Disclaimer: Aziraphale, Crowley, and Good Omens are created and copyrighted by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. This is a fanfic, intended only in the spirit of fun. Tons of love and thanks is owed to the amazing and wonderful Daegaer, who provided tons of feedback for the first half of the fic, and then ended up somehow volunteering herself as a beta-reader and a proofreader, and who helped me correct many of my Americanisms with proper British English. And thanks to y'all for reading!
Ordinary Miracles
by Nenena
Chapter 15
Hoagland, Edward. 1970. The Courage of Turtles: Fifteen Essays about Compassion, Pain, and Love. Random House, New York. PS3558.O334 A16
Theo froze in his tracks, and a chill shiver slithered up and down his spine. Then he heard some more shouting, and the sound of something gigantic crashing through the woods--
The Devil suddenly grabbed Theo's hand and yanked him forward, and then they were rushing through the woods, crashing through the snow and any low-lying brush that dared to try to tangle their feet or to slow them down. "Come on," Lucifer was panting, "Come on! Faster, you idiot boy!! It must be straight ahead of us!"
They suddenly burst through the trees and onto the edge of a small clearing, and Lucifer ground to a halt, as Theo nearly ran straight into him. Theo managed to stop himself, stumbled, regained his balance, glanced up, and saw that Lucifer was staring, momentarily transfixed and horrified, at something on the far side of the clearing. Theo followed Lucifer's line of sight, and then felt his heart suddenly leap into his throat.
Crowley and Pauline were crouching precariously on a branch high up in a tree on the opposite side of the clearing, clutching each other for balance. Pauline's left leg was slimed up to her knee; a tattered bit of broken equation was wrapped around her ankle. Like a dog sniffing a treed cat, the enormous blob of a miracle was wrapping itself around the base of the tree, extending pseudopods up as high as it could, seeking, searching for its prey. Theo could see the remains of what must have been Pauline's briefcase dissolving near one edge of the blob. Bits of leather and yellow teeth and what looked like a fleshy lip floated in the glittering mass.
"You're sure it can't climb trees?!" Pauline was asking Crowley frantically.
"Pretty sure, I mean, it doesn't have any legs or anything like... Uh... "
He trailed off because Pauline's eyes were bugging out of her head as she stared down, watching the blob beginning to squeeze itself tighter around the trunk and inch itself up the length of the tree, using its tangled strings of central equations as ropes to grip and hoist itself.
Lucifer stared at this site for exactly half a second, before he began shouting. "You two!" he barked, gesturing furiously to get the demons' attention. Unfortunately, just as Theo had feared, the miracle seemed to pause and suddenly notice the both of them, too. "GET AWAY FROM THAT TREE!" Lucifer was shouting at them, while they stared at him, stupid and panicked. "YOU HAVE WINGS, YOU CAN FLY, USE YOUR WINGS, GET THE HEAVEN AWAY FROM THERE!"
That seemed to shake the both of them out of their stupor. "Come on," Crowley said quickly, grasping Pauline's hand and carefully pulling her into a more-or-less standing position, as two pairs of feathery black wings unfolded behind them.
"We can't lift off here," Pauline was moaning, "we'll fall right into it!"
But that was already a moot point. The miracle had abandoned the trunk of the tree, and the treed demons that it had trapped. It was currently rushing toward the Devil and the generally more interesting (and more close to the ground) prey in that direction.
"Hold on," Lucifer said, sounding for a horrifying moment uncannily like Aziraphale had in the diner they had escaped earlier. Theo felt enormous arms closing around him, felt his feet being lifted off the ground, felt the rush of wind against his back as graceful black wings unfurled and beat against the ground, sending them both airborne.
The ground rushed away from them. Theo held back a frightened scream as he felt himself soar up, then down, sideways, roll into a stomach-twisting spin, and then fly off and up again, all the while clutching to Lucifer's black L.L. Bean coat, holding on for dear life, for once actually relieved to feel the Devil's grip tightening around his midsection. "That's right!" Lucifer was screaming at the ground beneath them, where the shimmering blob was rushing along, clumsily dodging trees and brush as it sped along below them. "That's right, this way, follow me! Follow me this way! THIS WAY!!"
Lucifer suddenly swooped low, the tips of his wings brushing against the treetops. "See this?!" he screamed, giving Theo a rough shake. "You want this one, don't you, DON'T YOU?!"
"Don't!" Theo gasped, clutching the Devil tighter. He risked a glance downward, and could see the thick cords of equations in the center of the miracle twisting and writhing around each other more frantically than they ever had before; the blob was clearly enraged.
