MEMORY SHARE ※ 1

[wildestmods]

MEMORY SHARE

It's during a pause in their day. A nap. An idle moment looking out from the gardens at the landscape passing by below. Taking a moment to catch their breath after a jog in one of the castle's larger magic rooms.

The squad is suddenly connected. Mental pathways locking together, they're forced into one another's innermost beings. Thrust into one another's memory palaces where the mind collects and stores everything that makes them who they are. The core of their beings are only a few steps away and no one can prevent the link.

To make matters worse, it comes with no explanation or no ability to pull out and stop. Once they're through the first memory, perhaps they can find a way out, but they're already witnessing some event from their host's past. And, if they left, who knows whether or not they'd end up accidentally invading another memory palace?

And if they were there, who was in theirs?

[ooc: So, how this works: the memories can either be viewed in spectator mode or the guest can be experiencing everything themselves. The person whose memories are being shown, the host, can watch as their current self or take the form they had of their past self. They can also be invisible until the memory is finished. They can talk about the memory with the "guest" that's visiting.

They cannot control the first memory shown, the player decides that, but they can sometimes control any other memories they'd like to show people after. Of course, there's also always the option of an extreme emotional reaction bringing up other memories unbidden.]

Comments

[myagents]

"Indeed. Besides, you seem to get along with others easily."

Price gives him a half sad, half encouraging smile.

"I enjoy your company a lot."

[oldbookshop]

Aziraphale is going to go ahead and slot 'you seem to get along with others easily' into his mental file folder of high compliments.

One can certainly hope for that much, after all. Especially in his line of work.

"Thank you. I quite enjoy your company."

Always an interesting conversation, with Price. In a good way.

This is roughly the point where, in the memory, Aziraphale does a little flourish of the hand and miraculously swaps clothes with his would-be executioner. Which seems to be the point where the memory winds itself down to a proper ending. And, well, at least there's that.

The late 1700s were fine enough, but he's never cared for dungeons.

"What would you say to a change in venue?"

You ever watch yourself leave a man to be beheaded in your place and then just not mention it.

[myagents]

"Oh."

Price is surprised although he shouldn't be. Aziraphale is kind and polite, it would be rude not to reciprocate compliment, but it's alright if he's lying, at least he's not hurting him.

...Which, on second thought, Price finds to be at least a bit unnerving, he doesn't know what to do with decent treatment given how little experience he has in receiving it. Then again, he finds puzzling how Aziraphale reacted in that situation depicted in the memory, he has this feeling that other people would be upset by it. Price himself doesn't necessarily see anything wrong with it. Besides, what does he know? If an angel is fine with doing that then it means it's not morally bad.

"I would not mind one." he simply smiles at him. Angels must be fascinating creatures to study.

[oldbookshop]

Angels can have a little bit of leaving people to a terrible fate, as a treat.

"Lovely."

And this part, at least, isn't so difficult to manage. Not so different from a miracle, really, more about intent and thought than anything else in particular. So Aziraphale goes ahead and drops them into a memory in his shop (which is, to paraphrase the script book, somewhere along the lines of 'glorious, chaotic, dusty'). Not any particularly thrilling or urgent memory, it would seem, as much as a quiet rainy evening in. Aziraphale in the back room with a book, classical music on the gramophone, a glass of wine, that sort of thing.

"If you had any particular requests or, or curiosities, I'm sure I could come up with something else. I've been around the block throughout time, so to speak. Just tend to be a bit of a homebody."

And it is home, the bookshop. Nice to see it again in full detail after quite a while in another world.

[myagents]

"It looks...Cozy." Price seems endeared, gives a faint bittersweet smile "I wish our ship could be a bit more homely at times, but it was important to keep a professional look."

It was their home, after all.

[oldbookshop]

"Oh, I think I know the feeling. The professional end of Heaven has always been very..."

It's hard to think of a way to put it that isn't outright insulting. Part of him doesn't strictly care if he's a bit insulting about it, all things considered, but there's probably no need for all that.

