Disclaimer - Not mine. All named characters are Terry Pratchett's and Neil Gaiman's. I am just dusting them off for a bit. All characters that are named, but not of the two writer's stated before (there are around...2 in this one) they are mine. The others will get names later, hehe. I already have them, I am just not telling.
Notes - Ummm, completely different to the rest of the series. Just thought I would warn you all of that. Angst is all the way through this, with some funny bits...er, I think at least, heh. I can't remember what season it was at the end of the book, so I sort of might have made a few mistakes in this, any of them are my own fault though (please, if I did, tell me in a review, so I can fix it.)
I apologise for the title...I couldn't really find one that fit, but it was originally going to be guilt. It could be anger though in this...make up your own minds on that one.
Thanks go to DragonEyeZ for her look through this and telling me some of the stupid mistakes I made, thanks Dragon! Any left behind are my fault.
Lay Your Hands On Me: 666 - The Beast Within
The day was now finishing, the weather still hotter than it normally was for London. And it was only the start of Summer. There was talk of drought for later on in the year and it was more than likely to happen.
It had been three days since Crowley had walked in on him in such an unflattering way. He hadn't seen the demon since. In all truth, he was beginning to worry slightly, although it was just like Crowley to disappear when he wanted to talk. And he needed to talk. About what had happened, what had pushed him to such acts of...barbarity. Of how he had missed their lunching together, and their walks in St James' Park to feed the ducks.
He would not bring up how much he missed the demon himself. That might not go down too well. Or too good, depending on who you happened to be.
Heaving a sigh and shaking his head slightly, Aziraphale dressed in some of his more dressy clothes, closed the shop, went outside and waited for the next bus to Mayfair.
If Crowley wouldn't come to visit him, well, he would just have to go and visit Crowley.
The day had been marvellous in its heat. Crowley had always been a summer person, as his body didn't seem to work too good in cold weather. The oddity of living in England of all places seemed to have fled though, despite the constant bad weather. If he was asked where he would want to go to live, he would probably say something like South America, Australia, or the Canary Islands. Of course, since everyone in Britain wanted to go to the Canary Islands, he wasn't alone in that thought.
He had spent the day outside waiting for 6pm to come around. What could he say...he liked this day to muck around on. He usually was still asleep during the a.m's though.
The 6th of June had to be his most favourite day of the year. Especially since the making of a certain movie.
He had been playing practical jokes on Humans all day, everything from forgetting something and having to hike a mile back to get it, to having people finding out their significant others were having affairs. For his grand performance though, he was eagerly waiting on one of the slightly more bendy roads in his town, ready to cause a six car pile up (any more than that and it would ruin the joke) with no, to minor injuries.
Hey, he may be evil, but that didn't mean he was a bad person by nature.
He looked at his watch, which was absolutely precise to the second, and possibly the only watch or clock in the world to be so, and started the countdown. "3, 2, 1. Now!" And with that, the front tyre on the driver's side of the car going past him blew and the automobile spun out of control, crashing slightly into a pole. The driver got out just as the next car slammed into the first, which was soon followed by four more. Six furious drivers were yelling and screaming and saying things no good citizen in the world ever would.
Crowley patted himself on the back and left the street. It was by total chance that he happened to hear the breaking glass followed by other breaking noises and a loud blaring horn sounding. He had not done it, he thought, and went to investigate.
Rounding the corner onto the street he had heard the noise, he couldn't help but wince at the sight that greeted his serpentine eyes. A bus lay on its side, one wheel punctured and flat and still spinning. The part where the passengers sat was through the window of a shop that sold china figurines and dinner sets. There were no passengers inside the bus, though there had been but moments before. Only the driver, quite dead, was still inside, his body still laying against the horn.
Slowly he walked closer, until he felt the crunch of glass under his boots. He couldn't possibly have caused this mess. For one, he hadn't been on the road, for another, he had already had his fun...and this aimless slaughter of people was not his style, or even in his tastes, at all.
One of the passengers moved and sat up, and he could make out the white head of an old woman. She began to look about her in a panic. Taking in a deep breath, he decided the least he could do was help. No one else was around to do so.
He whipped out his cell phone and dialled for an ambulance, informing the police that there had been an accident and there were injured and dead. He would have left it at that and gone home if he hadn't caught the eye of the woman, now joined by a dazed, equally old looking man.
"Thank you young man, neither me nor my husband has a phone, my leg is broken and I don't think my dear Arnold is in much of a state for walking either."
