The bar is dingy and dimly lit, and Baphomet might as well be anonymous, sequestered off in his corner. It's not the kind of place the rest of the pantheon would ever be caught dead in - and since he'd rather not be caught at all, that serves Baphomet's purposes just fine.
Some half-rate band does a mic check from the dilapidated stage and the fuzz of their guitars catches on his skin, makes the hair on the back of his neck prickle with every shitty chord that crackles to life over the speaker.
He tries to ignore it.
Turn it off. Tune it out. Choke back another shot and try to take that burn deep enough.
He'd start a brawl if he thought it'd help, but what's igniting in his veins at the sight of a microphone isn't going away that easy. It weighs on his tongue, sticks in his throat. The compulsion tears at him, cheap whiskey boiling off Baphomet's glass from the heat coming off his skin.
He needs these people to know who he is, needs them to see him.
He won't be okay until he can get a rise out of them - all the dirtbags and junkies here to get pissed and fuck each other up, all the fucking pondscum and the trash of the world - make them witness. It doesn't matter that there's barely a hundred people in the place. They should be grateful to bear his terror.
And Baphomet can't fight back the impulse, no matter how fucking suicidal it is: be heard, be known, be made real again. Be divine, or be destroyed by it. The crushing weight bears down on him and makes Baphomet feel about a thousand feet tall all at the same time, barely clinging to his own body.
Fuck it, fuck it - he stares down at the bar, at the glass shimmering in his hands - useless to fight the fire but he tries.
"You okay, kid?" the bartender asks, leaning over the bar and into his space. Baphomet jerks his head up and glares daggers - I'm your worst fucking nightmare, pal - fire leaking from his mouth, sparking in his eyes. He laughs humorlessly as the man stumbles back, eyes wide and clutching at his chest. Kicks over his stool as he stands and turns to face the stage.
"Clear the stage, dickless," he announces, voice echoing unearthly loud above the din "it's time for some real music."
The singer drops the mic when he sees Baphomet standing there with flames at hand, and more than one person goes ducking for cover at the resulting boom from the speakers. It's deadly quiet for a split second, and then the hiss of whispered conversation steals across the room with an urgent buzzing - lights him right the fuck up.
Baphomet grins to show his fangs, and slides his shades into place. He's the baddest motherfucker in this place; feels like a fucking animal. And it's never been so obvious that he's on a hair trigger - no one gets in his way or tries to stop him as he stalks towards the front of the room, leaving scorch marks in his wake as he takes the stage.
One word catches over and over - flits around the place in equal reverence as disgust.
Godkiller.
It'll wreck him or he can own it, embrace that determinedly fucked up piece of him that does what it has to and damn the consequences. The memory of it lingers on every inch of his body, won't ever leave his head, and Baphomet knows he's headed towards that point of no return: be who they want, who they despise - be their ruthless Godkiller - or collapse into tears and self-loathing, just some frightened fucking kid who can't stop what he's begun.
No choice at all.
At least half the crowd hates him, maybe more. Baphomet can't blame them - he hates him too - but so long as he's got the miracles, the fuckers will deal with it. They want their fix and he'll take what he can get. Everyone goes home miserable.
He makes the mistake of wondering if Morri's enjoying watching him cut loose, if Badb's salivating for the deadly bluster Baphomet's losing himself in - and stumbles when he realizes that he can't pick her figure out of the darkness off-stage.
She's not there.
Baphomet stares too long at the pile of wires and hastily-ditched instruments trying to make it resolve into his Marian, and the whole fucking world grinds to a halt around him. It hits like a punch to the gut.
The crowd gets too brave then - throws insults his way they'd never dare level at him on the floor, bolstered on by the illusion of safety in numbers and his momentary lapse. Baphomet shakes his head, grits his teeth. "Get out the pitchforks," he goads them on, retreating back behind the safety of anger and condescension. Love, hate, it's all the same - they feel enough to give a fuck, and that's all he needs.
"Laugh it up, little boy," a man over by the pool tables yells back - too close to the hanging lights for his own benefit, the dumbass; Baphomet can see his face, knows who dared call him out - "you're on borrowed time."
Fatal fucking mistake. His blood is boiling, heart pounding, fire searing away at his fingertips. "And yours just ran out," Baphomet growls, throwing a hand up. He doesn't think twice - let them have their killer, if they want him so bad.
The man bursts into flame with the click of his fingers, and Baphomet takes a miserably perverse sort of satisfaction at the screams, the flicker of fear in the man's eyes before he's nothing more than a charred corpse laid out on the filthy floor, but he can't dwell on it. He's yelling out to the rest of these miserable parasites before the body even cools, his hands balled into fists to hide the tremors - he's spiraling out of control and Baphomet doesn't have a fuck left to give. "Anyone else want to test their mortality?"
