place felt like a pub should: kind of dark, with the smell of old tobacco and aged alcohol and wood. There was a hint of sawdust on the floor. It had billiards. It had ambiance. If it had stopped there, one might have called it charming and quaint...a bit old-fashioned, not unlike Aziraphale himself.
Instead it was cozy, cultural, with posters and flyers from now and ages past; it blurred a line between antique and avante garde. A little seedy, a bit questionable, but not boorish. Intimate but a bit loud. Nothing glitzy or fashionable or cold. Nothing too pretentious or corporate or sleek.
And the bartender wasn't half bad to look at either.
Mr. Fell ____ (Ok, so I didn't want this to get tooooo long and scare people off)
- Goes to lunch! He loves to eat.
- Buys wine! He needs to replenish after that "Mr. Fell Gone Wild" network post last month (T_T)
- Visits the cafe! And searches for a new place to find masterful scones because Anthony made the last place awkward.
- Rides the subway!/Catches a cab! Maybe even rides his bicycle!
- Make your own or suggest a personal starter!
[1] The circles resembled, for lack of easier comparison, something out of a Japanese anime that Aziraphale does not know about, but was widely popular among certain social groups in the mid-to-late 2000s, so we will assume the audience has familiarity with them and won't go into further detail. (Unrelated, but interesting, a purely meta find.)
* (Aziraphale had himself a handful of friends, colleagues, and acquaintances who classified themselves as forms of modern pagans, but aside from what he could get away with asking under the guise of "purely academic inquiry" and small-talk, he was hesitant to divulge to any of his social groups anything about the Bureau or this whole bloody mess he'd found himself wrapped up in. If nothing else, he thought it rather rude to equate whatever ridiculous fiction he had been doing in the memories with the actual practices they performed. Also, respect and prudence aside, he was simply embarrassed. So asking them was rather out of the question, not that any of them would have any idea what a Diatu was.)
Who: Aziraphale/Mr. Fell and OPEN
What: Oot & Aboot. Random encounters of the Aziraphalean kind.
When: April 1st-5th, the Truth or Lie event. Aziraphale is forced to tell the TRUTH.
Where: Various Locations, mostly Manhattan-adjacent since that's where he lives.
Rating/Warnings: Uhhh. ?? Warnings for witchcraft and witchery?
Mr. Fell goes to the NYC Public Library
Armed with his reading glasses, his book-bag, folders for organizing, a legal pad, and change enough for many, many xerox copies, he stationed himself nearest he could to the philosophy and religion sections... And set to work.
In short order, he had amassed a stack of books on various topics surrounding the art, history, mythology, and practices surrounding alchemy and witchcraft in Europe and North America. Several photocopies, post-its, and highlighings later, he had tangented into reading about Matthew Hopkins, about a James Stewart film, and about the definition of a warlock according to current iterations of a fascinating tabletop roleplaying game.
Research was going terrifically. By which I mean it was utterly frustrating.
Memories had led him to believe this was magical in nature, but nothing in any of the books were exactly what he had been doing. He had recreated some of the content[1] onto notes which were cluttering the table. A significant portion of the text wasn't in English, nor Latin, but the word Sundering appeared multiple times. The sigils varied, but there were two repeated independent of anything else in his notes: a simple glyph and a more winding shape doubling back onto itself.
He wasn't sure what Sundering ultimately was, but that appeared to be what he had been trying rather desperately, passionately to do. And he had been trying not to get caught doing it. Which was worrying, because... to sunder, by definition, seemed rather alarming.
(Later he would treat himself to a cupcake at the attached bakery and try not to think too hard about the fact that he was going to try it anyway.)
For now, though, he had his nose turned down to his bag in an urgent search and hadn't even bothered to look up to greet the newest occupant of the table: "Terribly sorry, but I seem to find myself without a pen. May I borrow one of yours?"
Mr. Fell takes a walk (after a truth-telling)
In a moment of undesirable candor, he had admitted that he was NOT sleeping well, had been accosted by men in suits, and was pretty sure he was some kind of wizard in another life.
Bridget laughed. "You've cracked. The paint fumes have finally gone to your head." He would have said more, insisted he wasn't kidding (and why? Why did he feel so suddenly free with this information? To Bridget of all people), but she had waved him off, blowing a stream of smoke from her upturned lower lip before fanning it away. "Get some fresh air, smoke a joint, get laid. Go see a show. Do whatever it is the kids do these days. You'll be fine."
She pushed a cigarette on him despite his protest of: "I haven't in ages," and then snuffed out her own with the toe of her boot.
