The Only “crypto“ I Care About Is Cryptozoology

found on reddit

and the artist's tumblr: @nullxface

It was getting to be a lot, especially with what transpired from the events concerning the Drive-In. With his boss's brother dying, things were, in his mind, progressing very quickly along the designated path. He had to get away from it for a bit, acting normal. Old habits seemed to die hard, as he went about doing this. Slipping easily into the act, as if he were pretending to be someone else, his entire life. Perhaps, he was.

Stopping by the café on his route to excuse himself from whatever was going on concerning the most recent death of a member. The fact that it wasn't just any member, either, was a significant concern. Azazel stood to one side, waiting for his order to be fulfilled, scanning over the rest of the room in the time he had to his thoughts.

The quiet of the café, barely full of anyone at this hour, thankfully. He spotted one that stuck out to him, jotting away in their journal. Turning his head away, he smiled as his drink was finally delivered, “Thank you-” He whispered appreciatively, then glanced back toward the male. A split second or so later, as the other spoke up, he tutted, “Now tell me what I'm thinking.” Azazel replied, taking another drink from his cup. He seemingly carelessly moved closer to the other, studying the male. Not sure why he was even interested at all. Perhaps boredom, honestly, anything to distract himself from one of the other two things currently consuming his life at the moment. “Don't worry, though, I'm not interested in you. Go back to your writing-” He turned away and walked to the other side of the café, still in eyesight of the other.

Sitting near a window, he turned to look out of it as he quietly enjoyed his drink for the time being, slouching and bending over the table from the waist, he rested his head in his free hand, looking quite content and at peace at that moment. Though in reality, his mind was anything but at peace.

@boneyardstarters ; open starter ! date: april 29th location: a quaint café somewhere in vegas

fun fact: your bones always ached the day after a mission. or maybe that was just him. there was always that dull, insistent throb that hummed beneath the skin, nested deep in marrow, as if his skeleton remembered what he didn’t want to; as though his body knew it had never been built to carry this kind of weight. a slight, slender frame that spoke of cathedral halls, faded sonnets, and tragic french novellas; better suited to waste away in verse, not weave paths of blood with someone else’s heartbeat in his hands. and yet. the others moved like soldiers, all muscle and momentum — he was the scalpel in a drawer full of sledgehammers. precise. quiet ( unless he had fully gone off the deep end, which, thankfully, hadn’t happened in a bit ). lethal. easy to underestimate once, never twice — if you didn’t mind losing your throat, that was. still, it left him tired, though he was tired at the best of times. he sat alone in the booth the lémieuxs had always claimed — back when legacy was louder than loss. the cracked leather beneath him remembered better days. so did he. it had seen him at his worst. held him when nothing else did, and continued to do so. it was, in every way, a refuge. the kind of place that knew better than to ask questions. his usual arrived without him asking. refills appeared as if by instinct. they knew his order even when he couldn’t remember it himself. a journal lay open before him, its spine worn and pages crowded with black ink, as the same coffee went cold in front of him — same cup, same bitterness. his elbows rested on the wood, spine curled forward, a soft crescent over the table, dark curls falling over his face like shadows. unbothered, untouched, unseen … except, not really. he let the silence stretch, and then, without lifting his head or giving the pen pause, he finally spoke, “i can feel you staring, you know.”

i love them

More awake, he was hearing the way this stranger spoke more clearly. Raising his eyebrows as he more appropriately placed it, even in the awkward way the other had said things, he stuck his tongue into his upper lip slightly, thinking. Turning his head away, his nose curled, and he clicked his tongue off the roof of his mouth gently next. French. Great.

Though he could suppose it had nothing to do with that at all, not even remotely. But it was more amusing to him - No. He had to be serious. He was a grown man, his mind had to think about serious stuff. Business stuff. Stocks. Writing Checks. Doing taxes! WORK!! He couldn't be silly. That's what the medicine was supposed to help him grow out of, growing up. Closing his right hand into a fist, he was thankful he knew what his 'problem' was, in the end. ADHD. Not that most around him understood growing up. Forcing him to rewrite his code.

“Ah.” At her question, he was pulled from whatever train of thought he was in at the moment to remain stoic, and not give in to the amusement that tempted him in these thoughts. Turning his head, scrunched his face a bit, “Yeah. Sure. I think so?” He stared toward the rest, “The dye they use could still be pretty nasty for the fabric, though.” Not that he would know. Azazel's jaw tightened a moment as she went on. It sounded like she was spoiled. His mother wouldn't have been so inclined to just immediately replace things that got ruined, if she ever desired to or not, he and his siblings just had to live with it. Which, he supposed, was probably why he took care of his clothing, “I hope she doesn't.” He whispered inaudibly under his breath.