A bit dazed at being thanked nicely for once, he shrugged his shoulders slightly and smiled. He begun looking about the shop and the bus wreck. All up, six people, including the driver had been on the bus. Three were beyond a hospital, quite dead. One had been thrown clear across the shop and had landed amongst some shattered plates, the other hadn't been thrown more than an inch and had been caught by the bus. Both had been younger than his human persona was. Twenty-Two at the most.
Two others were the old couple.
It had taken a while for him to find the last, but when he did he was shocked. At first all he had seen was a mess of longish dark blond, wavy hair, which was slowly turning red around the edges, though he couldn't see where the blood was coming from.
When he noted that the body was still breathing, he sighed in slight relief, turned the chap over only to be looking into the one face he knew almost as well as his own. There was a huge cut across Aziraphale's forehead that was heavily bleeding, which explained his darkening hair and the growing puddle of the viscous liquid where his head had been. His eyes were closed as if he was sleeping.
"Angel? Come on, this is a mean trick, wake up," he called out, grabbing one wet shoulder and shaking it slightly. All that accomplished was to make Aziraphale's head roll.
"Angel? Aziraphale! Come on, wake up!" He gave the shoulder another shake and the limp head fell lifelessly to one side. "Come on, don't die on me now, please..."
He was begging. It was so unbecoming of him, but given the circumstances, he would do all the begging, pleading and whining he felt like. All of a sudden he had no idea what to do if Aziraphale was gone, even if he were to come back, and there was no guarantee he would be allowed. He...needed the angel in his life.
He was just deciding that if there was any time to burst into panicked tears, that this was that moment, when he heard the sirens of an approaching ambulance. He settled for a relieved sigh instead. The angel could go to the hospital, wake up and heal himself all better, before they could go to his apartment and get absolutely sloshed.
It sounded like a marvellous plan, really. The only problem being that Aziraphale's short stint with sleep had put the angel off ever doing it again and now the hard part seemed to be waking him up. Something was dreadfully wrong with that.
"Come on, just...don't die, wait until the ambulance arrives and they will make you all better." It was better right now to have a fool's hope, than no hope at all, and he had no idea what was wrong apart from the cut.
Two ambulance pulled up outside the shop and he heard the unmistakeable sound of stretchers being readied. He watched as two paramedics rushed over to the old couple and began to look them over. He missed the two coming over to him somehow, and jumped half a mile when one, a woman who kept smiling at him, asked for Aziraphale. He clung stupidly to the angel, not wanting to let go. He only then noticed that he was shaking.
"Come along, I need to look at him to see what is wrong and help him," the woman stated and thinking that was the reason for calling the ambulance anyway, he finally relinquished his hold.
He couldn't watch as the paramedic began to poke at the cut, before placing a thick bandage over it, hoping to stop the bleeding. The man with her then helped load the angel onto the stretcher. He had watched as the bus was moved off the young man trapped under it, showing a badly broken lower half. Watched as the corpses of the three dead were lined up and zipped shut. Closed his eyes at the sight of how bad it all seemed. Of how bad it all was. Hell couldn't think of worse, meaning that this one was just one of those freak accidents.
He jumped as another hand, one from another medic who had been looking after the couple still alive. "I asked if you were in the crash too," was asked and this time he heard.
"Uh, no. I was taking a walk and heard the crash. I'm the one who called it in."
The man then went about taking off his glasses and shined a torch in his eyes. Needless to say, he was a bit surprised, but took the slitted, golden eyes for what they were. Eyes. The light made him get a headache. To add to lists of his own complaints, he was beginning to feel kind of nauseus. Alright, he felt like he was about to be sick everywhere. As soon as the thought crossed his mind, he was doubled over and vomiting up his lunch.
He was freezing, which was a bit odd seeing as how it was a hot day, and he couldn't seem to stop shaking. A heavy blanket was wrapped about him and he curled himself up in it as if he were too cool and needed the heat to move. It was a snakish moment, but the medics didn't seem to catch it. He didn't know that it was possible for demons to fall into shock. Or that he was showing signs of being in it in the first place.
He was allowed to ride in the back of the ambulance with Aziraphale, the old woman and man seated with them, the three bodies in the other ambulance. Why a coroner was not called didn't enter their minds. Perhaps it was, sadly, a busy day.
