smk_network | 1 // Temptation

[ The magic mirror displayed a scene of total chaos. A horse’s cart was halfway up a tree, in flames, and the horse that was meant to be the engine for the thing was running around loose sending people scattering off the sidewalks as it thundered by. Crowley held the mirror and looked back at the scene before walking away. ]

That could have gone better. Probably goes without saying I’m not going to be a carriage driver...

[ A small pause while the cart exploded and someone in the background screamed. ]

Anyone heard of--

[ He was suddenly interrupted by a little angry man who shouted after the demon, something about a wrecked cart, but it was difficult to hear anything but Crowley’s replies. ]

Pay you? You ought to be paying me! Like it’s my fault the horse doesn’t like demons! You never once said the horse doesn’t like demons!

[ Crowley waved the man off with a less-than-polite gesture and crash landed grumpily onto the nearest free bench, though with the panicked horse running wild most of the benches were empty. Most of the street too. People had piled into the nearest building which just so happened to be a candy shop. ]

As I was trying to ask before I was interrupted, anyone else heard of any other job openings? Not having the best of luck with it... I would have done fine as a driver but that horse--

[ He was interrupted again before he could continue. Crowley snarled as he turned to glare at this new distraction but in doing so he ended up dropping his magic mirror. ]

-- Hours Passed before the Mirror flared to life again --

[ Unsurprisingly it was to bear witness to another scene of chaos this time one of children and their parents frantically snatching up every boxed or bagged candy they could lay their hands on while one demon clad in uncharacteristically in white and sporting a lovely red striped bandanna carefully watched over their every action from behind the counter. ]

Everybody in here better be buying something or you are going back outside and trust me you don’t want to be out there with that horse still on the loose!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

bigbadrose

[Now she's just kind of depressed and flomps sideways.]

None. I would choose none. Blokes are all rubbish. Even when they're not really blokes. Females are rubbish too. Most of them. I like the TARDIS, but now that I miss her, I'm just done. It's impossible to be whole. I am Persephone.

From:

serpentinthegarden

I'm not mad about an uptight fussy angel. We just know each other. And he doesn't... all of those other things you said either.

[ Nope, so not owning that one! Besides hanging out with Aziraphale was fun. No, those were not love googles he was wearing, why did you ask?

Persephone was given a very long, very concerned look. ]

You're into Hades now?!

From:

bigbadrose

No! Idiot! It's a metaphor!

From:

serpentinthegarden

I get that, but it doesn't make sense, at all. A metaphor should make some sense.

From:

bigbadrose

My Mum and Dad were sent back to Pete -- My Dad's Universe. The Doctor on the other. Where I was born. No matter what I choose, I'm upsetting people I love. And the asshole doesn't even want me in the underworld -- metaphorically again, not literally -- with him, just keeps sending me back to my Mum, and even when I fight my way back and he says he wants me with him, he also says I'm too young to know better and that he doesn't want me to hurt so much, even though, the only way to be in the underworld means being half a ghost, yeah?

Edited Date: 2019-08-12 02:02 am (UTC)

From:

bigbadrose

Oh, and when I hit on Michael, he just assumed he was a rebound.

That's not a Persephone thing. It just makes the metaphor match, because everyone was fighting about where she was going to be, instead of her getting to do the fighting for herself, and everyone else even the boy who gave her pomegranate seeds just machinated around her...

Never mind.

You had to be there.

From:

serpentinthegarden

I'm glad I missed it. Sounds awkward with the whole rebound thing.

From:

bigbadrose

He's not a rebound. I don't do rebounds. And it's not like I'll ever stop -- [Sigh.]

[Bitterly:] Feeling like I already do, since I didn't choose to feel that way in the first place.

Rebounds are like... trying to choose to fall for someone. Of course they aren't going to work.

From:

serpentinthegarden

Oh, I wouldn't know. Demons don't do rebounds... or bounds in the first place. That's a strictly human thing.

From:

bigbadrose

Maybe, but they're not a Rose Tyler thing. The Doctor is irreplaceable and I don't like Michael for anything but himself.

From:

serpentinthegarden

Might at least try to go for a human. Does it always have to be such a challenge for you?

From:

bigbadrose

I've had plenty of human blokes. I just said, it's not a rebound thing. Or I definitely would have gone for that when I thought I really was stuck for good in Pete's Universe and the Doctor and I were permanently separated forever.

Jimmy Stone left me for a woman named Noosh. Mickey Smith deserved better than me, because he wanted to settle down, and I don't. Not ever. Jack Harkness belongs with Ianto Jones, and probably two hundred others, because Jack's just like that. Adam was an idiot. Dean was sweet, and got turned into a gargoyle. Not a boyfriend. Jake was hung up on Rickey who was his boyfriend, and still trying to figure out how to manage a friendship with Mickey given he wasn't just a look-alike, but literally an alternate universe version of his ex-boyfriend. And see, I'm mentioning Jake right now, because he got it. Yes, my parents found each other again and were instantly together like magnets that always missed each other. But like Jake said, Rickey was irreplaceable. The Doctor can't even replace himself. You know what all those blokes have in common? They all have a place in my heart, yeah, and a time in my life, but none of them can ever edge out another.

