eudaimonikos | Stone of Farspeech

[You can almost hear some rustling in the background as Aziraphale settles in, as if he's expecting this to be Story Time.

It's too bad he doesn't have any cocoa. Or wine. Wine would be more apropos.

Bugger.]

Interesting. In Hell?

Mm-hmm.

[Yeah, okay, might as well start from the top.]

You said you don't have Architects, in your world? I don't know exactly how the angels do it, but for us, an Architect gets assigned batches of humans and crafts the form that their eternal torture will take. Lower-ranking demons get assigned out to Architects who require their particular skills. Basically a project management role, I guess.

Anyway, we've always just done physical torture - eyeball corkscrews, face spiders, stuff like that. But I'd always been...curious, about humans.

[It's easy, now, to look back and see that as a sign of things to come. But Michael's not sure it necessarily was. It was what made him break tradition to begin with, but if his plan had ever worked, he wouldn't have looked back.]

I wanted to try picking them apart psychologically. See what they'd do, how they'd react...how I could turn them against each other. Really get involved with them, not just move on to another set.

[It's a very good thing this has no video component.

Which is to say, Aziraphale goes on a Face Journey.]

...and that backfired, I assume.

["Face spider"?

That is what he said, right?

WHAT THE FUCK IS A FACE SPIDER? Is it like a head frog?]

Constantly. On every conceivable level!

[It's weird, but a lot of his feelings about that now are just pride and admiration for Eleanor. God, she's good.]

[Aziraphale thinks back to a little spiel of his that he'd delivered to Crowley, about how evil so reliably thwarts itself in the end.

But Michael needn't hear that, probably.

He smirks, but only to himself.]

And now you're a better person for it. Congratulations!

...that sounds very condescending, but I'm going to take it as a compliment.

[Deliberately, and because getting defensive over his own stupid plans he doesn't even like anymore would be kinda dumb.]

It needed to happen, anyway. Teaming up with humans was pretty much rock-bottom for me, from a demonic perspective.

[Helpfully:] Teaming up with a demon, ditto ditto.

[It really needed to happen.]

[Michael snorts.]

Takes a lot of change an immortal, I guess. And I thought I was the visionary in Hell - coming up with new ways to torture!

[lol, that is baby-level Radical Change]

[Cue a thoughtful pause. Michael seems to have adjusted to this place well enough, which gives Aziraphale... hope, he supposes.]

How long have you been here, Michael?

Not long. Around four months?

[But for all his talk about immortals finding it hard to change, he's always adapted well to it when it finds him all on its own. He'd tempered himself to the humans and their shared classroom fairly quickly, first out of necessity and later because he found he wanted to.]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan. But, I can enter my home timeline right where I left it again, and I know all my friends are safe for the moment. This is just an inconvenience.

[Had it happened during any of the times his friends were in immediate peril - which is most of the time - this would be a different story.]

Honestly, it's a little like cheating. Gives me more time to plan my next moves.

Is that how you've been keeping busy? Forgive all the questions, I just — this is a first for me, being away from Earth. Not having my powers. Feeling this... disconnect.

[From God, he means.

And then there's the matter of living with Crowley.

And... everything else.]

I'm afraid I'm not quite sure what to do with myself.

...that's why I picked up a pet, I guess. Not really used to having to take care of something, but the empty house was driving me insane.

[There's always been other people around. Not always friends, but even back in Hell you were never alone.]

You haven't been here long enough yet, but something terrible is going happen eventually. It always does. You'll be busy then. I've had better luck with it than the mortals, they need people around to help clean up disasters. [Not their fault, and probably not his own virtue either. It's just luck. But it's a good task, something that needs doing.]

...how do you mean, exactly? Like the large snake?

Oh, no. That's just wildlife. Once, everyone started changing ages - regressing to older versions of themselves. That one...

[Scared him. A lot. Millions of years, and he's only safe to be around for a fraction of them.]

...well, nothing happened to me. Time before that, it was just a volcanic eruption.

"Just" a volcanic eruption.

[Spoken sans inflection.

Just a volcanic eruption. Michael says it the same way Aziraphale would say it's just drizzling. It's just cloudy.]

[..........]

Pretty traditional. I had my internship in a lava neighborhood.

And you weren't harmed by any of that? Can't you discorporate?

I can, but we build these things tougher than a baseline human. Heat-resistant, too. As long as I don't try swimming in lava, I'm fine.

Small mercies.

[A pause. A quiet little breath.]

Well, thank you, Michael. I very much appreciate your help the other day, and the help you gave Crowley. Consider it a — [OH THIS COULD BE DANGEROUS BUT GO ON.] — favor owed.

[There's a moment of answering hesitation on Michael's end of the stones. Of course he doesn't know how angels operate, but favors among demons are...dangerous, yes.

It feels like gaining a sudden advantage over Aziraphale. But, he reminds himself, he isn't going to think like that anymore.]

Okay. [...] Right, right, of course.

Stone of Farspeech | LifeAftr IC Contact

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