None of the other angels are even here. He's got past the point of having to play at feeling like Heaven had felt like a home in any recent sort of timeframe.

"I think the best term would be 'minimalist'. Very much in opposition to coziness."

tw ableism

[myagents]

Price emits a pensive hum. He and Aziraphale seem to have some similarities that no one understands. Not that he could voice it, for all he knows it's just wishful thinking that he's at least a little bit good, if he's so similar to a literal angel.

He is caught off guard when the coziness triggers a memory that he's not fond of bringing up. Not only because it is before Project Freelancer, but because he actively shoves it away even compared with actually horrible, violent, or cruel memories.

His past self, in his early twenties, is just calmly sitting on a couch, curled up against a man twice his age that looks like he could be his father but actually was his husband, laying his head onto the man's shoulder.

"Come on, let's go to bed, the programme is over." he whines sleepily.

"Are you tired?" the other asks calmly while mindlessly going through channels.

"A little bit."

"Alright, let's g--OH."

"What is it?"

"Look at that:" the man points at the scrolling text at the bottom of the screen during some unrelated mundane news report, scoffing "they caught that serial killer and did a psych evaluation. Turns out he's a sociopath, to no one's surprise."

"Are they sure it's him? I haven't been following..." past Price sounds distracted, but it's not genuine, he's faking it because he wants to avoid the topic.

"Only a monster could do something like that anyway."

"I wasn't aware that monster was a clinical diagnosis." he chuckles, masking how uncomfortable he is.

"It basically is. We're supposed to what, pity them because they have psychological problems? Everyone does, but that doesn't justify killing."

"Well, of course, but--"

"Committing atrocities is a choice, it's not a fucking symptom. It's because normal people have empathy that they destroy them on purpose. They are beyond help."

"I am not sure I am following you. People with antisocial personality disorder are a very small minority--"

"Yeah, because it's hard to get ahold of them to diagnose them. They'd never try to get better..."

"What I am trying to say" he actively smiles so that he can use the energy from the boiling rage that is asking to come out "is that most people who commit dangerous and illegal acts don't have the disorder, and it is not a matter of misdiagnosis in most cases. It's also important to consider that it is a very stigmatized condition and that most referenced samples of patients are prison inmates, mostly men of colour."

His husband laughs in endearment, gives him a kiss on the forehead and boops his nose.

"You are adorable when you get all formal and invested in your job."

"You always say you care about activism, I figured you would need this piece of information."

Price is now genuinely blank and confused, but his partner just shakes his head and laughs, so now he has to ask:

"If I turned out to fit the diagnostic criteria, would you leave me?"

"What?" the other keeps laughing in disbelief.

"Would you still love me?"

"Of course not, because that's not who you are."

A moment of awkward silence follows.

"But what if it is the case?"

"Look, do you love me?"

"More than everything else."

"Then it can't be the case. Monsters do not feel love."

Present Price gives an apologetic shrug, forcing positivity:

"Believe it or not, I did fit the diagnostic criteria for way different conditions besides that, but it was only brought up on one occasion while I was in court, but the focus has always been on the one that was easier to demonize." he nods "The way the existence of labels affects people's perception of morality has always been...Remarkable, for the lack of a better word."

[oldbookshop]

Bold of that man to simplify and generalize conditions to someone who'd actually properly studied them. By bold, Aziraphale means rude and dismissive and worth a stern talking-to if this weren't a memory and therefore etched in stone already.

A human-designed system is, by definition, bound to be flawed. This has always been the case.

That doesn't make it easier. Doesn't make it fairer, certainly.

"I imagine better words would be a touch ruder in application." In the spirit of honesty. "Lack of understood nuance can be a dreadful thing. Always more harmful than helpful."

