Saturday, August 17, 2002 7:59:24 AM
hidoko Matsumoto (aka v0id)
email: voidmatsumoto@yahoo.co.uk
archive: if you really want, please ask. Scheduled to be at http://xz0ne.cjb.net
pairing: Crowley x Aziraphale, appearance of Marilyn Manson (without the Spooky Kids).
notes: I feel like I'm writing an entire sequel altogether… I scared. So, er… I don't think gaiman and prat(hehe)chett meant Brian to turn out to be some psuedo rock star, but we'll make the best of it while we can. ^_^ (whee!-> morning caffeine perks)
Disclaimer: of course, my writing sucks,
and copyright of some characters belong to neilgaiman and terrypratchett…
Marilyn Manson belongs to himself, unless he has already sold his soul
to another entity.
angst, NC-13, violence.
Hastur had a major hand in the
growth of Brian after the apocalypse. He hadn't the power to grant him
superpowers, but he had arranged things for Brian so that everything worked
out slightly in favour of him gaining superpowers.
When Adam stepped down, he
had changed certain things by their core nature (other than Aziraphale's
bookstore), and that was first, his own status; second, Tadfield and third,
the forementioned two, for the sake of repetition. He had wished for the
world to remain as it was, ever-changing and destructive. And he had also
wished for himself to never change. Therefore, by the time the rest of
the Them were sixteen and reinventing goth parties with vampire role playing*,
Adam tagged after them, commanding attention as always, even with his demeanour
of an eleventh.
As for Tadfield, it had never
changed, because that was the way it had always been—Adam had loved it
too much for it to become like the rest of the world. The population grew
old, some died** occasionally, and some were paralysed and malfunctioning.
But overall, nothing really changed—families were replaced by families
that seemed all together similar to the previous lot.
He hadn't anticipated the Them
to change.
They grew older, and discovered
new things, such as computers and internet access. That, and body chocolate.
Brian began dating a Girl,
got dumped, was laughed at in school, and failed sports. Beezelbub spotted
the perfect chance—Tadfield was a place of magic, with a very strong aura
of love and henceforth distortion. The natural order in Tadfield wasn't
exactly very natural indeed, especially since it changed so little in the
ever-changing-more-and-more-rapidly world.
And Brian himself was full
of love and henceforth distortion.
Beezelbub sent Hastur without
informing Crowley until the Second Apocalypse came. The only reason that
Satan didn't kick the demon's ass was because he sent useful footnotes
back to hell occasionally, such as the wondrous disclaimer from computer
packages which was widely applied in Hell. Besides, if Crowley was kept
there, he would serve as a purposeful figurehead to distract Aziraphale,
not that they meant it that way***.
Hastur had arranged
things, under the dictatorship of Beezelbub.
It was said that Marilyn Manson
came from America, but this widely-known lore was majorly faulty in this
alternate plane of fangirl-universe. Yes, he came from Tadfield, under
the special protection of Hastur which came under the specific dictatorship
of Beezelbub which was all by the way part of the Ineffable Plan (AKA Great
Plan#2, or the plan of a plan).
It was no wonder that they
thought so, given that America seemed to think that the world rotated around
itself, and that the whole world thought that it rotated around America.
No sports player, except for a painfully wringed two, got on the top list
of People Earning Most Endorsements if they had never played in America.
Besides, Britain and France didn't think themselves as the rest of the
world; they were The World.
Brian had, however, been moved
to America for fame. Nobody knew the official reason, although Brian's
family mumbled something about job opportunities.
And so, leaving a crying Wensleydale
and Pepper and Adam, he traveled off to the faraway land, much unknown
by its slightly more Eastern counterpart. He had gotten drunk, discovered
dope, found himself naked on the highway stranded in the middle of nowhere
once, gotten fined and interrogated all the time, and somehow survived
hitch-hiking despite the number of misfits that had occurred to him.
And so, wretched and vengeful,
Brian formed a band—the band that was to change the world. Or at least,
rant about it impassively until it thought it was time to yell back and
put him in jail.
Marilyn Manson and the Spooky
Kids. That was before it became shortchanged as Marilyn Manson, because
people were too lazy to pronounce the other five syllables.
Enough of plot development.
Over at Crowley's side, he was wondering why Aziraphale was the first to
inform him that the Second Apocalypse was near and not Hell. He was also
having weird dreams, such as the one from Victorian times when he did some
minor slaughtering.
Which was generally… bad.
Just as he was waking up to
normal morning coffee, the phoneline to Hell was connected, and Crowley
found the most unpleasant of voices speaking to him with static. According
to the radio that day, Crowley was supposed to take care of the hell-cat
they had just sent out, and no that is not meant to be an oxymoron, yes,
Crowley's job was to take care of it until the Second Apocalypse came.
