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muzzleroars · 10 months

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Michael, the Ruined Prince

Michael, having used all of his power to seek out God, had failed as the Prince of Heaven. He had abandoned his people, absent for centuries on a fruitless search filled with unheard, increasingly desperate prayers and an unrelenting, bone-deep exhaustion that is now permanent. His grief grew day by day, and an angel in isolation begins to wither, to warp – they must be with one another lest they twist into their extremes, retreating into their divine purpose until it becomes self-destructive parody. And Michael had already been scarred long ago by his role in banishing Lucifer, by God’s own ever-mounting wrath that ate away at the mercy he was meant to feel alongside it. Michael had already been insular, something had already pulled at the seams of his soul, and now centuries of failure consume him. He would return to Heaven with nothing for his people. Nothing for the siblings he swore to protect.

So his final thought in a deeply troubled mind urged him to try one last time. That if he could not find God, then he must bring God to himself. He must sin, he must beg for punishment, and then God will come to deliver it onto him. Just as He once did to Lucifer. It disgusted him, to think he had to debase himself to be as the sinners he held nothing but vile contempt for ever since he couldn’t cope with the guilt of the first fallen angels. But his prayers have failed, his days of weeping have failed, he moved Heaven, Earth, and all of Hell to come up with empty hands. Less than that. Not even a feeling. So Michael, even as a Cherub who could not, did everything he could to replicate his memories of when he had witnessed God Himself tear the light from His angels. Michael had seen it every time, it was he that had to bind any fallen angel that survived it to their place in Hell. He knew, implicitly, what the ritual was even if God seemed to enact it in one beautiful, elegant motion. And he did just that. Imperfect pantomiming, flawed execution, but the same ritual as best as Michael could copy it. All to himself.

But only God and the high Seraphim can sever an angel from their light.

His soul was rent from his body. His light was torn to shreds by his inexperienced hands. The agony that it screeched resounded all the way back to Heaven in unintelligible, muted whispers of nauseous grief no one could understand. Michael felt himself die, but it was incomplete. He was left in a corpse, a body destroyed and succumbing to all it meant but with him still inside of it. God did not come, and Michael was trapped a ruined body, bereft of a soul, of his light, giving way to rot and deterioration yet fully functional. He could do nothing but take this as a sign from God, one that he will not be punished no matter his crime for being such a loyal servant. Even as his body falls apart, as plants begin to burst from his remains, he believes himself to be blessed – see how he grows God’s garden. See how his crown remains pristine. He adorns his exposed bones with gems and finery, ostensibly as thanks to God for keeping him alive, keeping him sinless when he had so despised his impending fall from grace. But. Michael is, in the back of his mind, highly aware of what he’s become. He knows he is rotting, he knows he is in a dead body, he knows, somewhere, God had nothing to do with it. It was just a mistake, it was just his own foolishness with catastrophic consequence. He is more noxious than a fallen angel now, a botch job shambling numbly back to Heaven when he feels the death of Gabriel.

Upon his return, he largely attempts to hide the rot of his body, at least from the citizenry – he cannot hide it from Raphael or Uriel, nor does he try. To Michael, it proves his devotion, it shows God’s still present love for him, and it is a testimony to how he cannot fall, that he can never lose his place in Heaven. Raphael begs for him to be healed, Uriel pleads reason to him, but neither had ever been as strong as Michael and ultimately, he is their leader. No matter the state he returns in, he is the Prince of the Archangels and truthfully...they both fear him now. He is not the Michael they loved, not the one that had been quiet and stoic yet still loving in return. The Michael that would have done anything for them, that never wanted to lose another like he lost Lucifer. He commands them now to join him in binding Gabriel, his tangible grief the only thing that seems to be left of who he had once been.

Internally, Michael sees their fear, he feels the crushing guilt of Gabriel’s fall, he is violently ill with one true look at himself. He had gone wrong a long, long time ago, when he lost Lucifer, and now all of that was being made manifest, but he can’t face it. As flesh falls away, he covers it more and more with jewels as if that could hide the decay he can feel spreading night and day, the only thing he feels now. He must retreat into his purpose, he must not allow such devastating failure to be his legacy. So he turns on Gabriel. Gabriel, whose light had been severed. Who walks freely in an abandoned Hell. Who still has a living, breathing body. Michael’s vitriol toward the damned hones in on Gabriel, consumed with being sure he is left nailed to the lowest pit in Hell for his treachery. All the love he once had turns to hatred and in it, the other three can see that Michael has been left shattered, that nothing in him truly believes God made him this way. God’s most loyal, left to rot.

