I Love Them

It was getting to be a lot, especially with what transpired from the events concerning the Drive-In. With his boss's brother dying, things were, in his mind, progressing very quickly along the designated path. He had to get away from it for a bit, acting normal. Old habits seemed to die hard, as he went about doing this. Slipping easily into the act, as if he were pretending to be someone else, his entire life. Perhaps, he was.

Stopping by the café on his route to excuse himself from whatever was going on concerning the most recent death of a member. The fact that it wasn't just any member, either, was a significant concern. Azazel stood to one side, waiting for his order to be fulfilled, scanning over the rest of the room in the time he had to his thoughts.

The quiet of the café, barely full of anyone at this hour, thankfully. He spotted one that stuck out to him, jotting away in their journal. Turning his head away, he smiled as his drink was finally delivered, “Thank you-” He whispered appreciatively, then glanced back toward the male. A split second or so later, as the other spoke up, he tutted, “Now tell me what I'm thinking.” Azazel replied, taking another drink from his cup. He seemingly carelessly moved closer to the other, studying the male. Not sure why he was even interested at all. Perhaps boredom, honestly, anything to distract himself from one of the other two things currently consuming his life at the moment. “Don't worry, though, I'm not interested in you. Go back to your writing-” He turned away and walked to the other side of the café, still in eyesight of the other.

Sitting near a window, he turned to look out of it as he quietly enjoyed his drink for the time being, slouching and bending over the table from the waist, he rested his head in his free hand, looking quite content and at peace at that moment. Though in reality, his mind was anything but at peace.

@boneyardstarters ; open starter ! date: april 29th location: a quaint café somewhere in vegas

fun fact: your bones always ached the day after a mission. or maybe that was just him. there was always that dull, insistent throb that hummed beneath the skin, nested deep in marrow, as if his skeleton remembered what he didn’t want to; as though his body knew it had never been built to carry this kind of weight. a slight, slender frame that spoke of cathedral halls, faded sonnets, and tragic french novellas; better suited to waste away in verse, not weave paths of blood with someone else’s heartbeat in his hands. and yet. the others moved like soldiers, all muscle and momentum — he was the scalpel in a drawer full of sledgehammers. precise. quiet ( unless he had fully gone off the deep end, which, thankfully, hadn’t happened in a bit ). lethal. easy to underestimate once, never twice — if you didn’t mind losing your throat, that was. still, it left him tired, though he was tired at the best of times. he sat alone in the booth the lémieuxs had always claimed — back when legacy was louder than loss. the cracked leather beneath him remembered better days. so did he. it had seen him at his worst. held him when nothing else did, and continued to do so. it was, in every way, a refuge. the kind of place that knew better than to ask questions. his usual arrived without him asking. refills appeared as if by instinct. they knew his order even when he couldn’t remember it himself. a journal lay open before him, its spine worn and pages crowded with black ink, as the same coffee went cold in front of him — same cup, same bitterness. his elbows rested on the wood, spine curled forward, a soft crescent over the table, dark curls falling over his face like shadows. unbothered, untouched, unseen … except, not really. he let the silence stretch, and then, without lifting his head or giving the pen pause, he finally spoke, “i can feel you staring, you know.”

At the voice demanding something of him, he opened his eyes a crack, glaring slightly at the rudeness of it, before giving his excuses. Afterward, however, the narrowed gaze remained. Azazel wondered what some people had against sleeping outside, it wasn't that bad. Clicking his tongue, he moved to sit up and looked around as Hux went on. Not really concerned with the danger, he moved to stretch and laughed hollowly, “If it's dangerous in the middle of the day, I'd hate to see how dangerous it will be when the night comes.” He wasn't too concerned with direct danger at the moment, though. No one would be stupid enough to propose many issues at this time of day. If they did, the knife in his backpack might help dissuade them. Crossing his arms over his chest, he's sitting, slouched, against the bench and watching Hux.

“What danger do you see right now? Hm?” Quirking an eyebrow as he asked this, he wanted to know what the other might consider a danger in the afternoon, to someone snoozing on a bench, crowded by people as they made their way from one booth to the other. Though he wasn't so ignorant as to not realize that, if someone intelligent were to attack at this time, with this crowd, they could very easily slip off. But still, the odds weren't likely, as he had nothing worth stealing, anything that could be stolen, he considered, was maybe a handful of Benjamins, and little else. Which he wasn't too concerned with losing. Azazel held his gaze intensely on Hux, before he continued, “Well? Where's the danger? Is it in the crowd around us today?” He teases a bit.

