#You managed to survive in the Void for some time and he's literally a toddler | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

skelligiri · 4 years

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Decided to try and write a ficlet to go with this. Hope you like it!

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It had been 3 days.

Or so the angel assumed, as he was making his rounds through the darkness with nothing but a candle to light his way. It was hard to keep track of the daily cycle in the absence of sunlight, after all. The heavy rain had not relented even for a minute ever since the ark had been filled with two of every animal, ready to start the world anew.

Well. Two of almost every animal, Aziraphale was reminded, as he turned a corner towards the outermost stables of the second level of the ship. Aziraphale, who had been assigned to Earth since the beginning, at first thought there had to have been some kind of misunderstanding. But in the end, he had to accept that the ineffable plan was not for an angel to understand, much less to question. He was also faintly aware that bitterness was an emotion unbecoming of an angel, but he found it to be rather hard to suppress after recent events.

Some of the animals roused at his presence and bleary eyes turned on him as he passed stables upon stables, occasionally stopping to pet and reassure some of the particularly confused looking among them. That’s when he noticed a draft coming from the direction of the unicorn’s stable. The poor creature had been quite distraught when it had been loaded on board the ark without its mate.

When he reached the lone unicorn, Aziraphale realized that there was a gash in the wood behind it.

That explained the draft, at least. More surprising, however, was the curled up figure in the stable with the unicorn. The red hair was unmistakable.

The angel tried to ignore the warmth that spread through his corporation at the sight of his hereditary enemy. Instead, he loosened the heavy ropes that were keeping the gate closed with a quick miracle, before stepping inside.

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Crawly knew what he would be telling his superiors in the off-chance that anybody questioned his actions. He was only helping some humans find their loved ones in the panicked frenzy that was Mesopotamia to lull them in some false hope, before it was all ripped away from them. Or maybe he’d tell them that God had wanted those people to die apart from each other, and that he interfered with that plan simply as an act of defiance.

It didn’t matter. He’d cross that bridge later, if he had to. He had other things to worry about in the meantime.

The water was rising fast, and he could see the angel in the distance among the chosen survivors, struggling to get the last of the animals to calm down enough to be loaded on to the boat.

‘Thank you, thank you so much,’ a woman cried over the sounds of the rain coming down in torrents when Crawly handed her the toddler she had lost in the chaos. ‘Don’t-‘, he hissed, but was promptly cut off by a wave hitting him from behind and sending him tumbling. He gasped, and for a brief moment was flooded not only by water, but memories of drowning, except it hadn’t been water and it had been hot. Not just hot, but searing, and all he could think about was how he hadn’t meant to incur Her wrath, he wanted to be let back up and go home and he kept screaming into the void, begging until desperation and regret turned into white hot anger, just to burn out and leave nothing but loss and sorrow in its wake-

He tried to shake the feeling and focus on the present while pulling himself up. But the water kept coming. The lower parts of the city had been long engulfed by the waves, and those that had survived had flocked to the hills. Trying to escape their fate and refusing to go out silently. Crawly only hoped that what was left of humanity would keep that fighting spirit alive.

He looked around and contemplated helping people onto their makeshift rafts as the waters reached his chest and his battered physical form began to lose the struggle against the waves, constantly finding himself underwater just to re-emerge, the rain making it hard to catch his breath. He didn’t notice Aziraphale appearing behind him until he felt a hand grab his arm, which prevented him from being swept off his feet once more. Crawly barely managed to make out the words ‘It’s time, we have to go now,’ despite the angel screaming them on top of his lungs.

Crawly gave him a long look, before tearing himself away from him and making his way towards one of the rafts. ‘Crawly!’

The demon pulled himself on the raft, or at least tried to; he knew he would have lost his weakened corporation then and there if he hadn’t been pulled up by somebody he couldn’t even make out through the rain. Crawly caught his breath and looked around. There was only one more thing he could do.

Some people pointed and recoiled, overcome with terror, when Crawly spread his dark wings and illuminated himself as if on fire so to stand out against the rain, before snarling at the cowering humans. With a powerful flap of his wings, he took off among the screams.

All he could do was hope that his appearance had changed who they were cursing with their dying breath. He hoped he wouldn’t see any of them again. It was the least they deserved.