Additional information:

Michael now always exudes the Odor of Sanctity, but there is a distinct undertone of mold to it

The opalescent webbing that runs through his body is the angelic brain - normally it is iridescent and transparent with a strange glow, but Michael's is opaque and dull

Michael now prefers walking, something noted as unusual when he returned to Heaven, but it's simply due to the fact that his body has been left entirely numb and so it's difficult to maneuver in the air properly

He is very protective of his crown and dragon-skin bag, as they seem to be the only things left uncorrupted on him

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gravitywonagain · 11 days

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so i plotted a thing in the shower the other day... idk if i'll write it or not, but i thought it might be fun to share :)

~ working title: Villains in my Mind Doing Time ~

lwj is a detective who only works cold cases (for Reasons that will come up somewhere in the narrative, probably). he’s almost a year and a half into his latest case when he gets a call from a maximum security prison. they say an inmate there has info on his case and wants to share it. lwj is, understandably, a bit skeptical — especially when he sees the 35 year-old inmate who is supposed to have info on his 50 year-old cold case — but he figures he can check the info after and something is better than the nothing he currently has, even if it does send him on a wild goose chase.

wwx, when lwj meets him, is handsome and well spoken, if a bit angry and… kinda weird? but that’s okay. all of these things are workable. so lwj sits down and — after a rather odd tangent about the sensory experiences of murder, some nonsense about being a medium but only for serial killers, and rambling regrets about starting with the most recent cases because it would have been much easier to prove he wasn't involved in murders he wasn't alive for yet — gets what he came for: the name of the murderer.

(wwx is actually a ghost magnet, of a kind. he attracts serial killers, like, from wherever. idk if his mind is the manifestation of some level of hell through which serial killers atone for their sins or something, i honestly have not thought this that far through, so just bear with me, here.)

lwj takes this info home to follow up on and finds that it’s both more and less than he was hoping for. the name wwx gave him is of a man who was close to the family, certainly, but who was dismissed as a suspect after his first interview. nothing particularly ties him to the case, yet he was also not a man who was discussed in the news where wwx might have stumbled upon his name. there is, lwj finds, some merit to the idea that this person killed at the very least lwj’s victim and in all likelihood — and if wwx is to be believed — several more people.

however none of this information is actionable. it is at best circumstantial, at worst some nonsense accusation from a man who is serving life in maximum security. and the man in question has been dead for several years leaving no living family behind.

lwj goes back to the prison.

wwx is pleased to see him again and even more so to learn that lwj actually believes him and wants to hear more. he shares what he knows, but mostly what he has is a head full of memories that are very difficult to get down on paper. he draws some things, but what lwj really needs, he realizes, is to actually go to the scene, go into all the evidence, speak with family and friends of the victim, etc. all of this will be easier and more fluid if he can just take wwx with him so that he doesn’t have to act as some intermediary between the evidence and the supposed ghost.

lwj still isn’t quite convinced he’s not being taken for a ride, but he’s willing to take the risk of letting wwx out on heavily supervised furlough for a better shot at finally cracking this case and giving the family some peace.

wwx agrees to go on the very strict condition that he be returned to the prison that night. lwj of course agrees to this — that was definitely already the plan — and off they go.

during the first outing, the two are able to get a little bit deeper into the mystery, but they are both quite aware that what they are looking for is going to have been long buried and many people are dead, don’t remember, or don’t want to remember. this is going to take more than one furlough. but, as wwx did not attempt to escape or harm anyone (nobody really expected him to, he’s been a model inmate despite the crazy talk and night terrors for years now), the warden agrees to let lwj take him out again and again.

it’s on the third outing that they run into some trouble and have to spend a night away from home. wwx is intensely worried, but they are able to find a solution with the local municipal jail, borrowing a cell for the night for wwx to sleep in while lwj sleeps at an inn. everything is fine. lwj, out of curiosity, asks the municipal jail for the video of wwx at night and finds out that wwx has horrible nightmares, screaming and flailing in his sleep. this follows if what wwx tells him about hosting the ghosts of serial killers is true, but it also follows if wwx actually has a violent past that he is atoning for in prison. they manage to get a bit more info the next day, but are sure to make it back to the prison that night.

unfortunately, the next bit of information is set to take them much farther away from the city. they will need to road trip out to a pretty small town to meet up with someone, taking multiple days just to get out there, and will probably need to stay multiple days to get the info they need. initially, wwx is adamant that lwj can do this one on his own. lwj, however, has grown to rely on wwx’s unique insight into this case and manages to convince him to come along.

they make a plan, calling up all the jails on their way out there to ensure that they can borrow a cell for the night — not allowing wwx to sleep with anyone else in the room. of course, on their way out there, one of the jails fills up for the night and they have to improvise. they book two rooms at an inn and wwx convinces lwj to restrain him, tie him to the bed — sadly, for non-sexy purposes — and to bar all the exits he can. this is not a foolproof plan… but it works. wwx and lwj both have a rough night of it, but wwx doesn’t escape, doesn’t hurt anyone, and doesn’t hurt himself (too badly). they decide this is an acceptable backup solution, should the need arise again.

the need definitely arises again.

one of the reasons they are out here in this remote area is because the person they are tracking down is slated to attend an art festival nearby. the town hosting the festival is small enough that the draw is not huge, but robust enough to handle the influx of tourism for the next few days. this also means that, when the jail inevitably fills up on their last night in town, lwj and wwx have to share lwj’s reserved room. of course there’s only one bed, this is fanfiction.

