Anthony Crowley was walking along down the high street as he listened to his beaten up old iPhone that he'd had since the day that particular model had been released. His iPhone was used less and less for its intended purpose and more as an iPod these days and as a student he could hardly afford to get it replaced, what with the having to pay nine grand a year tuition and on top of that, halls, living expenses, food, laundry and a hundred and fifty four pounds a year for a TV license. It all piled up and he had only thirty pence in his bank account waiting for the next almost grand and a half loan from Student Finance England to find its way into his bank account. He was going to go overdraft. He just didn't care.
He had bigger things to worry about after all as he was drinking a Red Bull, having pulled an all-nighter the previous night in order to cram for the exam that he'd had that morning. And despite what his friends would have to say about it, this was a regular occurrence.
Crowley stopped outside a Boots when he felt his phone buzzing in his jeans pocket (and Freddie Mercury's voice had been replaced with his stupid Apple ringtone that he hadn't been bothered to change).
He answered it and sighed loudly if only to let the caller know how much they'd inconvenienced him. "Anathema, this had better be important."
"Ez has been taken ill." The caller, Anathema, said down the phone. "Newt called an ambulance and the paramedic called the blue lights. He's gone to hospital."
Crowley wasn't sure how to react to this news. Ezra had been his best friend since childhood. They'd gone to playgroup together and nursery and the same primary and secondary schools and when Ezra quit sixth to go to college, Crowley had joined him and now they attended the same university. They'd done their GCSEs together. And in all of that time, Crowley had never known Ezra to get so much as the sniffles, break his leg or even have nits, considering how often he worked with kids. Not that nits or broken legs were illnesses exactly but he still won all the perfect attendance awards at school.
"Crowley. Are you still there?" Anathema's voice came down the phone.
"Yeah." Crowley cleared his throat. "Yes. Yeah, Annie, I'm here."
"You should come back to halls."
"Why?"
"Just..." A long pause. "We'll tell you when you get here."
And all Crowley could hear was a long flat tone; Anathema had hung up.
Crowley and Ezra had met Anathema and Newt almost two and a half years ago when they had all been freshers. They were all now in their last year of university and were carefully and hurriedly working on their dissertations, which had to be in by mid-March. It was currently mid-January.
The dissertation had to be done or they wouldn't graduate with their degrees in the summer. Crowley, being Crowley, hadn't started his yet. Ezra, being Ezra, had actually nearly finished his. Anathema and Newt were working on theirs, with varying degrees of success.
Anathema Device worked for an occultist and metaphysical supply shop that stocked everything from herbs and spices, pestles and mortars to crystals for alternative healing. She was a witch. Or at least that's what she called herself but then she was descended from the witch and prophetess Agnes Nutter. Her boss, a medium (except on Thursdays. And some mornings. And most evenings) who called herself Madame Tracy, found that very impressive and hired Anathema on the spot.
Newton Pulsifer, however, worked for an old man by the name of Shadwell who ran an antique store and was obsessed with finding antiques around the Witchfinder Army. He would also stand on the street corner handing out flyers to passers-by and raving to them about witches. He did the exact same thing with his customers. Newt had no part in this and it embarrassed him greatly to know that everyone, himself included, thought of his boss as a raving lunatic.
Crowley spent much of the journey back to halls on autopilot.
He didn't notice passing the mother and her child. The man on the street corner pedalling The Big Issue. The lesbian couple sitting outside and sharing an espresso and caramel frappe creme at the Caffè Nero. The student busking with a guitar playing Ed Sheeran's Shape Of You. The Jehovah Witnesses thrusting copies of The Watchtower to any unlucky bugger who passed by.
This is how Crowley looked down at his hand and noticed it was no longer holding his can of Red Bull, but a copy of The Watchtower. Which he promptly threw into the nearest litter receptacle.
"Fuckin' Watchtower." He muttered to himself.
