Aziraphale (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
temptationaccomplished) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
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.
no subject
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."
no subject
no subject
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."
no subject
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...?"
no subject
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."
no subject
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.
no subject
Funny enough, he wasn't sure he believed her protests. If she was this interested in his own search, and she was a musician if he recalled correctly, her sentiments of not caring about any of what her visions gave her seemed more born of frustration with the situation than actual truths.
"...Are you alright?" he asked as her tone suddenly changed on them both. He looked from her flexing hands, up to her face with concern. "Are you getting another memory?"
no subject
Lisa had a split second to decide, as her companion noticed her begin to freak out, if she wanted to try and play it off or be honest. Or, well, as honest as she could. The choice was made for her a moment later, when he'd elected to ask about her. No, I'm not alright. "I'm fine. Fine. No problem," she somehow got out, eyes wet as she realized it wasn't getting better. "Just... having a weird day. Week. Month. The exact number of hours since I first remembered not-me and started getting memories back."
She could feel herself starting to shut down, starting to spiral, her hands unconsciously on her head and fingers tangled in her hair, breathing shorter. Didn't want that. Not a good time. She already looked crazy enough, this wouldn't help. How to keep herself going- "Talk about your thing more," she bit out, even as her posture started to shrink inward. "If you don't mind, a-and if there is more. Might... ground me," Lisa ventured, not sure if it was even true but it'd be better than continuing to attract attention. From him, from the the nearby tables that had paused to look over, from a librarian if she hit on the worse case scenario, can't have that, can't have any of this-
no subject
She wasn't fine, despite what she said. He cautiously turned toward her, closing them off to any nosy, if rightfully concerned, other library patrons.
"Alright," he said softly, adopting what he hoped was a comforting, maybe even grandfatherly tone. He wished he had a tissue to offer her. "Yes, of course. Anything to help."
This would be easier if lying had proven easier this week. Aziraphale leaned heavily on using little white lies to appease people and smooth over the terribleness of life. It was hard to say it'll be alright honestly when you didn't really believe it.
"My thing. Well. I was attending a magic school--wizarding school." He knew how insane it was, really, but that had been what he was presented with, and so that was what he had to tell. "I went through admissions and was given what I understand to be a familiar. A snake--a small thing, with a pleasant sort of tan coloring and funny upturned nose. He was rather cute, really, for a snake. And I thought I was very clever naming it after the dessert Creme Brulee. Have you ever had one? A creme brulee? They're a kind of custard. But then they do this amazing bit where they sprinkle it with sugar and take a torch to caramelize the top into a crust."
He considered the name again before continuing. "I guess the little fellow did kind of resemble one."
no subject
-and maybe that was enough. She couldn't tell the truth to him - couldn't express her frustration, couldn't make herself understood - but he was doing his best in the framework he had. It took her some effort, but it was easy enough to focus on him talking, instead of her own. Everything- no, stop that, Lisa!
"It sounds cute," she said, just above a whisper. "For a snake. Magic school must have been something, too." Every muscle in her was tense, but slowly, she worked herself back to something resembling normal, uncurling and attempting to sit back up straight. "Since you can't burn the sc-school down, you're burning custard down instead?"
She felt ugly. Again. Somehow all this Different business had a way of getting under her skin and turning her upside down. But as she managed to school her expression into something that maybe looked a little bit like a smile, and managed to look up at him with red-rimmed eyes, she thought that maybe she could manage. She still didn't feel good, but she could work with this.
no subject
She wasn't looking all that much better, but at least she seemed to be pulling the pieces back together. With what he hoped was a polite blend of support and distance (he was a relative stranger, after all), he put a hand on her shoulder. He wished he had tissues to offer, but he came woefully unprepared.
"But all this talk of custard has me thinking about dessert. There's a lovely bakery attached to the library downstairs." Who didn't like sweets? Or coffee or tea? He was sure he could find her something appealing to eat that might help with what has overcome her. "I know we just got here, but shall we call it a day? Or at least take a little break?" And, since she seemed to be fighting herself right now, he added, "And if it's too much to answer that, or to talk at all, you don't need to answer with words. But sometimes a little treat and some sunshine will do a world of good."
And maybe stepping away from all this Different research will provide an ounce of escape for a moment.
no subject
She'd started to relax just a tiny bit when she felt his hand on her shoulder, and she froze, hating that she did it but knowing that the way she was feeling, only doing that much was probably a minor miracle. She didn't trust her words, and settled for a low whimper that would be hard-ish to hear and likely easy to understand: don't. She hated feeling like this. Afraid to relax, afraid to trust others, afraid to open her mouth. What the hell was she supposed to do...?
...go for dessert, apparently. It was enough of a non-sequitur that she looked up at him slowly, blinking, face slack and eyes still wet. Then she giggled, proud she only sounded a little unhinged, managing a small smile. "Research is for squares. Let's do it." It wasn't like she was going to get any work done like this anyway. LOUDER would wait another day. Or two. Or a week.