a z a z e l

god said “you have sinned, repent and be forgiven” and lo, they could not

[festerandfeed]

baalx‌:

His gaze flickers down to the object, rolling. It stops in front of polished shoes, and he tips it gently with the toe to get a better look. Something vicious and happy unfurls in his stomach. Greedy, grateful, complicated. He should hate Azazel for this –– for inspiring true feeling when Baal should be a cool and collected Prince. 

Baal hasn’t cared for much other than power and how to get more of it since long before he died. An angel gifted him glory and then horror, disappeared and left a poor boy to fend for himself. A boy in precious gems and soft silks, gold rings and ornate baubles. He tilts his head at the skull. When Azazel had left him, all those years ago, he’d had to sell so many gifts to survive. Each forced parting cracking something inside of him, leaving him bereft and worthless, a young man in the dirt. 

He got it all back, in the end. He made himself strong and did it without the help of anybody else. He studied magic, practiced rituals, raised the dead. He killed people, lied, stole, conquered. Now thats all you are, a part of him thinks. He pushes it away, back down into its grave. With deft fingers he plucks this latest gift from the soft carpet of his quarters. They run soft over the surface, the delicate carvings. 

He loves it, fiercely. He wants more like it. An entire collection. Gold plated. He wants to find a pedestal for it. Wants to use it in a dark ritual. Wants to make Azazel bring him gifts until its a dragons hoard. Theres a possessive thrill at this –– being the person Azazel keeps coming back to with trinkets of affection. 

     “You know, this may be my favourite yet.” It’s almost soft. He nods his head, Keeps it cradled in his palm. “You can sit, if you wish.” 

     “You say that every time,” they answer, moving through and into the room, crossing its length to the window where he stands, following the path the skull rolled across the plush carpet only moments before to stop just short of Baal.

They don’t sit.

The gift is a compulsion. They do not see Baal, anymore, without some kind of trinket or present, something horrid and gruesome and beautiful. If they were not what they are now -- emptiness, a gaping hole where feelings like guilt and regret and compassion should be -- they might think that it was a kind of atonement, for what had happened all those many years ago. For abandoning him, even for reasons beyond their control. But they aren’t, and it’s not. It’s not a sign of anything. They cannot feel affection. They cannot feel duty. It is just an obsession, a possessive gesture, a ritual that gives them something to do with some of their considerable amount of eternal time.

     “I hear you’ve been having fun, out there. How’s it feel, being back?”

[festerandfeed]

miixedbreed‌:

He struggles to think of a single other demon he’s met that would even attempt to make an entrance somewhere like that. They’re not the cleverest bunch but they do seem to have better control of their vessels. It took one glance, noting the stagger, the look of being a toy cobbled together with random parts for him to guess. He empathizes for the second he thinks about it all, it’s the strangest feeling he’s ever experienced to inhabit someone else.

There’s so much he wants to say, but every thought he has is shoved down. Unimportant, or just plain old stupid there was so many better things he could say. Both in the new Gadreel ‘character’ or otherwise. Once there was a time he would wanted to talk non stop with the other, but there’s an unthinkable amount of years between then and now.

Now he sees an almost stranger. The new face doesn’t help of course. Everyone, didn’t matter who they were, became a stranger the second he saw them through these new eyes. There are no allies, no friends, not yet but he’s not quite confident when he tells himself not ever. This is a holy war he’s almost reluctant to be a part of.

He doesn’t mention recognising him, in all honesty he doesn’t have an answer it was guy feeling mixed with facts. “I’ve heard humans that were sunglasses inside are assholes, maybe that’s the look you’re going for.” He just nods along as the other speaks, refusing eye contact but glancing over at them a couple of times. “Rough ride to the surface? You look like hell….pun intended.”

     “Dunno if it was the ride or the, you know,” they say, gesturing to the whole of them, the stringy limbs and off-kilter face, hands still shaking from their host’s apparent drug withdrawal, looking a bit like they’d stepped out of one of the less inventive demon’s unoriginal torture devices. 

They were starting ti like the body, though, the more they adjusted -- as much as they could like a human body, at least, when they were so used to inhabiting more incomprehensible forms. There was something off about it, something not quite right, in a way that felt instinctively comfortable to Azazel. Say what they might, but they’d picked it on purpose, picked the most dragged out, down and out ruin of a vessel they could find with a brief sweep across the city. They liked to startle, after all.

The more unsettling they could be to the humans around them, the more fun they’d have running amok up here.

     “You should’ve given me a tip. Bet it’s smooth sailing with a pretty boy like that. Feel like I picked up fuckin’ roadkill.”

[festerandfeed]

abvddcn‌:

Very few demons actually interested her; would she kill one of them to prove a point? Absolutely; but only if it helped her and Lucifer in the end. The younger ones, the fresh outta corrupt town souls were still somewhat impulsive, careless and, more often than not, they messed everything up more than they helped. 