Though his icy-ness thawed somewhat at Simone's next comment. Closing his eyes, his mind flashed back to when he fell from a significantly high branch back at his childhood home. Everything went black after a small moment of pain. Then, waking up to his mother staring at him, tears of joy brimming in her eyes as she moved to cuddle him- Azazel let out a breath, opening his eyes and looking toward Simone, “Let them look. I'm not their concern.” Shrugging then. Though it did not escape his mind to wonder that, if anyone were watching him sleep, it would be odd. Odd enough to be concerned by it, but not scared. Or, perhaps, scared, and annoyed to the point he might act out badly about it.

But that was just the exhaustion talking, bringing his left hand up, he ran it over his head, annoyed by how short his hair suddenly was lately. Reminding him of things he just wanted to forget. Entirely. Moving his hand away from his head, he laughs under his breath at her comment, “Vineyards.” He repeated, taking note, assuming she may have done something involving one, “They can get pretty nasty, especially with the shit they can transfer these days.” Especially here lately, people were quite terrified of the bugs. But Azazel enjoyed bugs, so he wasn't too put off.

At the comment of his either being fearless or stupid, his right eyebrow twitched as he remembered instances of people calling him stupid, or worse. Till he became a great way to cheat on homework, of course, for a price, “Maybe I'm too confident.” He grinned, brushing the anger off, it was silly to be angry over such an innocent assumption. It wasn't that this stranger knew what was attached to that word, for him. Watching Simone for the moment, he looked toward her offering, then, reaching out, he took it gently from her, inspecting the piece, “Besides, life's not exciting without a bit of stupid in it, you know? Sometimes, you just have to be stupid, to learn-” Tossing the offered piece into his mouth, he chews.

Following her gaze as he chewed, to the other attendants at the events, he makes a face. Though he was sure that was what most people would fear, being robbed, harmed, normal stuff. Things humans did. But humans were just as much monsters as anything the ones they were dressing up as, now, here on these fairgrounds. He swallowed, then nodded his head, “Anyone could be a monster. Anyone here is capable of doing anything more than robbing you of blood. And that's probably not even the worst someone here could be capable of doing-”

Azazel's gaze glazed over for a moment, almost as if he were lost in a memory. But none come into his mind, only a feeling of dread, of something lost. Pain. Emotional distress. Blinking it away, he forced on a smile, “But it's too early for the real monsters who would do that, or anything worse, to be out. Just make sure you're home before the streetlights come on.”

IF HER (UNWILLING?) COMPANION WAS ANNOYED WITH HER intrusion, it went unnoticed by Simone, who had never been one that was very keen on paying close attention to the comfortability of others around her. She never went out of her way to disturb others, that would only be cruel, but she also didn't spend much of her mind on the ease of others, either, a characteristic that had been instilled upon her by two doting parents who taught her that the world revolved around her herself rather than the sun. As a bit of bright red icing dripped from her hand to her skirt, her lips turned down and a sigh heaved from her mouth at their accurate commentary. "It is good that it is only made of sugar, correct?" It was a poorly phrased, and made, joke at the vampires rumored to be lurking around that the French one made no waste of effort to poke fun at, but the minor jest displayed on her face was quickly replaced back with disdain. "I hope my mother can get me another skirt like this." As much as she adored her designer clothes, it was the ones gifted by her mother that she cherished the most and the one she currently adorned was of that group. "You could wake to someone staring at you. That could be scarier than many other, no?" Though, he was clearly not wrong about it being impossible for her to fall asleep in such a situation; she was practically the princess that could have slumber disturbed by a simple pea, the way she chose to sleep in complete darkness with only a white noise machine. Taking a bite of the cookie, her eyebrows scrunched with interest at the passionate opinion, mostly as she didn't have much of one herself. "Mosquitos may be just as scary. They were no good on the vineyards." Breaking off a piece of the generously sized cookie, she offered a bloody tooth, that was far from the chunk she had bitten out of, to the other, almost as an apology for the interrupted nap. "You sound quite fearless...or stupide." Her eyes trailed to some of those in the crowd dressed as the exact mythical creature. "Not just of those. I would fear someone would rob me of more than blood."

i DARE you to call me a freak. that's my preferred prefix, loser. i am a freakish little beast, with horrid claws and spiraling teeth. i am also. cooler than you

@boneyardstarters Location: Weekend of Horror Booths Date: April 27, Afternoon Cap: ♾️

It had been such a long and exhausting weekend. He just wasn't finding the joy he usually would have in these kinds of things, which made it all the more tiring, he gathered. Reaching out a hand toward some items at a booth he was currently looking around in, he ran his fingers delicately along the tops of some items, frowning as he realized he couldn't feel happy or excited about any of it. He felt nothing at all at the moment. Pulling his hand away in a sluggish manner, he turned and left the booth, wanting to find anything that could inspire some amount of joy in him. But only found himself becoming more exhausted as he passed several booths. It was later in the afternoon, but he felt like he had been up for hours. For the most part, he had been. Coming to sit on a bench, he absently moved to curl up on the empty space and quickly started to drift off. Even though it may not last a long time, he managed to doze off for a moment before a voice directed at him suddenly had him jolting back awake, “No- I wasn't-… I wasn't sleeping. I was just resting my eyes.” Azazel muttered in response as he lifted his head and looked around.