Hastur was, afterall, a Duke and wasn't meant to be taking care of such
minor things. Besides, he had a certain allergy to furballs.
Cat? What cat? Crowley sat
in his apartment for days, only to become slightly frustrated from too
much coffee.
Unfortunately, there was a
local miscommunication. It seemed that they sent the message a moment too
late, for the Satanic Hell-cat was already cradled in Aziraphale's arms
by the time Crowley got to hear about it. So much for the red tapes leading
up the corporate ladder. Someone had better re-install the phone lines
and turn up the volume. Oh, and turn off the damn ansaphone, Crowley.
The kitten's nose was slightly
blackened, but it was still as adorable as possible. The fur was long,
and it rubbed itself against Aziraphale's sweater, occasionally getting
a few threads of knit unlocked in the process. For a moment it had seemed
fascinated with Aziraphale's toenails, and then it got entangled in Aziraphale's
checkered sweater, and then it embarked on an adventurous journey pertaining
to kitten-food that Aziraphale had obtained from a nearby provision store.
The kitten was happy. Really,
it was. It would never have been so happy—after all, its job was to provide
most unpleasantness in town. Of course, Aziraphale was slightly masochistic
(and OOC), which explains all the happiness there was in the bookstore.
Besides, the kitten was usually locked where the least damage was to be
done—above the bookstore in the washroom, where all evils were quickly
washed away with a hose.
Aziraphale adored the kitten,
and the kitten adored him. He sat cradling the kitten in his arms on the
armchair, watching as it scratched the upholstery, and wondering if he
should have given the kitten to Anathema. Afterall, witches never seemed
complete without cats around them, pardonez moi for the cliché but
that's the way it works. Besides, Aziraphale was certain that kids loved
cats… And he was indeed worried about his first-pressing collection.
Pepper hated her job. Or at
least she thought she hated it. It was the utmost boring job in the whole
wide world, she thought as she watched quite literally, as the world went
by. Adam had just ran past again with Dog, and lodged himself in the storeroom.
Somewhere in the kitchen someone
was yelling, "Pepper, get him out of here!"
"Adam," She muttered, annoyed.
Somebody was worth more trouble than he was worth.
When she was young she respected
him. Now he just seemed like a worthless thug.
'I'll give Young a what-for,
missus, get him out of here…" ranted the voice.
As Pepper ignored the voices
and settled down to read a book at the restaurant table, ignoring the miser
boss' stare and the yells emerging from the back of the cul-de-sac, she
briefly wondered if her life was to be wasted in Tadfield. It was a small
little place in the middle of nowhere, with nothing happening and no one
emerging, except for a little pseudo-kid named Adam, and Wensleydale who
studied accountancy.
Pepper, Wensleydale and Adam
were what was left of Them. The Johnsonites had disbanded, after the ever-so-endearing
Greasy Johnson had attempted to send Pepper flowers on her birthday and
got his rump inconveniently displaced. Meanwhile Anathema's three-year-old
child, Macy, had endeared herself to the neighbourhood with her charm.
As for Pepper herself, she had disobeyed her mother and got a job while
flunking school altogether, and found that nothing was her cup of tea so
far, even vampire-roleplaying.
Especially vampire-roleplaying.
Currently she was wearing a baby-tee, jacket and long jeans.
"Pepper!" Yelled the agitated
boss' voice, "There's a customer!"
She looked up from her book
and saw a young man stroll in, sunglasses on his nosebridge, his thick
lips pursed in apprehension. She got up to pass him the menu, trying to
break into a happy-business-smile-that-would-hopefully-keep-her-employed-until-her-mom-was-less-angry,
when Dog dashed from between her footsteps, so that she tripped and fell.
"Dog!" There was a shrill,
agonised voice, and Adam crawled out from the storeroom.
"A dead one once I get my hands
on—" Pepper froze.
Adam froze, too. And Dog was
the only one animatedly leaping at the stranger, wagging his tail and barking
cheerfully.
"…Brian?"
~~~~
* thereby reinventing vampire roleplaying
altogether.
** but lived to a really ripe
old age, almost falling short of the early days in the bible. Recounted
David, those were the Good Old Days…
*** which, by the way, was indeed
The Way it turned out. *cough* The scene where Aziraphale was jumping out
of bed and running around Crowley's room naked while Crowley dreamt that
he was a cat (the part after the prologue), to be specific.
…O_o; I just realised… What sort of
freak thinks that writing stories waaaay early in the morning with a cup
of coffee is like breakfast? (Stomach complaining)
C&C welcomed.^_^