"Then you're due. Look, I better get back in there, do the rounds, thank them all for attending, et cetera. Like I said, you'll be fine. It's a ...late midlife crisis or something."
Which left Aziraphale alone on the curbside at dusk among the dwindling crowd of gallery attendees, fidgeting with the cigarette and wholly without a lighter or match.
A walk would do him some good.
Mr. Fell goes to the pub
It was late evening and friends had cancelled, so he was alone under the reddish amber glow of the low-ceiling pub, enjoying the atmosphere. It was one of those places that looked like it had history, and did. The building and original establishment pre-dated Aziraphale's own grandfather and had once been a working-man's pub until sometime after Prohibition.
He liked it. The place felt like a pub should: kind of dark, with the smell of old tobacco and aged alcohol and wood. There was a hint of sawdust on the floor. It had billiards. It had ambiance. If it had stopped there, one might have called it charming and quaint...a bit old-fashioned, not unlike Aziraphale himself.
Instead it was cozy, cultural, with posters and flyers from now and ages past; it blurred a line between antique and avante garde. A little seedy, a bit questionable, but not boorish. Intimate but a bit loud. Nothing glitzy or fashionable or cold. Nothing too pretentious or corporate or sleek.
And the bartender wasn't half bad to look at either.
Mr. Fell ____ (Ok, so I didn't want this to get tooooo long and scare people off)
- Goes to lunch! He loves to eat.
- Buys wine! He needs to replenish after that "Mr. Fell Gone Wild" network post last month (T_T)
- Visits the cafe! And searches for a new place to find masterful scones because Anthony made the last place awkward.
- Rides the subway!/Catches a cab! Maybe even rides his bicycle!
- Make your own or suggest a personal starter!
[1] The circles resembled, for lack of easier comparison, something out of a Japanese anime that Aziraphale does not know about, but was widely popular among certain social groups in the mid-to-late 2000s, so we will assume the audience has familiarity with them and won't go into further detail. (Unrelated, but interesting, a purely meta find.)
* (Aziraphale had himself a handful of friends, colleagues, and acquaintances who classified themselves as forms of modern pagans, but aside from what he could get away with asking under the guise of "purely academic inquiry" and small-talk, he was hesitant to divulge to any of his social groups anything about the Bureau or this whole bloody mess he'd found himself wrapped up in. If nothing else, he thought it rather rude to equate whatever ridiculous fiction he had been doing in the memories with the actual practices they performed. Also, respect and prudence aside, he was simply embarrassed. So asking them was rather out of the question, not that any of them would have any idea what a Diatu was.)
library, let's say Thursday;
No, she was here this morning because she needed to do a little more research, and armed with a somewhat imposing Japanese-English dictionary and a plastic bottle full of lemonade, she'd slid into a chair at the table with an undignified huff, messenger bag softly plopped onto the table with the rest of her things. She'd come to find a little bit of solace in the earrings from the other day, now, and she relaxed a little as their weight shifted as she rummaged through her bag and pulled out a spiral notebook with a (somewhat roughly) hand-drawn symbol of a rose in blue ink, and a small sheaf of sheet music, largely blank. A few notes were filled in, but the most obvious mark was the title "LOUDER" boldly written across the top of the first sheet.
She'd gotten to the point of giving the lot a blank, lost stare before a voice close by requested a pen. She immediately went back to her bag, absently answering, "I'm not certain I have one, but I can check," as she emerged with a handful of utensils - a well-worn gel pen, a woodcase pencil, and a plain black pen, the last of which she offered across the table. "Mm, here," she prompted, before she stopped cold. I always carry half a dozen pens, why did I say that? She shook her head, wrote it off as a bad brain moment, and smiled up at the person asking for the item.
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He meant to greet her, to say something pleasant and small-talkish about how good it was to see her, or to inquire about her research, or some other unassuming nicety as one does--the kinds of things one says whether they entirely mean them or not.
Instead, his traitorous mouth had the gall to blurt out, "I had hoped not to meet anyone I knew here." And Aziraphale cringed with mortification. He couldn't even bring himself to say that he didn't mean it. Because he very well DID mean it. So what he could say was the very factual and slightly apologetic, "I'm sorry, that was rude."
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What he did apparently want to say wasn't at all what he actually wanted to have come out, but with her question he found himself compelled to explain. "'Probably.' Yes, that's why I am a little worried. It's all a bit ridiculous, really," he said, fretting at the corner of a notepad page. "I was studying magic in one of my memories. It did not look like it was the good kind of magic, all those...circles and everything." He leaned over, lowering his voice. "I think it was witchcraft."