so lwj ties wwx to the bed. at this point, he’s mostly sure that wwx at the very least knows things about this case that he shouldn’t be able to know. he’s open to some sort of medium-ship, though uncertain as to what that might mean, entirely. and he is pretty sure that wwx has been requesting such specific sleeping arrangements because he is worried about keeping lwj awake with his night terrors. lwj accepts a bad night’s sleep in return for literally any sleep — they got what they came for but it’s been a long few days — and decides he’s going to sleep in the same room as a bound wwx.

the thing about security cameras in police stations and municipal jails is that they are in black and white.

lwj wakes to a room bathed in a soft red glow and fingers wrapped tightly around his throat. the voice coming from wwx is not the one lwj is familiar with after days and days spent working together, spent talking in the car, over lunch, on the phone. it is deep and guttural, then high and sweet, then laughing and manic. all the while wwx’s body seems to fight itself — not quite strangling lwj, but not quite letting him go either.

luckily, lwj is a strong dude. he manages to break free and subdue wwx. the red fades from wwx’s eyes as soon as they blink open again and wwx shrinks in on himself so deeply lwj isn’t sure he’ll ever find him again.

slowly, painstakingly, lwj is able to coax wwx into the same car as him so they can drive back. wwx is quiet and subdued the entire time, eyes flashing to the bruising around lwj’s neck so much he considers stopping to buy a turtleneck despite the summer heat. each stop goes more or less as planned, though one of the jails has to move some people around to accommodate, and they are clearly less than pleased to do so, but wwx plays up the crazy criminal affect and they make it work.

they’re maybe an hour away from home when wwx suddenly jerks in his seat, eyes rolling back in his head — fully white, not glowing red — and trembling like a leaf. lwj pulls off the road, uncertain.

when wwx gasps back to himself a minute or two later, he’s agitated, urgent. he insists that lwj turn the car around. another killer just died, he says, and this time he’s not too late. the killer died unexpectedly and left some victims alive. he never gets this kind of chance, he says, to make a difference, to actually save someone.

they’re close, is the thing. close to the city, close to finishing lwj’s case. and lwj, fresh off being strangled by a possibly possessed wwx, isn’t the most inclined to veer off the path that will lead him first to his very comfortable bed and second to possibly closing his case. and there’s the niggling fear that wwx, having felt freedom and now being very close to the end of it again, has created a ruse that he will use to ultimately escape.

but wwx is very convincing. and, lwj realizes, he trusts him.

lwj turns the car around and heads in the direction wwx leads him. and wwx is right. they get to the compound just in time to save a young girl from starving alone where she’d been kept. the local police ask questions and wwx ends up almost on the hook for this again, but his whereabouts have been very accounted for over the span of time the crimes were taking place. it looks like he might be charged with accessory again, but given that he was instrumental in saving someone, the local police are fine releasing him back to the prison. they know where to find him, after all.

but, of course, they now have to spend a night in a hotel on the way home.

this time, both of them contend with the added factor that is a combination of the sexual tension between them too long unresolved and the adrenaline high of rushing off to save a life and succeeding. lwj hasn’t been this close to action in a long time, and now (?) is when we learn that he had himself relegated to cold cases and only cold cases because his last imminent case saw him hesitating to fire just long enough to get the victim killed, then opening fire on the suspect in retribution. wwx shares that nobody had ever trusted him like this before, not even his foster parents who had him committed to a mental hospital at fourteen.

and with that kind of day, how can they not have sex about it? it’s sweet and intimate and both of them confess things that the other probably doesn’t believe, but under the cover of night, everything feels like a dream. they fall asleep in each other’s arms.

when lwj wakes, wwx is gone—

just kidding, he’s just freaking out in a corner because he actually slept all night for once and what the fuck does that even mean???

they make it back home — wwx to prison and lwj to his apartment. lwj settles the case, finally able to tell a nephew who killed his uncle and give that family some long awaited closure. wwx settles back in prison, chafing a bit at the loss of freedom and at the loss of time spent with lwj, but pleased he’s been able to make some difference for once. or even twice.

then the prison gets a call from lwj. lwj and wwx smile at each other over the table at which they first met, and lwj lays out several folders while wwx closes his eyes to listen to the voices in his head.

#wangxian #mdzs #cql #fanfiction #modern au #ish? probably? in my head this is set in like the 1970's or 80's or something. doesn't have to be tho #what's the tumblr equivalent of a threadfic?#my writing #my nonsense #acab but we're treating this a bit more like setting souls to rest because cold cases #when they solve the case the murderer gets to move on in the reincarnation cycle or something #the cold case is for sure jgy and the nies #the hot? case? is xy and the girl is a'qing #wwx's head is a detour on the way to the bridge and meng po's soup or something?? i really haven't thought this that far thru #why did i set this up like a serial tv show begging for another season? nobody knows. certainly not me.#vimmdt

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