Crowley sat with his back hunched, holding onto the limp and lifeless hand that was nearest to his own. Aziraphale hadn't so much as stirred, and his neck was in one of those casts to stop movement from happening. Did that mean the angel's neck might be broken, or was it just precautionary and something the paramedics werre taught to do in this kind of situation? He hoped that it was just a precaution. Honestly, the angel could barely cope with this century, to cope with it unable to move would be the end of Aziraphale.
A little voice deep in his head whispered that the angel may be dying now. That he may bleed to death, that he may just die of unknown and bleeding wounds inside. He may never see those blue eyes look at him with that look of annoyance Aziraphale usually adopted around him. He would never hear the slightly high laughter of the angel ever again, he wouldn't be able to talk to him again.
"Come on angel. Wake up, please." He clutched at Aziraphale's hand, hoping if he was still taking things in somewhere in his unconscious state, that that was it. It was not often he said please and when he did he always meant it. He meant it now more than any other time he had uttered the word.
"You know him then?" the old woman asked, glancing at their joined hands and smiling. "He is a good man. I am sure that God will take that into consideration."
Those words made Crowley glare. "Oh He better, or I will personally break into Heaven just to have a go at Him. The old, conniving bastard that he is!"
"It is not God's fault that your friend happens to be in this dilemma," the woman stated, glaring right back. Crowley, who had conveniently put his glasses back on after the doctor had stopped looking at him, tore them off his face and glared even sharper.
"No," he hissed, "but it is His fault that I am what I am. Don't preach to me lady, you don't know anything about God."
The woman in question turned pale, well, paler than she already was, at the sight of his odd looking eyes. Yes, let her wonder on that one, Crowley thought, and may she never forget. He shoved the glasses back onto his face and turned away, slightly beginning to run his fingers over Aziraphale's hand in a gesture that he wasn't mad at the angel. Sometimes Aziraphale thought he was angry because of something that he had done, but normally he wasn't. it took more than the angel nowadays to get him angry, except for...well, their fight they had a few days ago. No, this wasn't punishment on Aziraphale, it was his punishment for being an idiot himself.
He was suddenly extremely tired with everything that was going on and he closed his eyes, hoping to get a few good hours of sleep. He was stopped from even doing that and forgetting for a while by a hand shaking his shoulder. "Don't fall asleep," he was told by the one paramedic who had squeezed her way into the back with them all to look after Aziraphale.
He sulked the rest of the way to the hospital, unable to do one thing that would let him enjoy himself in the nightmare that his life currently seemed to be. Oh yes, right now he was very angry at everyone and no one in particular. He knew better than to muck around with people in a hospital though, especially since one of the patients was the one person that he could rely on to always be around. And that may be about to change.
A few hours later he found himself sitting in a chair next to the bed Aziraphale was now lying in. Aziraphale had been whisked away in a hurry to some place he couldn't follow and had been tested on for the past who knew how long. All he knew was he felt a little relief at seeing the neck brace was now off and that meant no break, or at least, he hoped it meant that. The angel wasn't yet awake, and he still hadn't been told why. It was odd really, shouldn't they tell him what was wrong? Before he could contemplate the thought more than he already was, Aziraphale shifted slightly and let out a low groan of pain.
"Aziraphale? Can you hear me, how do you feel, are you alright?" he asked, firing the questions off before taking in a deep breath.
"Crowley?" came a small voice, just slightly over the tone of a whimpered whisper. "My head hurts...I feel like I am floating." One perfectly manicured hand, or at least what was until nails had cracked and blood was showing under what was left of them, raised to lightly touch his head. "Why am I bandaged? Did I fall and hit my head?"
Crowley went utterly still, in a way that would have alerted Aziraphale that something was wrong if the angel had his eyes opened. "You...don't remember what happened?"
"Remember what? How I hurt my head? No...I remember deciding to go to your flat to apologise, and walking to the bus stop...everything after that is blank."
Crowley closed his eyes and pra...er, hoped that he didn't have to explain what had happened. May the angel get his own memories back. He didn't want to be the one to say that there had been deaths. Aziraphale would fly into a fit...and fall into grief. He always did if something bad like this happened in London. He always felt responsible for the people in the city, and the towns nearby...and most of England for that matter. It was his post, his station, was where God wanted his angel. "You have nothing to apologise for. I'm the one who took things too far. I should be apologising to you." He opened his eyes again just in time to see the smile Aziraphale got whenever he was proud at him for some odd reason.
"Thank you, my dear. I'm tired...I don't normally get tired."
"Well, stay awake for a little while. Just until someone checks on you," replied Crowley, as he pushed the call button. Aziraphale only just noticed it after he had touched it.