Mickey didn't replace Jimmy, the Doctor didn't replace Mickey, and Jack can't be replaced by Tony, my baby brother, and even when I wish he could so I'd have a good excuse; Tony can't replace me for my Mum.

If I could actively choose; I'd choose none. I'd choose my mission and work over relationships. Including of my family, and even my friends.

You can't choose who you care about. Only what you do about it.

Believe me, at no point would I ever sit down and say, "Yeah sure, I want to fall for a man thousands of years old, with a perspective I can never really grasp, who uses silence and emotional and physical distance to protect himself, who has a tendency to treat me like a child and lecture me, who is so needy I can never possibly meet it all myself, who will give me assorted complexes neither of us realized were ever a possibility until years after the fact, whom I hurt merely by intensity of living, and who rediscovers an entirely new definition of fear because he'd rather lose himself than me," -- [Deep breath.] Like I said. I'd choose none.

And yes, I've thought about it. Do I only like the two blatantly asexual sort of beings because I either hate myself, or as a means of automatic distance because it's so drastically impossible? And no. That's not it.

It's chips. I love chips. Mickey kept pointin' out I should go easier on them, and Jimmy definitely -- look point is, I know they clog arteries and are full of empty calories and I used to do gymnastics and you have to stay so small to do that, and chips are just so not allowed, but I like chips anyway.

I know why I like Michael and the Doctor. I know what I like about them. And I'm not ignoring all the reasons it's completely beyond stupid. And impossible. And frustrating.

That's life.

From:

serpentinthegarden

You'd actually chose work? You humans... You do like your day jobs.

[ He spoke only on this point as he realized this had dived deep into relationship talk and he was uncomfortable with that. Especially as this, 'You can't choose who you care about. Only what you do about it,' hit a little too close to home.]

From:

bigbadrose

My job is just traveling and saving people. I love it. What would be your favorite thing to do if you didn't have any bosses or underlings to answer to? Just yourself, no factions, no heaven or hell, or any of it, yeah?

From:

serpentinthegarden

What me?

[ He drew back, finding it momentarily difficult to think of anything that wasn't a temptation before his imagination kicked in. ]

Road trip. I'd grab my Bentley and travel from one end of the world to the other.

[ Though this daydream did feel a little lonely... ]

Or, maybe get a cottage out in the country, retire in style, surrounded by plants...

[ Maybe with a large library and an Angel co-owner. ]

It would never happen though. It's just a daydream.

From:

bigbadrose

Why not? That sounds like what I do. But the more... Doctor-version. If you had a giant library. When I asked the older Doctor what he wants, he said he wants peace. Whereas I'd just take the traveling. And maybe the plants if they were roses and other prickly types.

What model Bentley do you have?

From:

serpentinthegarden

It's a 1933. Bought the first one off the line and I have kept it in perfect condition. They don't make them like that anymore!

And it's not like my lot actually have retirement plans. If Hell decides your done... well, you had better hope it never comes to that.

From:

bigbadrose

Niiice. Even my Dad would envy that. Micks is sadly just not cool enough, much as I love him.

Um. Yeah. Retirement for demons is an instantaneous death sentence and eternal torture as I understood it so...

But hear me out.

What if it's not up to hell or heaven? What if it's just your choice?

From:

serpentinthegarden

Humans are meant to have choices, my lot aren't.

[ He had been imagining scenerios along those lines lately though. ]

I would have to do a lot of thinking if that were true.

From:

bigbadrose

Why not? If you can't have choices, wouldn't you still be an un-fallen angel?

Even daleks ask questions. And think. A lot of thinking. Mind, they can't imagine being un-dalek, and I'm still kind of sad that even contemplating that makes them self-destruct, but I'm very certain that God didn't make you to be like daleks. Mainly 'cause I met the god of the daleks and poured time vortex into him to rip his atoms all apart. Not a real god, obviously. But see, only a false god would demand obedient worship and unthinking quote-unquote "destiny."

Daleks think their destiny is to conquer the universe and destroy everything and anyone that isn't a dalek. Not unlike Satan's plan.

Also.

What if...?

And hear me out:

What if god gave you this whole "save the corrupted lands" as an escape route?

From:

serpentinthegarden

I didn't chose to Fall!

[ Everyone did keep making that mistake! ]

It's not like some one walked around with a notepad and took a poll, ok guys, who wants to be a demon tomorrow! Heaven was getting stale and I ending up hanging around with the wrong crowd... It wasn't really a Fall. It was more of a day trip.

[ There was an interesting idea. Crowley did hear her out, even bobbed his head as he didn't know the answer. ]

It's possible. She never speaks to anyone anymore... Who ever knows what she's planning.

From:

bigbadrose

That sounds kind of stupid. I wonder how demons or good place architects are arranged where Michael's from.

Anyway, I vote you start testing out free will and see what happens.