(no subject)
Azrael walks through the city streets only half-aware of what he's doing. No destination, no real purpose, just an unsettled feeling. As he walks, he pulls random thoughts and emotions from the passersby. Stress. Pain. The thousand little worries of everyday life. He shakes his head and keeps walking. That's the trouble with himans, always worried. Always afraid. It's made his eternity a living Hell, literally; but at the same time, it makes his life--his work--so much easier. Possession is the fine art of exploiting someone's deepest fears, and eons have made him very good at it.
He crosses the bridge and thinks about his days as a muse. Sometimes he gets wistful, remembering the joy of inspiration. The look on someone's face when he came up with a really good idea. But there were frustrations, as well. Having the vision, but never the ability, the impetus, to create. A life of passivity: all thought, no motion. Being a demon is different. He can do. Thoughts flow into actions so quickly that even now, long millenia after the Fall, he still can't always stop to evaluate.
His muscles tense as his memories fold in around him. No regrets, but things he would have done differently. Images flash through his mind--Gabriel coming to take him before the Throne after the War. Lucifer's snarls when Azrael first arrived in the Abyss. The faces of the countless thousands he'd tormented since. No regrets. Just choices he would not have made.
Azrael shakes himself and decides he needs distraction. Fun. His eyes sweep the crowd of people on the street and select one at random--a young man, average in every way. A predatory smile slides across the demon's face as he maneuvers himself. A quick jostle of the man's elbow, and Azrael slips inside his mind.
He floats along the waves of his mind, idly plucking at the information that passes by. These are the easy ones. Name. Age. Faces of loved ones. Slowly, Azrael sinks deeper, down to the realm of secrets and lies. He runs gentle fingers over his worries and dreams, reverently caresses the memory of his sins, murmurs away the ripples of pain and paranoia that spiral up into his waking mind. Falling finally to the very center, Azrael touches upon fears and doubts so well-hidden that even he doesn't know of their existence. The violation passes without notice.
The demon relaxes, drifting back towards the surface, towards consciousness. He looks out through his eyes, laughing softly.
The fun has only just begun.
The first few days pass with relative ease as Azrael plumbs the depths of his subconscious. He works the strings of fear, despair, hopeless desire until even his lightest touch sends whorls of emotion tumbling through his mind. The music at its sweetest works him to a fever pitch, and that's when Azrael lets go. Releases the strings, quiets the music, and reaches out to still the waters. He sinks into his muscles, soothing, relaxing, spreading himself into every corner of his body.
Azrael thinks about flexing his fingers and chuckles when his body responds. The confusion and uncertainty that wash over him only make the demon laugh harder. He folds his awareness in on itself, down to the very vaguest sense of unease--drifting still, but now tethered to bone and ligament, muscle and nerve. Azrael pulls the connections tighter, slipping into every thought, every motion, until even the impulse to breathe filters through him first.
he sleeps fitfully, and the demon neither knows nor cares if this is natural. While he tosses, Azrael plays symphonies in his dreams--violent death, eternal suffering, everlasting loneliness. Morning comes and he rises, half-awake and hollow-eyed, seized by a growing anxiety. From deep within, the demon smiles.
The time draws near.
The most basic fear of any human being, indeed of anything capable of thought, is being alone. Even He fears solitude--hence the world. he and Azrael have lived together at an impasse for a week when Azrael decides it's time to show the full extent of his control. Even when you're by yourself, you're not truly alone. There's the touch of clothing on your skin, the rise and fall of your chest, the steady beating of your heart. You have your body, your emotions, your thoughts. The demon pauses, glorying at the tremor of dread that races through him. I can take all of that away. Leave you truly bereft. Alone. It's a lie, of course, but a useful one. Few people have the faith to see through it, and he is not one of them.
Azrael pulls taut at the wires connecting skin to brain, flooding the body with unimaginable pain. They snap one by one, leaving him adrift in the cavernous darkness of his mind. The demon takes to the strings, brushing away the remnants of hope that still linger. He silences every emotion until his thoughts ring dull, weightless and devoid of meaning.
Gently, he sets the loneliness thrumming, rhapsodies in minor keys piercing through the last shreds of his consciousness. Let's see how you handle true solitude.
With a last laugh, the demon breaks contact, shunting him to the furthest depths of his mind.
Days pass. Weeks. Seconds. Shut inside the corners of his mind, the solitude bends and shifts reality into nothingness. It is an effort of extreme will, the only thing he has left, to follow one thought with another. They hang, lifeless, like smoke across the waters of his subconscious. Lost in a fog, he can only give up. Adrift in the deepest black, he curls around himself and despairs.
When Azrael crack the shell, he is inundated. Sensation flares white hot across his field of vision--vision! Corlors sparkle, every breath is a caress, and his thoughts whirl frenetic to freedom. with manic abandon he tries his fingers and toes and they work! he wants to taste and touch and feel and fuck and everything all at once and nothing will ever be enough again.
As quickly as the light flooded in, it's gone again, replaced by darkness and the echo of laughter.
Azrael enjoys this time the most, keeping him on the knife's edge between life and death, bending without quite breaking. He dances in the waves of relief that spiral through him as each second of precious freedom follows the one before. He hums to himself as he strings the subtlest manipulations together. And there's always the smile as the demon pulls the walls down on him.
As the cycles continue, he gradually loses the ability to distinguish reality from the dreaming darkness. his moments, months, seconds of control, of lucidity, of owning his own body are marked by glimpses in the mirror, scattershot thoughts of this isn't me. But it's his face, his voice, and that seems like proof enough.
Azrael no longer speaks to him, erasing the final faint lines between man and demon. he no longer knows or cares who is in control. They dive headlong into depravity, spilling pain over everyone they meet. The demon gradually plays him to a crescendo of doubt. Regret. Madness. he is awake, aware, but even that cannot stop the inevitable collapse. Body wracked by sobs, Azrael stops his touch on the strings, stops the music. The crystalline harmony of their shared thoughts almost knocks him breathless.
It is time.
It is time, he echoes.
They sit for a moment, surrounded by the absolute calm of decision, of choice. Movement, when it comes, is stiff, rigid, unhurried. Lock the door. Rachmaninoff on the stereo. Draw a bath. Azrael reaches into the cupboard, finds the razor he put there weeks ago. They admire the dull silver sheen of the steel and sink below the water in the tub. When they surface, Azrael holds the blade poised over the pale skin of his arm.
he takes a deep breath as the blade bites into his arm, and can't help but smile. This, of everything he has endured, this is his decision. The bathwater blossoms pink and Azrael allows him a few final moments of peace. The end comes gently, a quiet release, and with no more than a sigh, the demon regains his body.
He wanders through the apartment, shuts off the music, smokes a cigarette. Just before he leaves for good, he picks the young man's wallet up from a table. Azrael scans the driver's license, looking for the name.
"Goodbye, Michael," he calls to the silent rooms.
He hums to himself and leaves the door open.