Azazel was one of the lucky few that Abaddon actually liked. In her own way, at least.

Abaddon kept her eyes on Azazel, watching as they took the last few steps and sat down in front of her. She could feel eyes on her and while she didn’t mind the recognition, she surely didn’t need anyone eavesdropping on their conversation. The Knight looked at their vessel up and down, her eyebrows rising. “Did you find that vessel in the back of the store?” The demon spoke, a playful tone in her otherwise rude words.

“Oh, I wouldn’t mind at all. I’ll just go get my optometrist costume and I’ll be right with you. How does that sound?”

     “Nah, out back in the alley. He wasn’t using it, anymore, so...”

They lifted an arm up, sniffing the stiff and dirty fabric beneath it, and made an all-too-human face of disgust. Vessels were still such a strange concept, to them: they’d spent enough time on Earth when they were an angel that by the time they fell they had very little interest in doing any more of it, more interested in the entirely new realm to explore. As a Watcher, they’d understood humans, or wanted to; now, they found that the slow, logical, methodical order of human thought held absolutely no interest to them. 

But they hadn’t been able to resist the opportunity to have a little fun, on the surface, now that humans were not the de rigueur rules of the whole place. 

     “Actually, think he might’ve been dead. Do I smell like rot, to you? Ahh, maggots maybe. In the eyes. Might’ve been hiding maggots, with the sunglasses. Guess I’ll have to wait and see what happens.”

[queerbluesea]

Visit Original Link

Mother Mother // Wrecking Ball

It takes a dedicated hand To put it through the wall You gotta wanna break the heart Of all those pretty porcelain dolls You gotta want to be the drummer in the band You gotta want to be a battering ram

[baalx]

Location: The Citadel Time: Sunset  For: @festerandfeed

His quarters in The Citadel are smaller than his kingdom was. Hell, an endless expanse. His area of governance ever growing. But he may love it more, even for its paltry size. 

It’s everything he always wanted, is the thing. When he was a human and he hungered for decadence, for opulence, to be more than a starving worker boy. Lucifer is a generous God who longs to put smiles on his Princes faces, and Baal has taken advantage of this. 

He stands, looking out the large windows, the orange-red sunset streaming in past the heavy velvet of the curtains. Its a moment of weakness. The world leaving him raw and open, reminding him of things long gone. 

Azazel must sense the pull of the past, it can be the only explanation. Baal can feel their presence before it’s announced, though he does not turn to look. It adds more to the melancholy of remembrance. When Azazel had wings, they always found Baal during Baal’s worst days, plying smiles out of them with gift after shining gift. Childish glee inspired by all of it. 

He hasn’t said these words in a few thousand years at least. Saves them, for moments when they are pulled out almost against his own will. Voice slow, cloyingly sweet. 

     “Have you brought me something pretty?” 

[festerandfeed]

Once upon a time, an angel had watched over a boy, had seen him cry and had wanted to do something about it. A gift: an inconsequential bauble, a small glass orb with colors swirling around inside. Something pretty, for a pretty thing. Once upon a time, an angel too human-like, too compassionate, becomes obsessed with the feeling of fulfilling, sees a crying face turn upwards in a smile and becomes obsessed with doing it again and again until baubles turn to jewels and silks and ornamental daggers.

Coming to Baal, here in the Citadel, it doesn’t feel that much different. 

He’s changed. They both have. Azazel is a burned out shell of what they were those many thousand years ago, and Baal is an eternal echo of the sin in which he lived his life after. But somehow the space between them never changes, the trace memory of those first encounters never fully disappears.

They toss the skull onto the floor between them, and it rolls to a stop at Baal’s feet, the ghost of lips falling at the demon’s heels. They don’t remember where they got it, anymore, or when, or why there are little sigils carved delicately across the thin bone, or where half of the teeth’ve gotten to, but it’s pretty nonetheless. 

     “Don’t I always?”

[festerandfeed]

dolmamuller‌:

     –– theres a rotting stench to this. literally and metaphorically. no one can say that zion city is the cleanest place in the world, and this creature before her feels dirty with it too. eyes like hunger, like insanity, like something unhinged that she can’t put a name to. 

she can’t put a name to anything about them. rotting, but glowing. a power undefinable. is this a hero or a monster? 

her gut tells her m o n s t e r. through and trough. she grips her knife tighter, a flash in her mind telling her to slit its throat without hesitation.

the softer part of her saying no, thou shalt not kill. don’t put another stain on this soul.

find purity again. 

but she can’t do that. purity will never be hers again. she’s as dirty now as the streets around her, as the heat radiating off the pavement, of the grim on the walls, unfixable. thats why god cast her aside, isn’t it? the white lace of her mind is ripped and sullied. 

she wets her lips, knuckles white on the blade handle. 