Azazel held his gaze on the other, unbroken, for a time, before he blinked, almost too slowly. Then turned his head and muttered, “The fuck does it look like I just did, hm?” The other usually wore on his patience, but not enough before now to have him reacting anymore aggressively. But notably, at this moment, he was. Of course, at this moment, he had a lot more lore than he had some of the previous times they had run into one another. Azazel moved to rest his head in his left hand, bringing his left elbow to rest on the counter. He still knew not to press more than necessary, lest he end up breaking the mask more than it was able to bend in these conditions. Forcing a smile as Cyrek went on, he shook his head a bit, “Oh. Come now. I'm a reasonable person, even if I'm not your favorite at times. I can be very-ah, companionably.”

He glanced around the bar, sighing at it being one of the few he liked to go to, even if it belonged to the wrong team. Though he had never concerned himself with that, as long as his team was on top of the pile of skulls, in the end. Turning his gaze back onto Cyrek as he went on, he nodded his head a bit, “You think I would?” He laughed, biting on his bottom lip, not sure the other could be trusted to read others. Though he was in no mood to dissuade the others' wrong assumptions, if The Art of War taught him anything, like the most basic and sensible advice in the world, it was to just ignore such attempts at slights by the supposed enemy. Cyrek wasn't seen as a threat to Azazel, however, more like a tick that just needed to be burned off every once in a while to go spin his head in a different direction.

Grinning, Azazel wondered how many of those silly drinks ever really got sold, probably a reasonable amount for them to be on a menu, instead of some secret order a dumb college kid created while high off his ass during a bender for some pledge to a sorority or fraternity. Azazel was an adult, however, long since passed mixing his drinks to create some bullshit, he just wanted to roll his blunts, smoke off the nerves in his living room while watching Care Bears, in the sanctity of his own home. A few shots deep, surrounded by other things. Though he didn't choose to do that, on this night. He was here, instead. Listening to this acquaintance of his trying his best to stand next to him on that pile of skulls, Azazel narrowed his eyes a bit. At least, that's what he assumed, or was it the workings of his paranoia trying to make a threat? He sucked on his teeth a bit, “Powder my nose?” He scrunched his nose a bit, not sure what to make of that comment.

“Aww, Cyrek, do you think I'm pretty? Only the most vain of people powder their noses, though.” He grabbed the drink then, downing it like a champ and huffing out a breath to one side, “It's alright. But it could be stronger.” Tipping the class upside down, he pushed it gently from him, “I bet I could breathe fire, in some circumstances, but, like I said, I'd need something, like--… Gasoline? What do you think?” Though gasoline didn't taste all that pleasant, not, that he had ever tried to breathe fire before, of course not. He had absolutely tried before.

"Alright, then don't order it," the bartender threw up his hands in mock surrender at that, the folly of showperson's charisma ebbing out of his pores, replacing any sense of congeniality with a wrinkle of his brow and a thin-lipped grimace. Half the time, it seemed like it was the agenda of people who walked through the door to make his job significantly more strenuous than it had to be — though, in the case of anyone involved with the Vitellis, he kind of leaned into the inclination that that was their quid pro quo for strife he'd eventually reaped what he sow. "No harm, no foul to me. You'll probably stiff me on the tip anyway." Which begged the question why Azazel would bother entering a biker bar that was arguably outside of the comfort of the family bounds, and there was plenty of alcohol they could get for free at one of the casinos, surely. Now that he wasn't under the guise of playing nice, he let out a snort, reaching for a clean glass to serve him. He didn't feel like getting shit on the job at Azazel's expense, if nothing else. "Think you'd crack for the feds a lot faster than I would. Sure that you got some secrets you'd squeal over."

The laminated sheet clattered noisily back to its resting place under the bar, to be turned down by another dozen patrons before he finally could hightail it home for the evening, or a couple blocks over where the lights on the Strip were crystalline enough to illuminate the shadowed building of the future home of Skratch Records. Thank you. "Oh, surprised you remembered manners." Cyrek certainly let it slip his mind if people gave him reason to. Pouring out the drink, he narrowed his eyes to catlike slits, he slid it over to him, chewing on his inner cheek and itching to reach for the pack of gum in his back pocket and unroll a strip. "Uh-huh," he grunted out, unimpressed with the pass, "Good luck breathin' fire with this, mate. You might be goin' through a lot of drinks if that's what you're after. Might find it easier if you powder your nose in the bathroom instead."

Brandon Lee as Eric Draven

THE CROW (1994)