He treads the boards to the sound of yells and jeers and plays it up, remorseless for the moment, flashing his fangs and scowling down at the rabble. Laughs wickedly to himself when he feints towards the front row and they scatter back, falling all over each other trying to stay out of his way. "That's right, you fuckers," Baphomet gloats, "shut up and pay homage."
Someone throws a bottle and it smashes against the back of the stage, glass shards and shitty beer showering down on him. Baphomet lets his flames bank higher. The front few rows cringe back again. "Too hot to handle?" he mocks them, tossing flames that burst like fireworks and rain sparks down on their heads, sending sections of people ducking and screaming again.
"Get on with it!" someone from the crowd yells. They're lucky Baphomet can't pick them out, his eyes leaking fire from behind his shades and the lights blinding him further. He'd blow this whole fucking place sky high if he didn't need the boost so bad - glances toward the wings again but Morri's not there to tell him to calm down.
Fuck it, he doesn't need her.
A few more bottles get launched his way. Baphomet snags one out of the air and brandishes it like a weapon. "You know what happens when alcohol gets lit?" he snarls, crushing the bottle in his fist and unleashing an explosion big enough to engulf half his arm. "Here's a hint, fuckwads, you don't want me throwing shit back!"
The glass shards digging into his palm only fuel the rage, that awful burning Baphomet's all too eager to give into. He paces like a caged animal, blood pouring down his arm and splattering against the stage. They're all going to regret it - remember this fucking nightmare for the rest of their miserable lives. "One!" he yells, the whole basement going dark around the edges, the crowd churning uneasily.
He's not holding back, doesn't care if this destroys all of them. Baphomet's fucking furious enough to throw caution to the winds - he's dead anyway, why not crave devastation? Anything to get out of his own head, to ease the pressure - but the impulse only winds him tighter.
He's caught in a vice, pulled every which way, strung up and strung out. The world splinters around him in rough, ragged shards. No escape. No salvation.
"Two!" It burns his throat, rips its way out of him. Hard and fast and violent. He can't control it, can't hold back - Baphomet's heart stops for a dizzying moment right before he's dragged over the edge, one split second of clarity for him to search frantically for the Morrigan in the darkness, save me save me, and far too late to bail out now.
He's stripped bare, flayed right down to the bone by his own hand. Baphomet's blood ignites, sets the stage on fire around him - he can't hear the screams of the crowd, can't see them anymore. There's nothing but the pit, burning burning burning. "Three!"
The world is ripped away and he's screaming into the void. He's losing his mind, he's going to die. Oblivion takes them all, rips Baphomet's voice from him, tears him apart in service to the inhuman and inevitable -
"FOUR!"
.
.
He's on his knees, gasping for breath around the apocalyptic revelations that sear him from the inside out, too fucked up to push himself back to his feet. Feels like he's been flayed raw. The crowd is utterly silent - bloody fucking traumatized, with any luck, shaken as badly as Baphomet is. He's glancing towards stage right before he can help himself, looking for reassurance that won't come, choking out her name before he can catch himself.
Fuck.
His aviators are on the floor, and Baphomet snatches them back up, tries to give himself a bit more distance from the stares of the crowd, their eyes boring into him from every angle. The lights are all burnt out, only a few feet in height separating him from the people on the floor. The barrier between them is broken, illusion shattered - you make yourself vulnerable.
Fuck - fuck everything. He went too far, gave this shithole more than they deserved and ripped himself to pieces in the process. Fucking rookie mistake.
The sound of glass breaking tears Baphomet from the haze.
Some punk's wielding a bottle - and then punches are being thrown. Blood's being spilled, lips split open. There's an earsplitting scream piercing the silence, and then the noise of the crowd is building to a fevered pitch, crashing in on him all at once. It shakes the building to the foundations, pounds harder and louder than the cheap P.A. system ever did or will again.
It's a fucking riot - they'll tear the place apart.
Baphomet can't take satisfaction in it; this isn't the pleasant, after-gig buzz he'd normally revel in. It's a hard, nasty comedown, and a humiliatingly painful one at that. The senseless need pushing him to deliver is gone, a gaping hole in its place, but he doesn't have time to recover. The crowd may have turned in on itself - divinity spent, Baphomet's of no more use and therefore no more interest - but it's only a matter of time before this mess catches the attention of an actual threat, and he's in no condition to fight.
He staggers back to his feet, all jagged edges just barely held together, and struggles to gather the fragmented mess in his skull long enough to get him out of here. Baphomet clenches his fist tight, relying on the pain of the glass still embedded in his skin to make him sharp.
It's enough. He focuses on the need to run and clicks his fingers; fades out into smoke and shadow and lets it carry him further underground. Help me. Hide me. Not the Morrigan's underworld now - Baphomet doesn't know where it'll take him, but it doesn't matter. As long as Baal can't find him, anywhere is good enough.