    “ maybe the snivelling runts. ” it comes out too sharp, but she couldn’t give a shit. she shoulders past them, shoulder colliding against theirs with bravado, the aura of a woman who claims her rightful space with no guilt. with a look sharpened silver, she locks eyes with them. “ come back to me when you’ve learned subtlety, and them maybe i’ll humour you, demon-spawn. ” 

A hand reaches out, whip-fast, to grab her by the wrist as she bumps into them, thin fingers in a vicegrip not meant to be impossible to break, but tight enough to be alarming, to make her want to retaliate. They can practically feel her own grip tightening around the blade, the silent hum of razor-sharp iron, the discordant harmony of a forged edge crying out for blood. They’d bet it’s beautiful, that knife -- not ornamental, no jewels or engravings or filigree the way they used to make them, but used. 

There was nothing more beautiful than a knife that had already drawn blood. 

They tighten their fingers around her arm, just hard enough to feel like it might blossom into a watercolor bruise, and with a strength that is not of their host, not of the frail and lanky body they inhabit, they pull her, just an inch closer, an inch away from where she’s heading. 

     “Oh, I’ve been around a very, very long time, and believe me, subtlety will get you nowhere in this world. At least, not now.”

[festerandfeed]

abvddcn‌:

There was a hunger in the restless dusk air and even in chaos, there was a calculation, whispers and glued stares surrounding Abaddon as she walked down the streets of New Zion near the entrance of the only bar she actually liked. Abaddon was one of the best at thriving amidst the chaos and destruction. That’s why she was at the Saints & Swords, walking over to Azazel and their new vessel with a new plan in mind and a spot for someone like the other demon to fill in perfectly. 

Walking in Saints and Swords, Abaddon could feel some of the demons’ eyes stare at her; she was no Prince of Hell, but a Knight deserved almost as much respect and the lower demons knew that well, for their own sake. With a vessel that was half the size of many around her, the demon walked with a confidence that could not be bought. 

“I’ve always found the people that wear sunglasses inside a place to be obnoxious. I hope you have a good enough reason, Azazel, or I might just reconsider the partnership I had in mind.”

They can taste the coming destruction on her voice, can feel the pull of chaos around her as she approaches: they know before she says it that there is something on her mind involving them, and they know that whatever it is, it is havoc at its absolute finest. They would have no doubts about it-- Abaddon always did have a keen sense of destruction.

A partnership. Azazel has never needed tempting, or bribing, or convincing, never needed manipulating into doing something destructive. They have always been just like the weapons they created so long ago, the arrows that turned to guns and then to city-destroying bombs: point them where you want them and pull the trigger. 

     “Can’t help it,” they say, taking the rest of his stuttering steps towards the bar, towards a stool, sitting down to look at her. “Came with the damned body. I don’t even know if this thing’s got eyes yet. You wanna check for me?”

[margotskarsgard]

[dolmamuller-blog]

     ––– footsteps clattering around her, the pitter patter of life. dolma watches as a group of young teens rush down the street, whipping by her side like a sudden uptake of wind. young. full of life. full of terror. her heart a c h e s. she wants to find them and bring them home with her, to the relative safety of providence park. but she knows she can’t. 

she wants to find lucifer and pull his heart out. see if he even has one. maybe he doesn’t. a cold blooded creature, poison in the well of the world. poison in the hearts of all men –– even hers, she must remind herself. she has been sullied by sin too. no longer pure. no longer perfect. no longer chosen. just a weapon now. a sharp b l a d e, a killing thing. it sets something hard alight in her, something furious. 

she approaches an another figure on the street, another sign of life. she steels herself, armor slipping carefully into place. she is not a helpless thing. she still holds a glorious purpose. a blade in easy reach and a confidence that you can’t fake. 

     “ don’t look so scared, sweetie. i hear demons can smell fear.” 

[festerandfeed]

They move through the city on the muscle memory of the body they are in, winding through strange alleyways as if they are as familiar as home, stepping over cracks in the pavement, curving past potholes, all through the slick night, heat rising off the streets like fog even past sundown. The city burns, like the most familiar places of hell, but the scent of sin is thicker, here, cloying in the air. 

It’s amazing, how things change. It’s amazing, how it’s all exactly the same as it was centuries ago, when they roamed the earth as an angel, breaking their role as a Watcher for a chance to give a couple of pretty humans a couple of pretty gifts. They all wear Azazel’s gifts, still, teenaged faces smeared with makeup, boys trying to look like men by holding guns they barely know how to use. Give a human a blade, and he’s going to want and want and want until he’s god a nuclear bomb. 

It’s not the fear they can smell, as the woman approaches: it’s the blade at her side. The metal calls to them like a child crying out for its mother. It makes them want to make her draw it, just so they can see what she does with their little gift. 

