Well... here it is, Chapter 3 - Somnia e Caelis (Dreams from Heaven), and this is where the plot really gets going.

I don't own Good Omens, or Aziraphale and Crowley. The characters Ciar Vaughn and Lily Hill, however, do belong to me.


He pushed past the man blocking his path – stupid, inconsequential humans, getting in his way – and darted towards the door. He burst through, shouting his friend's name. The heat hit him and for a second it felt like he'd run into a wall. He gasped, shook his head, ploughed on into the smoke, shouting again. "You – you stupid -" There was still no answer, and the fear shot through him again, as if someone had stabbed him in the stomach – not a pleasant experience, and he should know. It had happened more than a few times in his lifetime, though thankfully not recently – "Are you here?" He listened for any indication of his friend's whereabouts. Nothing. Just the crackle of burning paper, the splintering of glass as the fire reached the upstairs rooms, the crash of collapsing timbers. He scanned the shop urgently, desperately looking for any sign of his friend, of help.

A bookshelf toppled over with a crash, the contents crumbling into smouldering ash. His trouser leg caught fire as he took a step and he glared at it to make it stop, ignoring the fire as he ventured deeper, yelling his friend's name again. "For Go-, for Sa-, for Somebody's sake!" he shrieked, and spun as the window smashed behind him.

A jet of water struck him in the chest, sending him flying, his sunglasses bouncing off into a corner of the room and melting into an acrid puddle. Ash coated his trouser legs, the water that soaked him coming off in steam as it evaporated in the heat. He swiped at his face and his hand came away blackened.

The shop crumbled around him.

And he cursed. He cursed the angel, the "Great" Ineffable Bloody Plan, and everything Above, Below, and In Between.


Ciar jerked awake with a gasp, and sat up, one hand reaching up to tangle into his dark hair. His eyes took in the familiar room and he sighed, burying his face in his hands. Just a dream… Just another dream…

He swung his legs out of bed and made his way to the bathroom, musing. The dreams had always been just a fact of life for him, something that he couldn't remember not having. He squeezed some toothpaste onto his toothbrush and began to scrub at his teeth.

And yet… No one else that he knew had dreams that were so real, so vivid… No one else remembered every single moment of their dreams as clearly as they had been while they were still asleep. No one else had dreams that seemed to last for years. No one else had dreams that followed on from each other, night after night, until they felt like a second life.

No one else woke up every morning and had to feel the pain of having to realise, over and over, that it wasn't real, that it was all in their head.

He spat the toothpaste into the sink, rinsed out his mouth and the toothbrush, depositing it into the cup he kept it in, and bared his teeth in the mirror in a fake grin that only showed off his unusually sharp canines. He turned away.

He could remember being seven years old and delightedly telling his mother all about a dream he'd had in which he'd been a snake. She'd only laughed, called him adorable, but as the dreams went on she'd become afraid when he kept describing them and had sent him to a psychiatrist. He hadn't known, at the time, what he was describing. He hadn't known that some of the things he'd been telling her were things that no seven-year-old should know.

He dragged a comb through his hair, sprayed deodorant – he'd shower in the evening, there was no time this morning – and left the bathroom.

Seven-year-old Ciar had been a quick learner. He'd quickly realised that his dreams scared people and started pretending that they'd stopped. The psychiatrist decided that there was nothing to worry about and he was sent on his way. But the dreams still came.

He pulled on black trousers, a white shirt, which he left untucked, knotted a black tie loosely around his neck, shrugged on a black jacket and grabbed his shoes.

It was time to head for his job interview.

He'd mentioned his dreams to only a few others since then, mostly in his university years, usually while drunk. Most of them had thought him crazy. A few people had described their own recurring dreams to him, but none of those dreams had been as vivid as his, none of those people had become so engrossed in their dreams that they'd felt real, none of them had dreams that changed every single night and yet stayed the same.

He paused at the bottom of the stairs, decided that he had time for breakfast, and grabbed a bowl of cereal.

One girl had been captivated by his description of what it felt like to fly. He'd had a relationship with her that had lasted a few months, and in that time he'd admitted how painful it was to wake up every day, thinking you were someone else, and then realise that it was all imaginary, and confessed to her what he'd never told anyone else. There was one person in his dreams that was constant. An angel with blonde hair and blue eyes, who dressed in tartan and tweed, loved books and silver Regency snuffboxes and was, when you got right down to it, disturbingly wrathful for an angel. She'd noticed the change in his whole demeanour when he described his angel (Ciar himself hadn't), smiled, and told him about a dream she'd had once in which she'd met the girl of her dreams (Lily – that was her name – was bisexual). It had seemed to last for months, she'd told him, and when she woke up she'd cried and tried to go back to sleep, but she hadn't been able to. In time, she told him in a quiet voice, she'd gotten over it.

He tossed the empty bowl in the sink, stopped at the door to grab his sunglasses – it was the middle of summer and very bright out – and as he slid them onto his nose and slammed the door shut behind him, he realised the most important difference between him and all the others he'd ever talked to about dreams.

None of them were completely, utterly, irrevocably in love with a figment of their own imaginations.


And here, have something extra:

http:/ serene-moonlight .deviantart .com/#/d3di841

I was bored. =P

See ya next week with Chapter 4, Domum Reditus, peeps.