Chapter Text
On New Years Eve, while Crowley and Aziraphale danced beneath fairy lights, Ligur knelt by the river, his fingers buried in soft silt.
Something heavy and dark weighed him down, relentlessly pulling him closer to the ground. From the apple tree, shadows fell over him, the dark water rippling as it chugged along.
He needed silence. But everything out here was too loud. Inside of him, too.
A boy, fancying himself normal. Oh, what a terrible ruse, a horrible jest! Give it up! Give it up!
Slowly, methodically, he kicked his shoes off, leaving them sitting on the shore.
Such a pitiful costume. Give it up!
"I'm giving up," he growled, furious with himself and furious at the world and furious at the voices that would not leave him be. Oh, they'd leave him be. Soon.
Twinges of guilt sparked in his heart, remembering how he'd left Hastur. Asleep, unaware. He didn't even bother to say goodbye.
One last thing I've failed at, Ligur thought bitterly.
Well, he'd never fail again.
It was the cold that came to him first.
A chill swept over him, like he'd been dumped with a bucket of ice water. Icy fingers snuck up his spine and burrowed into his mind, making his head ache.
He couldn't open his eyes.
And he didn't want to. There was no survival instinct, no inherent need to view the world around him. He should've felt unsettled, at the very least. But he felt nothing.
There was only awareness.
The sounds came to him next. Rustling branches, faint wisps of wind, and clamoring, people crying and raised pitches that disrupted the peace cradling him. Pain and grief existed at the edges of his acknowledgement.
And lastly arrived his sight. Not sight as he knew it, no, but true sight, an objective and detached view.
Warmth flooded his numb form, clearing up his hazy vision. A shudder wracked him; confusion coiled inside him.
A voice that wasn't a voice spoke in a way that was nowhere and everywhere simultaneously, and commanded: See.
He saw.
Rolling green hills, basked in early morning sunshine, a gleaming mansion in the distance. A river, a body. His body. People, too, people huddled together, people crying, people screaming.
He knew these people.
Far below, Hastur wept over Ligur and cursed his only friends, begging an unknown deity to bring his brother back. Ligur heard all of it.
Sorry, he said, but no sound escaped, and no physical sensations registered.
A word floated around in his head. Unfair. This was unfair.
But justice and fairness and rights and wrongs had no place inside him anymore. There was only sight, and those within his sight.
So, he saw. He watched.
He watched them all.
Though he stayed for everyone, he clung to Hastur as well as he was able. Just beyond his reach, yet within his grasp all the same. He warmed his brother on cold nights and stayed on lonely nights.
Hastur went home.
Ligur went with him.
When Gabriel knocked on his door a week later, Ligur was there to welcome him. He was there when Hastur hovered over the edge of a pool, wondering if it was worth it all, and Ligur assured him it was. And when Ligur could not guide Hastur away, Gabriel found himself impulsively wandering outside at midnight to pull Hastur from the edge.
When, months later, Crowley and Hastur collided in a messy and tight hug, Ligur was there. He followed where they went. He tugged himself along and ignored the knowledge that something was unfinished, that needed to be finished, and he needed to finish it.
But he didn't want to finish it yet.
Distantly, he knew he wanted to stay.
Until they came to a little unremarkable tombstone in a little unremarkable graveyard, and mourned him together.
He grew angry, then, as much as he was able. Cold raked over him. He didn't want to be mourned. He wanted...
What did he want?
His certainty blurred and fizzed like static in his mind, the chill dampening and turning into a deep warmth. He wanted to move on. And he could not move on if he stayed.
They were talking about the flowers. The pretty pink things that were tangled up in his form, impossibly intertwined. One by one, his family sank to their knees, their quiet grief stinging him like a physical pain. As he felt a sort of resignation settle over him, a warm breeze brushed by them, stirring up Hastur's hair.
I think he likes the flowers, Aziraphale was saying. Ligur, surrounded by warmth, knocked a single apple from the tree and nudged it to the tombstone.
You know what? It was Crowley speaking now, his voice growing fainter as Ligur's sight finally began to fade. I think you're right.
Light swallowed up the last of his awareness.
Gentle, guiding warmth lifted him above and away, and onward.
I reckon they'll be alright.
And they were.