There was nothing more annoying than Jehovah Witnesses proselytising on the high street, except maybe Jehovah Witnesses proselytising in tube stations, around halls or, worse still, door to door.
There were actually lots of things that annoyed Crowley. But Jehovah Witnesses were an inconvenience for sure.
He arrived back at halls where there was a black female and a white female, both Jehovah Witnesses and both pedalling Awake! which further irritated Crowley.
The white female tried to hand Crowley a copy of Awake! but Crowley lowered his sunglasses and glared hard at her, which intimidated her into backing away.
"Crowley!"
Crowley's head snapped towards the voice. Which belonged to a waving Newt. He walked over and whipped off his sunglasses.
"What's happened to Ezra?" He demanded.
"Erm..." Was all Newt could say.
Newt was hardly the most articulate of his friends. That honour went to either Ezra or Anathema (more likely Ezra since he believed it wasn't moral to swear and so came up with many colourful alternatives). Newt just said 'um', 'uh' and 'erm' and used sentence fillers a lot.
Crowley raised an eyebrow. "Well, Newt?"
"It all happened so fast." Said Anathema, coming from behind Newt. "Ez came from his exam and said he wasn't feeling well. Neither Newt or I had an exam today. I went to get Ez a drink of water. He collapsed. Had a seizure."
"I called nine-nine-nine. A paramedic in a car came and examined him." Newt continued. "He called the blue lights and an ambulance took Ez to hospital."
"Which one?" Crowley demanded.
Anathema told him.
Crowley clenched his jaw. He wanted to swear. But he tried to keep it in.
"Have either of you told Ez's family yet?"
"Crowley, it's a seizure. He's probably going to be fine-"
"No, Annie, it's bad." Crowley said. "Really bad. My family's always known Ez's. He's had all his vaccines and he's never been sick with anything. Not even the common cold. What if he's got a-a brain tumour or something?"
"You can't jump to the worst possible outcome, Crowley." Anathema said. "He was very hot when he collapsed so he probably just has a fever. Some people get seizures when they have a fever and since Ez never had any illness before-"
"And if it is brain cancer?"
"Then we can just be there for him." Newt said.
Ezra Fell did not have a brain tumour. Or any cancer for that matter. But he was running a very high fever. And his head was hurting from the fever and so were his muscles and deep down into his bones. Or at least he was assuming it was from the fever. He didn't know. He'd never had a fever before and he was quite scared.
In fact, nothing like this had ever happened to him before. He'd never visited the doctor except to get his shots. He'd never been to hospital outside of volunteering or visiting. He wondered how other people did it. His brothers and sisters. Anathema. Newt. Crowley. The Them.
"I can assure you, I'm really quite fine-"
"And I can assure you, I can't just let you out of the ambulance." Said a rather impatient paramedic. "You've had a seizure and you're running a fever of forty degrees."
"Do you think I have meningitis? Because I've had the vaccine."
"I don't know what it is." The paramedic said. "Nor am I qualified to diagnose it. You'll have to wait until a space opens up in the A&E."
"Am I dying?" Ezra asked in panic. "What if I have Ebola?"
"You definitely don't have Ebola and you're probably not dying. Or you wouldn't be talking to me." The paramedic said.
"It's all my fault." Crowley said. "It's my fault."
"It's nobody's fault. I don't think."
"Newt's right. It's just one of these things that happen." Anathema said. "Crowley, I honestly don't think Ez is dying."
"What if he is?" Crowley asked. "He might be in a coma-"
"He was talking to me after the seizure." Newt said. "I mean he, like, he sounded confused. And it freaked us out a little. But he was still awake when the paramedics came and took him away. Unless something's happened since then, he's not in a coma."
"Seizures don't just happen-"
"Sometimes they do, Crowley." Anathema said. "It doesn't mean anyone's dying or in a coma or they've got epilepsy or meningitis or aggressive brain cancer-"
"Not helping, Annie." Newt said.