[myagents]

"The problem isn't the lack of nuance as much as the justification behind that lack of nuance. Too many people, even within institutional settings, disregard or compromise the safety of those subjects they believe to be at risk in favour of 'protecting others'. It was a very comfortable excuse everyone used to disrespect me when I was a child, and it's still used now. It is extremely harmful, but with the excuse of the greater good it is very easy to perpetuate in a group setting, regardless of how a single individual might see beyond that."

He sighs.

"In that memory, there was no phyisical group, but it still worked because it touched part of his identity. It always becomes a matter of 'people like me' as opposed to 'people like you', because it's a human need to be perceived as good."

Which now begs questions about angels, of course.

"Do angels have this issue as well?"

[oldbookshop]

Aziraphale opens his mouth to answer the question.

Hesitates. Takes a pause for thought.

"I don't know that it strictly... translates," is where he starts. "As a whole, Heaven isn't concerned with perception. It's just sort of understood that to be an angel is to be good. Therefore what you work towards, what you do, or what the Almighty would dictate doing, must be inherently right. I've never met another angel who thought otherwise. They've always been very certain. Not especially fond of deviation or hypotheticals."

Or direct disobedience that they could pick up on, generally. Bit of a military operation in business formal, he supposes.

It's not nearly so nerve-wracking to discuss, having effectively 'retired' from that environment. Not any more difficult to keep packing away the crushing disappointment that's ultimately come of it. Which is a bit of a pleasant surprise.

"I was always a touch less gifted in certainty and more given to hypotheticals, naturally."

God said this one could have a little bit of anxiety, as a treat.

[myagents]

"Hypotheticals, you say..."

Price is delighted and, quite frankly, feeling a bit mischievous right now.

"So have you ever suspected that your actions were not good after all?"

[oldbookshop]

Hypothetical hypotheticals remain on course in breeding further hypotheticals.

That does tend to be the natural order, doesn't it.

"I've... had my moments of wondering, yes. Six thousand years with humanity, those sorts of things accumulate."

He says like he did not fully give away his sacred flaming sword when there were literally only two humans there for him to contend with and then fret about it.

[myagents]

Price inevitably squints. He wonders if Aziraphale feels some sort of danger, fear of saying the wrong thing that could anger the Almighty. It's...Noticeable, and not too different from his own terror of hypothetically meeting the Director here and watching him become more and more disappointed with him to the point of throwing him away because he isn't enough, once more but this time with reason.

Then again, Price is more of a 'cognitive empathy' kind of person, and when he actually emotionally relates to someone it is because they are feeling something that was already inside of him and he can vicariously process a bit of the distress through them while still being composed and frozen into place.

"It must have been a very stressful experience."

[oldbookshop]

The great and terrible squinting of it all. These things do happen.

"Oh, I suppose. On occasion." There were always some lingering anxieties about Heaven, some worrying about right versus good versus policy, the ever-looming wait for God to check in and make Her displeasure known.

Goodness knows there was stress to spare over what would happen to Crowley if that got found out.

"But, well. All in the nature of a very long and varied assignment. My experiences on Earth have been far more pleasant than unpleasant, in the grand scheme of things."

[myagents]

"Huh."

It's not that Price isn't glad that Aziraphale had mostly a good time, it's just that it's a bit hard to believe. Then he remembers.

"I suppose that not having human limitations helps with navigating life on Earth more smoothly. You don't feel pain, or...Other bodily sensations, do you?"

[oldbookshop]

"And, well, never having to worry over things like shelter, economical means, good health, all that. I normally do have more say in what my physical form contends with, though."

The classy way to say it. Aziraphale's true specialty.

"I tried to keep as much online as I could without sacrificing convenience. Touch and pain never concerned me one way or the other, really, or all the base senses. Did away with requiring sleep, though. Which has made for an adjustment, the past few months."

It's so many hours he could normally use for things like reading or sometimes working, but mostly reading. How do humans cope.

[myagents]

"Sleep can be really good when you want some time off."

Price forces a chuckle but he's at least half serious.

"And also I really enjoy the feeling of fresh sheets on my legs."

He shrugs off his own offhand comment. He's being suggestive, and for what?