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‘Crawly?’, Aziraphale asked quietly against the thunderous volume of the downpour outside. He crouched down next to the demon. That’s when he noticed it – Crawly was trembling, his face contorted in distress.

Aziraphale sighed. He hadn’t seen Crawley since they had made it to the boat, and when they did, Crawley had been angrier than he’d ever seen him. The angel had tried to assuage him, which was very difficult given his suspicion that the use of the words ‘ineffable’ or ‘plan’ would cause the demon to burst into literal flames. There was no point in trying to downplay what had happened.

‘I don’t like it any more than you do.’, Aziraphale had opted to say, finally.

And it was true. Crawly knew that it was true. And that’s when Crawly walked away, into the deeper parts of the ship. Aziraphale hadn’t followed.

And here they were, three days later.

Aziraphale sighed. He sat down on the straw, miracled up a blanket and began draping it over the demon.

At first, he didn’t notice him stirring at the gentle touch. He would’ve expected that if Crawly did wake, he’d shoot up and lash out at the angel, still filled with anger over what his side had done. He also would’ve expected some defensiveness at the very idea of being woken from a nightmare. Some snark about how demons don’t have nightmares, that they ARE nightmares, something along those lines of thought.

Or maybe that had been wishful thinking on his part, because Crawly starting to shake uncontrollably, curling into himself and gasping for breath was much, much worse.

Instinctively, Aziraphale put down his candle holder and reached out to pull Crawly close. To his surprise, there was no resistance. He was alarmed at just how thin he felt in his arms.

They would never speak of this, he knew. Crawly would trust him to never speak of this.

The angel wanted to say something comforting along the lines of ‘They are in a better place now’, as if that made it okay. Or ‘It was only a dream.’ If only. Instead, he held his dear nemesis in silence as he allowed himself to mourn, safe in the twilight next to the unicorn, the smell of mildew and sea water emanating from the crack in the hull along with the occasional drizzle of rain whenever the direction of the wind changed.

They sat together for a long time. And although there was a long journey ahead, Aziraphale knew that one day, the storm would pass.

A new dawn would finally break, and he took comfort in knowing that they’d be there to witness it together.

#good omens #aziraphale #crowley #crawly #noah's ark #ineffable husbands #ficlet #not sure how to tag this #tw:drowning #i guess?#someone give them a break #hurt #comfort #skelligiri

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bpdbiscuitblog-blog · 5 years

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How Many Did You Take? How Many, My Angel? ***TRIGGER WARNING***

Woohoo is one of my oldest friends. She’s an ordained Wiccan priestess and performed the marriage ceremony for my second husband and me. She’s been my spiritual advisor and counselor since before I was old enough to drink, and I’m 34 now.

Before I was diagnosed with BPD, back when I hit the Big Red Button (the one that says - DO NOT TOUCH because the consequences are catastrophic) on my life, Woohoo was still there for me. I was obviously going insane, up and leaving my 13-year marriage with my then 35-year-old husband and my 14-year-old daughter, Moon, and my house and my entire existence to move in with Gypsy, a 33-year-old failed musician-turned-gamer who lived with his mother and had no job, education, hope for his future, or even basic social skills, where I immediately began a life of weird, unsatisfying, and infrequent sex, binge drinking, and running from past and present trauma-drama. On a positive note, I became a teacher again, a fulfilling experience speaking to my soul, as I am a teacher in more than just career, but completely mentally incapable of taking care of myself, much less a group of 17 8-year-olds, and became overworked, exhausted, and an emotional hurricane in a matter of months.

But between the Big Red Button and the hurricane was a time of destruction and devastation where I used the fires of my own personal hell to burn every possible bridge to my old life that I could, many of them badly in need of burning, as I would never return to walk them again, but others, like the Bridge to Woohoo, one of the few structures still anchoring my rapidly deteriorating mind in reality. Woohoo never traumatized me. She never hurt me. She never sought to control me. But the night I lost my daughter Moon and what remained of my ability to cope with the pain I was experiencing, in my grief and despair, she became just another representation of that trauma, and in the days that followed surviving my suicide attempt (notice I did not say my first suicide attempt) she became one of several targets of my BPD-strengthened rage at that long-buried trauma, a casualty of Hurricane Biscuit, although I was still more of a Tropical Storm back then.