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Her eyes widen at the explanation, though. "Magic...? Holy shit. That's-" totally insane- "actually plausible? Look at everything else people are talking about. Wonder if it'd work here. Uh. If you could do it without burning something down," she quickly adds. "Which is probably what you're researching, then. It'd be exciting if you had a risk like that, wouldn't-"
That gets her attention again, and she claps a hand over her mouth. After a second, she cautiously uncovers her mouth, muttering, "What...?"
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Her response wasn't as bad as he feared, so he felt himself continuing to talk. "My dear girl, this whole ordeal we're in doesn't seem plausible." Insane as it all was, maybe he shouldn't be surprised that people had visions of space warfare and magic. Magic at a magic school just sounded...fictional. "But I admit this feels especially...weird."
"I'm trying not to burn anything down--frankly, I have no idea what in the world I was attempting to accomplish here, except that it clearly had not been school sanctioned-- so I'm not sure what I need to research to protect...anything. If it works at all. I haven't tried it." And then, despite his best efforts not to, he added, "YET."
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She listened to the talk of what he'd been working on and her eyebrows went up again. "I've got memories of girls I know nothing about and can't bring myself to care about, songs on instruments I don't know and don't want to learn, and here you're trying to do research to figure out if you know something revolutionary that could work on this side. That's kinda cool."
...then Lisa's mind wrapped around what she'd said, and she let out a horrified sound, looking at her hands, watching them open and close like something had gone wrong. "Again...? No. No, no, what the hell's going on?" Her internal filter... seemed to have gone offline for a moment with her apparent stability.
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Taking a walk, at least to start.
Demurely, she puffs her smoke down and to the side. "I suppose the lady had a point, you do look as if you could use a breath of fresh air. I can certainly keep my own counsel, if you wish to walk in silence. But if we were to end up at a place for a snack and a glass of wine or some such, I might find it in my heart to pay. Since we aren't precisely strangers."
Strange enough, perhaps, but not entirely so.
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"Thank you."
She had a unique way of talking that he would have recognized even without her unmistakable eyes. He was pretty sure he'd seen her at a support group meeting, but hadn't had the chance to talk.
"Oh, no, I'd have to insist on paying. You're my guest." He began to walk with her down the sidewalk. The cigarette burned slowly in his hand and he used it as much to fidget and gesture with as he did to actually smoke. Holding something was itself calming. "I know a nice little place a few blocks from here, where we can get a glass of wine, if you're willing to walk as far." And, if he's being entirely honest (which he regrettably has been this week), "I'd like the company, and the conversation."
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"Hardly, I suggested it!" Yotsuyu couldn't help but pick at the bone of contention. She was somewhat argumentative normally, it was true, but she was also afflicted with honesty lately, it seemed. "I am willing to walk, however. Perhaps we'll have to do it again, then, so I might repay the favor. Normally I am not so forward, but you're quite memorable. I believe I saw you at one of the meetings." She didn't elaborate, but it was fairly certain Mr. Fell would know which one she meant.
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"You did, yes, though I hardly think I'm very memorable. I remember you, however. Or at least this last month, but I don't recall seeing you before then. Are you new to the meetings?"
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"I'm well aware Elliott can take care of himself, but I am still his mother. Even were I not invested by my own involvement, I would be invested because of him." With the change of subject, Yotsuyu acquiesced--but perhaps she'd buy him a nice bottle of wine to send him home with, or some such. Gods knew she could afford it!
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"Oh, that would be awful," he said, a pang of discomfort on her behalf. Airports were miserable places to be anyway, let alone to have to be shocked by a vision of another life and confronted by the Bureau. Let a woman de-board and retrieve her baggage in peace. "I was having dinner alone, thank goodness."
At the mention of her son's name, though, he brightened. So this was young Elliott's mother! They hardly looked related, and she barely looked old enough to have had him, but he wasn't going to pry.
"Oh, you're his mother! He's mentioned you a few times, seemed like he felt terribly guilty and unsure how to tell you. Bright young man, though," he lowered his voice as if sharing a secret, "did you know he contacted them? ...The Bureau, I mean? Directly through email, I believe." Aziraphale frowned. He hadn't meant to tell her that; it felt like a betrayal of Elliott's trust and yet...maybe it was for the best that she knew anyway.
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"He has? Fondly, I hope!" Though she was fairly certain that Elliott had only had kind things to say about her. She was a bit curious as to why he hadn't mentioned this fellow, but it had been something of a whirlwind since she'd come home...though his next words startled her.