"My point is that they do sometimes just... happen. And Ez had a fever."
Anathema was a straight A engineering student who held no degrees in medicine, but Crowley felt better hearing this. After all, she may have sold crystals for 'healing', but she didn't really believe it.
"You're right." He nodded. "It's probably not the worst case."
"Come on." Said Newt, the perpetually unlucky accounting student. "I'll drive us to the hospital-"
"NO!" Both Crowley and Anathema bellowed.
"I mean, that's not really necessary." Crowley said. "I have my own car."
"And I can ride with Crowley." Anathema added.
"But... you're my girlfriend." Newt said.
"I... I'd rather ride with Crowley." Anathema said.
"I get it." Newt said with a sad nod.
"It's just that Crowley's car is, well, it's a car, Newt. I don't know what your car is, but it's not a car."
Crowley raised his hand slightly. "Yeah, it's not a car, mate."
"I guess I'll be driving myself."
Crowley sighed. "Get in my car, Pulsifer. I'm not having you put yourself in the hospital too. One of us is more than enough."
At the hospital, a bed shortage meant that a doctor had to go to the ambulance and see Ezra who was waiting there and hooked up to a heart monitor.
Just as Ezra was telling the doctor hat he was okay, he tensed up and fell back against the gurney. His eyes rolled back and he started violently convulsing.
The doctor timed the seizure and when it didn't stop after three minutes, he ordered the paramedics to get Ezra into the A&E.
As Crowley was driving, his phone rang on the dashboard. He looked at the phone and then back on the road, but the phone kept buzzing.
"Anathema, can you answer that?" Crowley asked. "Only I'm driving."
"Sure." Anathema grabbed the phone and dragged the little green symbol to answer the phone. "Anthony J. Crowley's iPhone, this is Anathema Device speaking, how may I help you?"
Crowley frowned and briefly glanced to Anathema, before his eyes went back on the road.
Anathema had the phone in one hand and covered the microphone with her other hand. "Crowley, you need to pull over." She said urgently. "Now."
"What is it?" Crowley asked.
"It's the hospital." Anathema explained. "Apparently you're Ez's emergency contact."
"Oh Jesus." Crowley looked for the safest spot to pull over and put the hazard lights on. He took the phone from Anathema.
"This is, erm, Anthony J. Crowley speaking."
Both Anathema and Newt stayed quiet and tried to hear what the person on the other end of the receiver was saying. With the running engine of the car, the repetitive clicking of the hazard light and the whooshing of the cars passing by outside, it was difficult task.
"Okay." Crowley said. "Thank you." He hung up the phone and tossed it on the dashboard.
Nobody said anything. Tensions were so thick they could be cut with a knife.
Then;
"ShitshitshitshitSHIT!" Crowley thumped at the steering wheel so hard it was a minor miracle his airbags didn't deploy and screamed out loud. It sounded less pained and less angry and more terrified like he'd been spooked in a haunted house with just a hint of frustration.
"Crowley, are you-" Anathema began.
Crowley held up his left hand, the palm was red raw from all the hitting of the wheel.
He lowered his head and rested it on the steering wheel and a near complete silence fell over the car, save for the click-click-clicking of the hazard light.
A few minutes passed and Crowley raised his head again.
"Fuck." He muttered.
"Are you alright, Crowley?" Newt asked.
"Just fine, Pulsifer." Crowley said.
"Is Ezra-"
"He's not fine."
"Oh no, Crowley, I'm so sorry." Anathema said.
"He's not dead, Device. Just..."
Crowley exhaled loudly.
A/N: Right. I wrote this because I wanted to. I saw so many 'college' AUs that took place in Britain and I was like... none of this matches my experience or the experience of any uni student in the UK. So here it is, my accurate British Uni AU.
Much of this is probably unique to the British/British student experience. But I hope Americans can relate too. If you have any questions, ask a Brit.