Woohoo is a force of nature herself at times. Just as crazy, just as sarcastic, just as devastating a wit as myself, Woohoo brings with her a kind of controlled chaos, a tornado-in-a-bottle personality, ready to let loose a barrage of her own hellfire if the mood strikes her, but mostly just fun, easy-going, patient, a breeze that could whip up into a frenzied tornado if the mood strikes, but content at the moment just to enjoy the current. Voluptuous, sex-driven, raven-haired, loud-mouthed, and profane could all be used to describe her accurately, as accurately as kind, generous, soulful, and motherly.

I no longer believe in soulmates, but I do believe we have, say, connected souls, and as much as anyone I’ve ever met, she is one of my connected souls. And yet, when she stepped up to do what needed to be done to save my life, I turned my back on her.

She warned me about Gypsy. Told me there was something “not right ‘bout that boy,” in her Oklahoma twang. They had an immediate dislike of each other, Gypsy and Woohoo. Gypsy called her a man-hating feminist. Woohoo called him a lazy, worthless piece of shit, among other things. Neither of them were wrong.

My response to her warnings, over and over again, like a love-struck teenager fawning over a, well, a worthless piece of shit, was a protesting, “But, I love him, Woohoo! He’s my one and only.” (I am now picturing myself striking a dramatic pose, forearm to my forehead, turning away and looking plaintively out the window into a setting sun, while declaring that she just wouldn’t understand.)

I blatantly ignored the mounting evidence that this pairing would only leave me broken and broke, and continued blissfully unaware along my journey of self-destruction, orchestrating a series of events that would leave me running from my home, my marriage, my family. I’m not saying I should have been leaving these things, at least the marriage and the home, but I shouldn’t have been running towards Gypsy, of all people. Woohoo would have been a better choice. She did offer me a place to live, a chance to “get my shit together” in a relatively peaceful environment, free for a few months at least from financial worry, a safe haven to start anew. Meanwhile, I waved merrily from my car window as I drove away, hollering, “Nah, I got this!” as I hauled ass down her driveway, blaring Gypsy’s music at full blast and heading back to the city, to his mother’s house and the tiny 10x10 room that was to be my new prison of my own making for the next several months.

Meanwhile, still unable to communicate the massive amount of emotional stress and pain I was under to anyone, my mind began bringing all my fears and the traumas of my past to bear, forcing me to deal with them however I could. Financially, I was surviving, barely, in no small part to Woohoo herself, who kept my business running mostly smoothly as the day-to-day operations manager, supplying me with a steady income even when I wasn’t actively working.

My ex-husband meanwhile had no intention of patiently waiting out my midlife crisis, immediately replacing the vacated space in our marriage bed with the first woman who would tumble into it. He convinced Moon that my mental state was due to the fact that I was a bad person who did not love her, and therefore she had no need to further associate herself with me.

The day I received that smug text message from him, superior in his position as head of a new family to control, I gave up. Oh, not without setting a few more fires of course, screaming and stamping my foot and using whatever means I could to manipulate my ex-husband into returning my daughter to me, letting me hear her voice, even if it meant terrifying a complete stranger, his new bed buddy, into thinking I was going to share photos of her in lingerie with the world. And where did I get these photos? Oh, Mr. Manipulation himself had provided those just days before when he was so very interested in seeing if I would join them for a threesome. But, that’s another story for another day.

After several hours of realizing that torturing Mr. M and and the future Mrs. M was not going to get me my daughter, my emotions spiraled me into a well of despair that I was not capable of pulling myself out of. I seized upon a bottle of pills, a prescription Mr. M procured from his doctor that I had been told was for helping me with anxiety from my ADHD, but in fact were mood-altering antidepressants that, when prescribed incorrectly, could lead to suicidal ideation.