"He did? I wonder why...do you know? He has not told me that...not yet." Maybe he would, or maybe Elliott might be trying to protect her. She was a bit proud--Yotsuyu could feel the emotion swelling in her chest--and yet she could not help but frown, either.
"But yes, I am Elliott's mother. Yotsuyu Naeuri. A pleasure," she said, extending the hand that didn't have a smoldering cigarette butt in it.
Mr. Fell takes a walk (after a truth-telling) - 2nd
Mr. Fell. He did stand out in a crowd and he almost looked lost as he fumbled with the cigarette hanging from his mouth. It was an automatic response, barely thought out. Anthony pulled over to the curb as if he were parking and lifted the visor on his helmet.
"Bad habit those."
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He approached just by a step, expecting a request for directions when the visor came up, and then his expression pinched into annoyance. Oh. Anthony.
“Yes, I’m aware. I’m afraid I’m not interested in your life advice right now.” He tried to feign having forgotten Anthony’s name, just to be a bit of an ass about it, but found his tongue tied against the lie. “Out for a joyride?”
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"There's not much joy in it."
His own candor surprised him but once freed it simply couldn't be stopped. It was just how it had been with Grace. One moment they had been having a nice spot of tea and building a cat tree and the next he had been telling her everything he had up until that point been trying to keep hidden.
"I've been driving around for hours, trying to make sense of things... and searching for all the crepe shops. You know there really aren't that many, not good ones. It's ridiculous."
With a light frown he glanced back at Mr Fell, finding very little welcome in his eyes but oddly enough not recognizing that as much of a barrier at all.
"You've been on my mind since we last talked."
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"Hours? That's going a long way for a snack." He couldn't recall the last time he'd had crepes. Did they have them at the winter village? No, those were waffles. Goodness, now he could go in for something a bit decadent. Sassy remarks about using Yelp or that Anthony would do better to go to France if he was so picky fizzled out. "Quite a connoisseur, hm? I haven't had a crepe in ages. Sounds rather good right now, actually. Not sure I'd know a good one from a mediocre one at this point, though."
He gave Anthony another slower consideration, coy smile playing over his lips.
"Have I? I admit you left quite the impression yourself."
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Maybe he had been left with the wrong impression or maybe things like that didn't transfer. Mr. Fell wouldn't know a good crepe from a bad one? So... searching for a French restaurant for the good ones wouldn't be worth anything? It left him a touch puzzled, so that he looked back to his bike's switches and dials as if checking the gas gauge when really he was just wondering where to go from here.
He understood he had left an impression, a rather bad one he suspected what with that whole accusing Mr. Fell of being a hitman and all. It was a moment. Everyone had moments!
"You wouldn't want to go have some?"
Anthony looked up, trying to catch those eyes just to judge how well received that question might have been.
"Cafe Triskell. It's supposed to have the best genuine French cuisine in Astoria."
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Aziraphale put his hands in his pockets and shifted back onto his heels, looking up at Anthony. His tone was light, eyes lit in a playful bit of sparkle from a nearby streetlight. "It might be nice. No accusations of being a hitman this time, I hope?"
"Never been there. And will you be driving us?" He gave a pointed, questioning look at the motorcycle. "I don't have a car."
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Chess in the park
"I'm terrible at a slow pace, so if you want to win, then you should go that route." That was a bit more honesty than he we used to sharing from the get go, but he supposed it wasn't a terrible thing.
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"I do prefer slower paced games," he admitted, fussing with his sweater, straightening out the cuffs and waistband as he settled in his seat. "But I'm afraid if we go slow, we may never finish. All the time in the world to make a decision tends to make me dilly-dally."
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He placed his hand patently on the stone table.
"So, we're going to talk about my memories."
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"Yes, we were. How are you doing?" He winced slightly at the awkwardness of the question. It would probably be best to let Anakin decide how this conversation went, given that it was his memories. "Ah, I mean--where shall we start?"
LOL, I almost forgot that this takes place during the Truth/Lying plot.
Anakin sighed, picking up his own piece and moving it forward a few seconds after Mr. Fell's was placed.
And then Anakin started his answer.
"Okay, bad, fine, awful, all of it. My arm hurts- the one that's gone- almost constantly because of the cold weather. It almost makes me think I should move, but my career is here and so are all my doctors and it is really hard to find therapists, psychiatrists, physical therapists, orthotists and prosthetists, and a regular primary care physicians. But there's also the memories which are terrible- I'm a slave- I saw someone die in a really bad way for trying to escape slavery- I think my memories are about space. Which is impossible, right? We've only been to the moon. And these memories did not take place on the moon."
He didn't even notice how much he was saying, he'd was just answering truthfully.