Author's Note: Aziraphale and Crowley do not belong to me, they belong to Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. No copyright infringement intened, just admiration. :D My first attempt at a Good Omen's fanfic, any comments would be welcome.

Ps) This fic is based on a dream I had after reading a bunch of GO fanfiction. So, part of my inspiration is the other GO writers! And my totally messed up subconcious...

Angelic Lies, Demonic Truth

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Chapter One

A. J. Crowley had been being pursued, spied on, and generally Messed With, off and on for a few weeks. Not that it was consistent, and there were only a few times he'd been certain that there were imps following him, but he knew—he would have known even if he hadn't spotted the little buggers—that Someone Down There was Trying to Get His Goat. He could think of several possibilities as to who it could be, especially after the Apocalypse-That-Wasn't. So far, he'd not actually yet caught one of the lesser demons to ask who in the bloody Hell (1) was Interested in him.

That was about to change, however. Crowley had one cornered among a group of his houseplants. He'd stopped by his apartment before going to meet his Adversary in the park. Crowley knew there was an imp in among his houseplants because of the way the plants were openly trembling (2).

With a movement comparable to a predator gliding fleetly through the grass (3), Crowley hurried across the apartment, reached behind his plants, and grabbed the intruder, which somewhat resembled a shaved, mutant pygmy marmoset with a visible boil problem.

"Hello." Crowley grinned, bearing fangs. It wasn't a nice grin (4). "What. Are. You. Doing. Here?" Although he enunciated carefully, his voice seemed calm and under control—in other words, it was utterly terrifying.

The imp squeaked as hands closed around its throat. "Or-orders."

"Whose?" He let his shades slip down his nose a little ways so that the lesser demon could see his golden-yellow slitted eyes.

1. Literally.

2. Of course, they normally trembled, but not quite so much or so obviously. The plants knew, by this time, that subtle fear was the only acceptable way to express the emotion around Crowley. If they got too demonstrative, he disposed of them.

3. With good reason…

4. Crowley actually, if pressed, would have said that he didn't HAVE a nice grin, that all of his grins varied from mischievous to pure evil and that his smirks were the same way. He was wrong. He did, in fact, have a pleasant grin, albeit a rare one, that for some reason generally manifested itself around Aziraphale (5).

5. Similarly, Aziraphale had a smirk that would occasionally surface when he was around Crowley. Of course, it wasn't a particularly good smirk, as his blonde, slightly chunky, tartan wearing, bookselling physical manifestation couldn't quite pull off the smirk. But he did have one.

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If the ducks at St. James Park had been capable of being surprised (1), they would have been the moment an ethereal being with wings crashed down into the water. As it was, they only squawked indignantly and moved out of the way of the floundering white-winged figure. Amazingly, all of the humans that had been in the park half an hour earlier had vanished, suddenly remembering they had other things to do in other places. It was just the ducks and the ethereal beings.

Aziraphale was in pain. He was in pain and he had, stupidly, taken in a deep breath of water so that his human form spluttered most indignantly. His wings were soaked and weighted him down and his head was reeling from the blows, and so it was with great difficulty that he stood upright and faced his attackers.

Demons. A pack of demons. They'd ganged up on him and he'd fought hard and managed to injure two of them, but he'd been surprised and overpowered and then tossed into the pond. The pack of demons—Was it a pack of demons? Aziraphale dimly wondered, Or a group? A gaggle?—were laughing at him.

He drew himself up with as much dignity as he could muster considering he was bruised, battered, and soaked (2), and then Aziraphale shed the constraints of his human skin, glowing with a Holy light that caused several of the lesser demons to flinch.

Concentrating his energy, he sent out a beam of angelic light that fried two of the imps approaching him and caused all the demons to stagger back, burnt. Aziraphale felt a little non-virtuous triumph that was short lived as he considered his odds.

He was unarmed and outnumbered. It had been a great surprise when he had felt the sudden spike of Demonic Presence behind him—a definitely not Crowley-like Presence since, Aziraphale had to admit, at this point, Crowley's Presence was more comforting than actually evil-feeling. The angel had almost forgotten that the mere Presence of a demon could be extremely painful. But he certainly remembered now.

Remembered and gritted his teeth determinedly as the largest of the demons approached him. His energy was spent—he couldn't manifest another burst for a while. He was out of practice and the demonic auras were draining his holy one. Worse than the mere Presence of demons, though, was the pain caused by physical contact with one and this Aziraphale experienced next, as the giant demon lunged forward, took hold of his arm and jerked his shoulder out of its socket.

Naturally Aziraphale struggled, beating his wings in an attempt to get away, but then he was unfortunate enough to find out that even worse than physical contact with a demon (other than Crowley. It never hurt to come in contact with Crowley) was the wounds caused by one of their ethereal weapons. In this case, it was a blade of hellfire that rammed through his already injured shoulder.

He had experienced pain before, had been discorpulated several times, but this was absolute agony, for the weapon injured Aziraphale himself, in his true form, and not just his man-shaped form. And so it was in body and soul that Aziraphale was tortured.

1. They weren't. This wasn't merely because the brains of water fowl are limited, mostly it was because anyone, even a duck, becomes immune to surprise after having angels and demons hanging around them for awhile.

2. And wearing wet, tartan trousers and a wet sweater vest. In other words, it speaks well of Aziraphale that he was able to muster any dignity at all in the circumstances.