"I'm in hospital? Why?"
"It was a very nasty bump on the head. You've been unconscious for six hours. You had me worried. Don't go off and do this again," he replied, an odd sense of anger coming over him then that he did not understand. He was supposed to be happy here, not mad. He stood up and began to pace the small private room.
"Please stop that, you're making me feel ill..." Aziraphale whispered, and when Crowley turned to tell him to bugger off, he saw the green sheen to the angel's skin. He froze on the spot.
At that moment, a doctor walked in, bustling about. He checked vitals and went through some medical jargon for saying that Aziraphale would live and then began to ask Aziraphale questions. "Do you know your name?"
Aziraphale blinked. "Yes, I know my name, and I know Crowley's name too. He's the one standing behind you."
The doctor looked at him then looked back at his patient. "Do you know the date?"
Aziraphale sighed loudly. "Well, since I was told I have been unconscious for six hours I am guessing it is a few minutes into June the Seventh."
The doctor looked blankly at him for a few moments, before nodding. "Well, at least you seem to have no damage to your memory. You had x-rays and scans done on your head and we found some bruising to the brain. It should fade on its own as it is not an extensive injury, but expect to have problems some time in the near future with your memory, especially with things like keys, glasses and the like."
Aziraphale just smiled. He would have nodded too, Crowley knew, but the angel looked like he would lose his lunch if he did so. "It has been noted dear boy. Can I sit up?"
The doctor, who looked to be in his late forties, looked kind of odd at the address that had been used for him, but shook his head in the negative. "Try to get more rest. It is the best thing for you at the moment."
Aziraphale sighed slightly, but said that it was alright and he was feeling tired anyway. Crowley could see that the angel wasn't lying.
The sense of triumph he thought he ought to be feeling in a time like this (it's not every day that Aziraphale says he is tired and then falls asleep on his own steam) was absent. He was still worried and now he had some type of brain damage...when the angel woke there was going to be hell to pay.
The six weeks that he had spent first in the hospital and his tries in rehabilitation centres (he could barely keep awake to do anything in them, and had learnt nothing because of this), and then at his bookshop seemed to have dragged by. He spent most of the time sleeping, which felt extremely odd, or wondering vaguely if he should get up off his couch. He was plagued by headaches that came on suddenly and stopped just as fast a few minutes later, of which left him tired, nauseus and aching. They were strong too, and nothing could ease the pain when one struck.
He needed to talk to a doctor about them, but didn't like the thought. It wasn't that he was afraid by them, more that he didn't like being ill in any way, shape or form in the first place. He shouldn't need a doctor for anything.
Holding his head in both hands, waiting for the sharp pain to leave, Aziraphale felt incapable of doing anything. He couldn't concentrate to read to pass the time, he couldn't get up without either being sick or getting so dizzy he fell back down again. He was living in a nightmare, honestly...he just had to wait a while before he woke up fully.
As the pain passed, he felt himself begin to shake. He had never shook after one of his headaches before and, afraid of what would happen, managed to slowly get himself to his feet. He had to stop for a few minutes when he reached his goal, unsteady on his feet and extremely dizzy, but the room soon righted itself as much as it was going to and he took his first step towards the telephone. He had to call someone. A doctor or the hospital. He hated the need to ask, but he needed the help right now.
He made it after a few more tortuous steps to his desk, where he leaned heavily upon it. If he didn't he probably would have been sick. As it was the phone was right in front of him, yet he couldn't get up the gumption to move his arms to pick it up. When he succeeded, he found himself punching in numbers that were nothing like the number to the hospital, and he couldn't recall if he ever used it before. Either way, the phone on the other end bagan to ring.
To his odd astonishment he got Crowley's Ansaphone. But didn't he know this number, probably more than anyone else on the planet? When the beep sounded, he did the unthinkable. He pleaded for help to the demon. "Crowley? Please, if you are home pick up the phone. Something's wrong! Please, at least come over after hearing this."
He hung up without saying goodbye, which was not something he would normally do, but he needed to sit down again, as soon as possible. He fell to the floor where he was and prayed that for the first time ever, someone would enter his shop and call for help.
Since the Armageddon that had almost happened, another little job had popped up on Crowley's list of To-Do's from Hell. Once a month, he was to go check on Adam to see if he was any way inclined to starting over again and destroying the world. He was the wrong demon for the job. He had been on earth for far too long and the boy could pick up on his feelings, so it always come down to rather silly converstions about what would be better changed (not that Adam DID change anything, it was just talk). Of course any conversation he had with a 12 year old was liable to be a bit silly, especially when said 12 year old knew how old he was, and what he was for that matter.