Of course, he wasn't silly enough to not factor that, percentage-wise, there had to be many dangers in the crowd with them, that day, or any other day, really. But, he was aiming at a more direct target of threat, possibly Hux himself, for even having brought it up in the first place. Azazel's gaze held, dark abyssal pools, staring back at the other, watching Hux intently. Waiting for the others' answer.

Easy food is always appreciated, specially after fate decided to keep other people coming this way for some reason. Hux was just an animal, he had no problem on accepting that, but as the apex predator, he still had some sort of control.

If there's something Hux is good at is at remembering faces; trauma built him that way and there's some recollection of seeing this person around the strip. Call it a sudden rush of benevolence or the idea of crippling guilt, but he knew that if he was there, others with way less decorum could or would be here soon. "Hey. Wake up". Voice deep and and intense unblinking stare, one could've swear there was a strange glow in his eyes for an instant as he towered over the other resting on the bench. "Shouldn't be sleeping here. It's dangerous. Go home".

“Please don’t expect me to always be good and kind and loving. There are times when I will be cold and thoughtless and hard to understand.”

— Sylvia Plath

@boneyardstarters Location: Weekend of Horror Booths Date: April 27, Afternoon Cap: ♾️

It had been such a long and exhausting weekend. He just wasn't finding the joy he usually would have in these kinds of things, which made it all the more tiring, he gathered. Reaching out a hand toward some items at a booth he was currently looking around in, he ran his fingers delicately along the tops of some items, frowning as he realized he couldn't feel happy or excited about any of it. He felt nothing at all at the moment. Pulling his hand away in a sluggish manner, he turned and left the booth, wanting to find anything that could inspire some amount of joy in him. But only found himself becoming more exhausted as he passed several booths. It was later in the afternoon, but he felt like he had been up for hours. For the most part, he had been. Coming to sit on a bench, he absently moved to curl up on the empty space and quickly started to drift off. Even though it may not last a long time, he managed to doze off for a moment before a voice directed at him suddenly had him jolting back awake, “No- I wasn't-… I wasn't sleeping. I was just resting my eyes.” Azazel muttered in response as he lifted his head and looked around.

Well… I got 'em out. We were all the way deep into the jungle where I thought it was gonna be safe. That's when the rain started. I thought it was water. It turned out to be blood. Hot, thick blood. It was coming down. It was choking us. We were stumbling around, gagging on it, blind.

SHADOW OF THE TOMB RAIDER (2018)

Days like these, he supposed that life would be so much easier if he'd just disappeared, or, well, if strangers around him did. What was he even looking out for? Was anyone around him at the moment, or that would be for the rest of the day, even be worth this much hypervigilance on his behalf? Almost everyone seemed to be going about their day-to-day life, and he was just standing in place, smoking, and letting his imagination get the best of his mind at the moment.

It was completely silly. He was better than this. Was. He was better. But since the early morning hours he woke up out in basically no man's land, feeling as awful as he did then, and just as awful now, and more, when he had to keep up appearance and deal with the onslaught of questions, or trying to keep the facade going so that rumors could not dominate the narrative. What was the narrative, though? That everything was normal, still? What was supposed to be normal now? Azazel sneers a bit, flicking the ash off the end of his cigarette, frustration coming then.

Closing his eyes, he adjusted his head, trying to steer the sudden assault of intrusive thoughts from getting the better of him. He was safe, he was home, nothing had changed. He was still him. Yet nothing seemed at all right. Everything still seemed so wrong. His nose started to feel ticklish after a second, a sneeze suddenly escaping him, breaking his composure with it. Bringing his free hand up, he covered his mouth and nose, sniffling slightly. It wasn't a cold, it wasn't allergies, he had none. But now he had to think, was this sneeze going to be another sign that something was wrong?!

Catching himself, he laughed under his breath. He was being irrational it was just a normal sneeze, nothing wrong with that. He brought his hand away. There was nothing wrong with walking, no one should be or would be out to get him, at least, not that he could remember at the moment. He started walking again, he still had things to attend to, despite his thoughts and feelings toward things around him.