Google is a useful source for immediate access to the LD50 of literally anything. LD50 is the amount of a medication that will, when consumed, lead to death in 50% of the population of those who take it. The LD50 for this particular medication was 15 pills. I had 30. While texting Woohoo, Mr. M, and the future Mrs. M., telling them my intentions unless they returned my daughter to me, I began counting out 15 pills. I continued the threats as I used the Everclear under Gypsy's bed (where he was currently snoring after taking a dose of Benadryl after a long weekend of my emotional drama), to swallow them one by one. At eight pills, Woohoo warned me that she was calling the police. Hours away from my location, she would never arrive in time herself to stop me. She did the only the she could to prevent my death at my own hands - she narced on me.

At ten pills, for some reason, Gypsy stirred in his allergy-med-induced coma, and seeing me swallow the tenth, realized what was happening. He took the pills away as I screamed at him, “Just five more, please, just five more!” while he screamed back at me, “How many did you take? How many, my Angel?” (Gypsy didn’t call me Biscuit. No one did at this time, actually.) After counting and recounting, doing his own internet search, and counting once more, he sighed with relief, realizing I’d only taken enough to give myself a stomach ache.

My sobs had subsided at this point, and I sat in stony silence as Gypsy stared at me, seemingly in shock at how close I had come to leaving his life, and my own, at my own hand. Then one of those loud knocks that apparently policemen are trained in, one that can echo through a house to the back of a bedroom and enter into even the fevered dreams of a hallucinating woman who just wanted to be happy, smoke weed, and eat a chocolate bar in peace, sounded through the house, setting Gypsy's mom’s chocolate labs off in a frenzied bark as well as my wails of panic.

“Tell them I’m okay, Gypsy. Please, tell them I’m okay. Tell them she lied. Tell them they lied. Can I stay here? I’m so scared, Gypsy.” With an irritated sigh, he put his khaki shorts on over his boxers, pulled me gently to my feet, and guided me to the door. “No, you’ve got to talk to them. They’re going to want to see you.”

As if I was a frightened toddler meeting Santa for the first time, he guided me to the front door. In my head, I was psyching myself up. “You can do this, Biscuit. Just act normal. Act normal. Be angry. If you’re angry, you can’t be sad. If you’re angry, you won’t cry.”

After a heated discussion between me and the cops, a worried discussion between the cops and Gypsy, and phone calls and screenshots of my texts to Woohoo and Mr. and Mrs. M. between the cops and Woohoo, it was decided that it would be in my best interest if I was detained involuntarily at a mental institution for a three-day psych hold.

In the front yard of a house I had only recently moved into, in front of people I barely knew, in front of my beloved Gypsy, I was handcuffed, crying and scared. As the cuffs clicked into place, I could see Gypsy at the front door, watching behind the glass, mouthing, “I love you,” across the void separating me from the only vaguely familiar thing left in my life. Physically, I was being kept safe, but I was being traumatized all over again, my hands behind my back all over again, forced to do something I didn’t want to do all over again.

But what else could Woohoo do? Physical safety trumped mental safety. I could never be mentally safe again unless I was kept physically safe now. At the time, I couldn’t see that. At the time, all I felt was fear and anger. For someone with BPD, fear and anger are terror and rage.

By the time I was released from my prison 48 hours later (instead of 72, as apparently I wasn’t that crazy), my mind had been fueled by this terror and rage for days, consuming my thoughts completely. Unable to turn that rage onto the people who had hurt me, I instead hurled it at Woohoo, now the sole symbol remaining of that night. I stripped her from the business, allowing Gypsy to spew venom through social media as the new voice of the company, coming to my defense as Woohoo tried to warn our contractors that there was something seriously wrong with my mental stability now.

In my gathering momentum of destruction, I decided to strike one more blow against my former friend, business partner, and soul sister: I refused to pay her. I kept her final paycheck, using it instead to shower Gypsy with books and games, gifts for his loyalty perhaps. Meanwhile, Woohoo, still in shock over my behavior thus far, now had to figure out how to make ends meet without the money she was owed, how to provide for my own godchildren, her sweet son and daughter, now just that much shorter of being able to cover expenses.

The only wise decision I made in those days was enrolling in counseling. But of course, showing up to the first session did not instantly make me see what I had done and was continuing to do. That would take time, more self-destruction, more mistakes, more trauma, and finally, finally -- partly due to that first step and the hard work of a southern Biscuit, partly due to the luck of finding her Gravy -- peace.

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