     “Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Hear they’ve god a rotten sense of smell.”

[festerandfeed]

miixedbreed‌:

       Perhaps there is no place less holy than this. Wooden floors repeatedly soaked with alcohol, flickering lights never seemingly to be constantly. Patrons that would rather yell than whisper.

       Perhaps there is no place more holy than this. There are no arching ceilings, no beautiful paintings of what the humans had assumed they would look like. No stained glass and no rows of pews. But there was something undeniably whole about this place. People may disagree but there was a sense of companionship, of togetherness he had found in few other places. Maybe that perfect mix of holiness and sin was what drew him here in the first place. Wasn’t he the same? A complicated mix of two opposing forces?

        Perhaps this is exactly where he ought to be.He’s never looking for peace. It was a feeling not known to this vessel before him and even now. Gad seeks excitement, arguably in all the wrong places. But his eyes still roll when the bar door slams against the wall before shuddering closed. It takes one brief glance at the newest entry, and Gad is using the tip of his foot to push a stool out from across the table he’s sitting at. Metal against wood scraping loud and undeniably drawing attention.

       “Sunglasses inside….really? Azazel?”

The unpleasant scrape of rusting metal on worn wood is like music to their ears, deeply unpleasant music, a siren song that draws their attention towards the figure at the bar, the offered stool. It takes a moment to remember how to use feet, for the host to start feeling a little less like an oversized pair of shoes, to make it across the floor to the bar in one motion, where they practically collapse onto the stool, a puppet without a puppeteer, strings cut off at the wooden joints.

It’s been centuries since Azazel was on Earth. They’d lost interest in it, when they feel. But now, Lucifer had promised them a playground, and already it hadn’t disappointed. Like a goddamned family reunion up here, and the rest of it a molotov cocktail waiting to be thrown so they can watch the way the glass shatters. 

     “Aww, shucks, you recognized me. What, you want to see these beautiful ol’ eyes? Too bad, shit’s still too bright, you gotta give a demon some time to adjust to the mortal realm, you know how long it’s been since I’ve been up here?”

The words flow off their tongue like an oil slick, unexpected for a being that hasn’t talked in centuries, either. Maybe some instinct from this host, or maybe whatever cocktail of drugs was in its system when they found their way inside. Either way, they like the voice: it’s grating, just as unpleasant as the scrape of the metal stool. 

[festerandfeed]

     location: Saints & Sinners      time: dusk           ( open )

A demon walks into a bar.

Okay, they don’t so much walk as they saunter-- okay, okay. They don’t so much saunter as stumble, a flurry of movement that stops half a second from hitting the floor with an eerie and unnatural sharpness, a shuddering animation stopped short. 

The new host, they’re beginning to realize -- distantly, somewhere in the back of there where a human brain still exists -- was a junkie, and it’s going through withdrawal now, or something like it. Ah well. This too shall pass and all that shite. 

They readjust. Shove red-tinted lenses up a surprisingly thin ski slope of a nose. Glance around for a familiar face, or an unfamiliar one, each face just an opportunity for something to go wrong, each thing that goes wrong another tick in a never-ending list of abstract conquests with little impetus or motivation. 

[fiendhq]

                        ( scratch at the chain links, maybe bare my teeth for show )

name: azazel  role: the ruin - azazel is responsible for teaching humanity to sin through the use of weapons and cosmetics.  allegiance: lucifer faceclaim: joe gilgun  pronouns: they/them status: taken

“oh how the corruption comes easy. it sings in their blood and in their heart and in all the fibers of their being. and isn’t it odd? shouldn’t they be a paragon of fucking virtue? a bright and pure and holy light, the flutter in your heart when you here the heavenly host burst out in joyous song. but god said “love mankind”and oh boy, did they ever love mankind. first they were a watcher, so they watched. played their role. they watched man flounder and fail and fumble and soon watching turned to intervening. and what’s an angel to do, when their feet touch the ground and the temptation comes a’ knockin’, besides give in to it? azazel is a soldier above all else. they should never have been placed above these sweet and innocent and so corruptible humans and told merely to observe. azazel is a soldier and their domain is wrath and brimstone, the sing and hiss of hot metal in a holy forge. god said “you have sinned, repent and be forgiven” and lo, they could not. azazel had only done what they were told; they had only loved and they had only guided. part of their boundless love curdles in the fall, with the knowledge that the humanity they had loved and cared for so much would always receive countless, endless second chances, while they must crash and burn and suffer the chill of hell-fire in their blood. their own screams ring in their ears but soon enough, the screams would turn to song when azazel entered the light of the morningstar. and who needs god when you’ve got lucifer? who needs heaven when there is a whole earth for the taking?”

[grantairefanclub-remade]

wakey wakey eggs and

sin

[wintersvldierr]