lifeaftr | [OPEN]

Entry tags:

[OPEN]

Who: Crowley & YOU
What: Post-arrival, exploring Ensō
When: Early November
Where: Various locations around the island.
Warnings: Crowley

Storytellers Temple

It wasn't long after his and Aziraphale's arrival that they decided to split up and investigate this new world separately. While neither of them seemed too keen on being separated, they agreed it would make for a quicker search of things. Crowley headed north immediately, seeking anything that looked like a structure that may be inhabited by people.

The building was very obviously built as a temple. A place to pay proper respects to someone or something. He had no reason to tred on holy ground for many years, but the sight of the stuffed rabbit out front drew him in, and he was surprised to find the ground not white-hot on the bottom of his feet. Something about this rabbit drew forth memories of a dream he was sure he had. At least, he thought it was a dream. His memory did seem a bit fuzzy.

"Curiouser and curiouser..." he muttered, squatting in front of the rabbit and staring down his nose at it over his sunglasses. Crowley wasn't one for books, but once he'd seen a made-for-TV adaptation of Alice in Wonderland and felt like Alice herself following the rabbit down its hole.

Monkey Compound

By no means was it Mayfair, but these seemed to be residences. Let's be honest, it wasn't posh or upscale, but it was the only thing he'd come across since the temple that looked inhabitable. Crowley was particularly taken by the garden. His little plantcare hobby may be of some use on a deserted island yet, depending on how stubborn the greenery is in this world. Perhaps all they need is for someone like Crowley to knock them down a peg or two, show them what's what.

He's encircling the garden when he notices a particularly well-growing plant. Proud little thing, he looks it up and down and scoffs. "Don't be so cocky..." he hisses as if it can hear him, not realizing anyone might be listening to him.

Denny

Finally, something normal, or at least as close to normal as one might find on a strange island. Come to think of it, finding a bar/restaurant isn't very normal at all given the situation. Crowley won't complain, of course, and take comfort in the small things.

He takes a seat on an open bench, waiting patiently for a server to reach him. "A glass of whatevers drinkable." he requests, open to recommendations. He's surprised to notice that he feels tired after a day of searching. He's never really felt tired before, at least, not like this. He tries to shake it off, must be in his head.

Wildcard

[OOC NOTE: Feel free to tag Crowley anywhere on the island in between his trips or come up with another prompt. If you'd like to discuss something special with me, I can be reached at

dukevendetta or on Discord at trashwitch666#9299]

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"Oh, you were here before," Michael replies, a little off-handedly. This time, he won't make the mistake of offering a Time Knife-related explanation; that really went over poorly with Aziraphale. But it's true, and Crowley ought to know.

The water's boiling, and he turns to remove the pot from the fire and pour it into the nearest cup. "You and Aziraphale," he continues with his back to Crowley. "You two really stick together, don't you?" He still finds the friendship between the two slightly bemusing. How long has it been since demons and angels in his universe even had contact? But really, right now, it's just...

...jealousy. It's jealousy. Twice now they've shown up together, and where are any of Michael's friends? It isn't their fault, he knows that, but that doesn't make the feeling go away.

Crowley's eyebrows shoot so far up into his hairline they almost disappear. So introductions aren't necessary afterall, yet what bothers Crowley more is that he says they've been here before. All Crowley remembers is The Ritz.

"I'm-- ngk-- What?"

Michael turns back to put the teacup in front of Crowley. It's still steeping, but he can take it from here.

"Well, we're all here from different universes, anyway." At least, hopefully Crowley's gathered that much by now? "It stands to reason that it's possible for the same people to come from different alternate universes. Or even just timelines. I don't know that it happens a lot, but it's just as statistically unreasonable as you both coming and going together all the time." It's been obvious to him for a while that this entire thing can't be truly random. But there's no obvious way to manipulate it, so...

Crowley isn't very fond of the idea of other Hims running around. But something about always coming and going with Aziraphale brought him peace. He'd never be without his best friend.

"You know an awful lot about me, and I don't even know your name." Crowley groans, messing with his tea so that it steeps faster. "What's your deal, anyway?"

Oh, right - that's a thing, isn't it? "I'm Michael." Ordinarily he'd offer a hand, but Crowley seems busy with his tea, so Michael just nods.

Leaning back against the wall, his hands feel a little restless. He casts about for something to do, before settling on rearranging the tea canisters again. "Oh, well, that's sort of a long story. I was in management, and then I smuggled some humans out of Hell and...broke a lot of other laws. So I was a fugitive on Earth for a year or two. Now I'm working to get the afterlife system reformed, because all the humans for the past five centuries have been condemned, and apparently the angels aren't going to do anything about that." That's a pretty wild arc with no explanation or context!