He had the odd impression that Adam liked both him and Aziraphale. And the kid just plain knew things.
It was kind of creepy really.
He had been in a rather odd mood, feeling as if he had forgotten something all day, only to have Adam tell him he was needed back home. He knew the Antichrist wasn't talking about Hell, but he just couldn't put his finger on why he may be needed back at his flat. He hoped that it had nothing to do with Hastur coming after him with revenge on his mind. He may just have to break out the holy water again, and that would just leave another unfortunate stain in his expensive carpet.
After he had checked that there was no Duke of Hell waiting to drag him kicking and screaming back to Hell in his apartment, he relaxed enough to go to his ansaphone, see the blinking red light and listen to the message. He was once again out of his apartment before the message had played all the way through.
It took him a little under 7 minutes to arrive at the shop, breaking a few road rules along the way as per usual. He saw the door was locked and the sign on it said the bookshop was closed. He went on in anyway, going straight for the back room. He was expecting to see Aziraphale on the couch again, where he had left the angel when he had gotten the all clear to go home. Instead he found him hunched up on the floor, crying softly into his hands, his dark blonde hair messed up by foul smelling vomit.
"Aziraphale? You alright now? Come on, being sick isn't all that bad is it?" he asked, slowly walking over to the heap of angel on the floor, and begun lifting him up off the floor. He was quite surprised to find himself being hit by flailing arms.
"Get off me, you bastard! You can't even pick up a phone when it rings!"
Crowley blinked slightly at that. But the angel knew he had to go see Adam now and then, even knew the dates... "I wasn't home, or I would have. I got here before the message even stopped playing, depending on how long it was..." For as much as he knew, this was the truth.
"I don't care if you went to Hell! You didn't come when I called and I was sick and I thought that there was something very wrong with me because I couldn't stop shaking and...and now I am making no sense!" Aziraphale shifted in his arms. Soon Crowley was holding the angel in a hug that was crushing him. The soft crying from before got harder then, and it was all Crowley could do to try and comfort the angel.
It was a very long time, or what felt like it, before Aziraphale calmed down again. "Are you still angry with me?" he asked quietly hoping that the answer would be no. For once, he had done nothing wrong. And this anger was making him feel miserable.
Aziraphale just shook his head, no. Carefully, hoping that the angel wasn't sick all over his good suit, Crowley picked Aziraphale up and took him over to the couch and laid him on it again. "Think you wil be alright now?"
Aziraphale blinked and glanced up at him, slightly glazed eyes making him look stoned. It didn't suit the angel at all. He was about to make a joke of it, when those eyes cleared again. "I...I would prefer not to be alone. I think that there is something very wrong. I...I didn't know which number I was dialling until I head your voice on the other end. How could I not know that I was calling your number?"
Crowley sighed lightly and shook his head. "The doctors did tell you that you may have memory problems."
"But...Oh, I hate this, I really do. And I am angry! I'm not supposed to get angry. You have no idea how much this pisses me off!"
Crowley blinked and snorted slightly. "Using that language, yeah, I can tell."
Aziraphale sniffed slightly and hit his arm. "Don't push your luck, demon."
Crowley couldn't help it, he smiled. "Going to smite me, angel? Well, better rest that head of yours first then. You could camp at my house until your better if you want?"
Aziraphale blinked. "But, don't you only have one bedroom?"
Crowley looked down at him sheepishly. "Well, I was kind of going to ask anyway a bit later, but didn't know when to do so, and I made my study into an extra bedroom for you just in case you said yes..." he hoped that the sudden warm feeling in his cheeks wasn't a blush. He hated doing something so...girlish. Not that there was anything wrong with it when it was Aziraphale doing so, he just didn't like it in himself.
Aziraphale's face brightened slightly at the invitation and what he had just told him, and he could feel the heat in his face crawling its way down his neck. Damn it...why was he acting like this?
"Well, I would need help walking to the car...and I might get sick again."
This made him pale back up again. "Not in my car, you don't."
It took only a short five minutes for them to get to the car, and an even shorter five to get back to his flat. The angel wasn't sick in the car. He had waited until they were in the lift. He cleaned up the mess with a wave of his hand and hoped no one noticed.
As he opened up his flat to the angel, he promised to himself not to let Aziraphale out of his sight until he was better, even if that took the rest of forever.