It wasn't too hot out today, and he was thankful for that. Thankfully, even more so, he chose to wear an outfit that wasn't going to let him be bogged down with whatever little heat there still was. After a bit of walking, he adjusted his glasses again, continuing on his bath to who could tell outside of the moment, aside from him. Azazel still, however, had a thin layer of sweat forming over his body, which thankfully his clothes did not show due to their showy looseness and presentable, colorful appearance.

Coming up to a hobby store along the strip, he took another moment to glance around. A guy stood on the sidewalk, trying to get someone's attention. A woman was walking her dog. A child was being led along by their mother into another shop along the road. A woman with a Walkman strolled by, followed by a man making his way to his truck in the opposite direction. Azazel looked back, wondering why he just couldn't shake the feeling he was being watched.

Pulling the door open, he made his way inside, sighing as a blast of cold air hit him. He smiled weakly at the person standing at the register, who gave him a small greeting and asked what he was looking for, “The usual.” Azazel replied, moving to jot down his order on a forum at the register, “Wood. Sheets of metal.” Tucking a hand into his pocket, he pulled out a sheet from his work to order less easily accessible items, “This stuff here.” A moment or so later, he was finished with his requests and turned to look around for more items that would be on hand that he didn't need to order to go straight to his house.

Once he collected those items, taking nearly forty or so minutes in total to complete his shopping, he walked back out of the hobby store, putting his sunglasses back on as the sun continued to bring pain to his eyes just by being in the sunlight. It was, he had guessed, certainly due to his now never-ending state of exhaustion. Letting the bag hang at his side in his left hand, Azazel again continued on his journey.

The will-o-the-wisp, silent venturer a few feet dutifully behind, and sorely lacking the expertise of someone whose profession relied on stealth and grace, the eloquence of ballet's training shaped her up to be deadly enough. Making tracks with enough pace to keep up, her gangly legs forced to slow down as to not draw attention to herself, her eyes were trained on the broad figure traipsing along, a fine hairline of tension palpable in the body language, how the other toyed with their sunglasses and seemed to rouse at the barest hints of tension sparking in the air.

Her dark eyes snapped away as she drew closer and he swung around, trained ahead as if she were walking through the downtown of Las Vegas like anyone else would be on a sunny afternoon, the dry heat beating down with its harsh rays and onto her skin, soaking up the vitamins and the acrid disdain for the warmth. Sleepy Hollow was cold and rainy. Nothing like here, where there was little reprieve where the rain alone was reprieve from its inclemency, and few and far between.

The idle wonderment of where he would go next was there, itching the back of her brain — the mild fixation with the oddities that presented in the other's physical condition, as if the life force tethering him was being siphoned out by an enigma, could have seen her time better spent, and there were limits. Salem didn't want to know where he lived, or menial details — she wanted to know what was attached to him, whether it was a spirit's whim to manifest in the physical realm or a demonic vice — like a computer gathering information. What made him tick.

Slowing down, the medium pushed her hair against the wind's plight to billow it into her face, warmth staunch to her fingertips, astounded that sweat didn't come away and slick her fingers when she wiped her visage. Letting out a breath, she gathered her bearings and dug her hands into her pockets, removing a Walkman and a pair of earbuds, figuring it would add to the image that she was on a leisurely stroll and didn't want to be bothered.

an embrace

What did your muse want to be when they were a child? Would their child self be happy with what they are now?

Azazel has always wished to be in a career that allows him to learn and keep learning. He had always enjoyed finding out and picking up new things. New hobbies, new skills, new information. He was often a consummate reader. But also would go out and experiment on some of those things he would learn. So he technically had no name for what he wanted to be as a child, other than 'scientist', and that dream continued throughout his life into adulthood, where he has a professional career in the sciences, primarily in biotech. Moonlighted in his advisory position for the Vitelli's. His child self would probably be very amused by how everything turned out. Thinking that being in a 'mafia' and working as a scientist would be 'the best' way his life could have turned out. Seeing as most of his childself thinks of gangster related things in the more fictionalized settings, and not the serious, life-threatening, deadly nightmare it actually can be. Also, he would be so happy about any lean into the supernatural rumors surrounding his older self. So, child Azazel would be completely ecstatic to present Azazel's life, with a rose-tinted glasses idea of it.