Crowley stares, his face blank, as Michael crafts this tale. He's never heard of a demon smuggling humans out from the afterlife, but he has to respect the sort of anarchy that had to transpire for such a thing to happen.

"Didn't need the life story, mate," he finally manages, "But from my personal experience you're not wrong, angels," a word said quite mockingly, "Can't be arsed to care."

Michael shrugs lightly. He doesn't really consider all that to have been his life story, but. "I know about your whole thing with the apocalypse. And it's really much easier to get all of that out of the way." His first encounter with the other Crowley was extremely tense, mostly because they each assumed the worst of each other. Now, he knows there's no risk to outing himself as a traitor - it's actually a lot safer than the reverse.

But hey! Bitching about angels! "I actually found a way up there, you know, to talk to them. Still couldn't get them to take action."

"Were we in the same knitting circle or something?" he groans, it's bad enough this lad knew him, but the bigger issue here was that Crowley wasn't sure how many of the island's inhabitants knew his business, and it really set him on edge. On the flip side, he can see Michael's point, had he not gotten this out of the way, they very likely wouldn't be sitting here chatting over a cup of tea.

"No, I don't imagine they would."

Michael grins. "Ha! Oh, no. Aziraphale told me all that. Not the one who's here now, but the other one." That did come after Michael apparently (?) radiated love for his friends in a way that angels can pick up on, and he'd already showed his hand. So it wasn't out of nowhere. The angel would probably be fine if any less friendly demons showed up.

"I really hope different versions of people showing up isn't going to be a thing now. I don't want to see another me." More specifically, he doesn't want another him from more than a few years back. "That could get dicey."

"Of course he did. The other one." Crowley sighed, and then shuddered slightly imagining two Aziraphales. Twice the nagging, twice the charm. A blessing or a curse? One may never know.

Crowley wasn't sure what he'd do if faced with himself. They'd very likely hate one another. This wasn't a helpful brain exercise.

"Well, you suggested I've already left. So I don't think you have anything to worry about."

"Hopefully not." Michael doesn't consider two cases to, necessarily, be enough to draw conclusions about the rules of this thing. Maybe two iterations of the same person could be together, and just weren't this time.

Anyway, it hardly matters. It's not happening now. "So, any other questions? I think you guys might've had a house before, but I don't know where it was."

"We had a house?" How domestic. Crowley's certainly imagined what it may be like to share a living space with Aziraphale. He'd offered to when he thought the bookshop was gone, for instance, but hearing it is different.

"Depends, is there anything else I should know? Any other secrets about my own life that you know and I don't?"

Concerningly, Michael appears to give this a moment of actual thought.

"No, that's about it." Granted, he does know about that weird holy water weakness. But he learned about that from Crowley himself, and anyway, bringing it up sounds vaguely threatening. "Things have been going to shit more than usual, recently. I hadn't seen much of you two for a little while."

They definitely don't need to talk about the holy water thing.

"Well, if I'm lucky, you won't again." he means of course, that he plans to search for a way out. He has a feeling that won't be so easy. "But I'm sure we'll run into each other a bit until then."

Yeah, it'd be nice if that sort of thing worked. But Michael seems to be more familiar with multiverse theory, at least, than any of the other immortals here, and he sure doesn't have any ideas left.

"Well, good luck with that. But yeah, I'll see you around. Put out a call on the rocks if you need anything."

Edited 2019-11-23 21:45 (UTC)

"On the what?" he replies confusedly, wondering if this was another turn of phrase that Crowley wasn't used to. He eyed Michael quizzically as he began to gather his things, he had just been planning to regroup with Aziraphale beforehand.

"Stones."

He doesn't seem bothered by Crowley preparing to leave, just takes his stone out of his pocket and holds it up. "You should have one of these by now. They're magic - basically work like phones. No video calls, though."

He took a moment to dig through the knapsack he'd been given, pulling out an identical stone. "This? This is a phone?"

Crowley eyed it for a moment and then looked back to Michael. He had thought himself fairly proficient at technology, in fact, he'd been the one that suggested all of hell use it as a means of transportation and communications. This stone however, he had not the faintest idea how to use it.

Michael shrugs. He wouldn't consider this technology so much as pure magic, but afterlife tech has always sort of straddled that line as far as he's concerned. "It has voice controls. You can call one specific person, or you can yell at everybody at once."

"Does it come with a manual?" he jokes, shoving it back into his pocket. He can mess with it later, he guesses. He has an angel to meet up with, try to get to the bottom of this.

"Going to assume it doesn't. That would make too much sense in a world where nothing does."

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