Suddenly, the treetops ended, and they burst over the top of a wide clearing. In the center of the clearing stood an angel, with a military-issue semi-automatic rifle slung over his shoulder and a very business-like expression on his face.
The angel smiled grimly as the miracle burst through the brush right in front of him. It was going far too fast to stop itself. "Say g'night, then," Theo distinctly heard Aziraphale say, before he open-fired.
The roar of the semi-automatic weapon was deafening. Theo caught one glimpse of the blob rearing up toward the sky even as the ropy, tangled mess of central equations in its core seemed to be shredding themselves and then exploding outward in all directions. Then the thing began to steam and hiss, and as bullets streamed through its body and more of its central equations were torn to shreds, its glittering, jelly-like mass began to sizzle and evaporate in puffs of glittery, sweet-smelling steam. Theo heard a low roar vibrating through his skull, a low roar that slowly and painfully grew in pitch and volume until it sounded like the most angry, haunting, other-worldly keening Theo had ever heard--
Lucifer swooped back around the top of Aziraphale's clearing, still clutching Theo tightly to his body, and managed to wrap one hand around Theo's ears. "That's its death-scream," he said, "and you don't want to be listening to it."
The vibrating cry within Theo's skull ceased, and Theo actually managed to breath a sigh of relief.
The Colt suddenly ceased firing, and for a moment, the absence of machine-gun report was so deafening, that it seemed to Theo that the clearing had actually fallen silent. But then he realized that the wind was still rushing by his head and whistling softly, lowly, as the Devil still circled the air above the clearing below. Theo looked down and could see the miracle hissing and oozing and bubbling and shrinking back into itself, growing smaller and smaller by the minute. Aziraphale craned his head to look up at them both, patted the Colt satisfactorily as he hefted it against its shoulder strap, smirked triumphantly, and even raised his hand and gave them a thumbs-up sign.
Theo twisted his head around - Lucifer was no longer holding his hand over his ears - and tried to get a better look at the miracle's death throes. Then he glanced over at the angel and saw something in Aziraphale's face change. The angel was still staring up at them both, but his smile was fading, and all of a sudden, a dark shadow seemed to cross over his face. Theo saw Aziraphale raise his eyebrows, his eyes shining with a sudden, strange fear. The angel opened his mouth to shout something up at them--
"Hold on," Lucifer suddenly told Theo, and Theo clutched at him tightly. Lucifer dove, spiraling down toward the ground, and when Theo realized that they weren't going to pull up, he opened his mouth, and he screamed.
He screamed all the way down, through the ground, through the snow and the frozen dirt beneath, feeling himself passing through layers and layers of scathingly cold sediment, feeling a hot wind beginning to rush up past his ears, feeling his throat beginning to burn--
Lucifer's black wings propelled them relentlessly down through the ground. He tightened his grip around Theo, and Theo could feel his hands growing larger, his claws beginning to tear through his coat and clothes and dig painfully into his flesh. "No, no, no, no, no!" Theo cried futilely, as it began to dawn on him what was happening. But then Lucifer leaned in close and whispered in a voice that burned Theo's ear, "Oh, yes. There's no way that I can let you get away with this, not after what you did to me, not after what you did to my demons, to my kingdom. You're going to pay for this, little boy. You're going to pay for an eternity."
Theo choked back a sob. Aziraphale had been successful, then; the miracle was dead, its changes had all been undone, and the Devil was back to his normal self.
They burst through the bedrock and into a bright, sunny place.
"AW, BLESS IT!" Lucifer roared as blue sky spun above them and a colorful field of flowers spread below them. They spun through the air, and Theo distinctly caught a glimpse of hopping bunnies among the flowers below. Very, very cute, bunnies, hopping along happily, although not quite so happily that it was not obvious that they were trying in a very cute, happy way to get as far away from the black-winged shadow in the sky, as quickly as they cutely, happily could.
Lucifer landed, sweeping his wings gracefully behind him as he set his feet down in the soft grass, pushing Theo out of his arms and down onto the ground with a disgusted shove. Theo fell to his knees, inhaling the scent of flowers and spring dew, and quickly scrambled back into a standing position, thinking for one glorious, hopeful moment that he might actually be able to run away, as long as Lucifer had let him slip out of his grasp for just a split second-- But then Theo glanced up, saw the fire burning in the Devil's eyes, and felt his heart sink down into his stomach. It was hopeless.
The Devil was glancing around the open field, furiously. "BLESS IT!" he roared again, a blast of infernal heat and the stench of burning brimstone exploding from his mouth. Then he clenched his fists, and seemed to calm down for a moment. He glared at Theo, hatefully. "This is your fault," he hissed, snakelike. "It's going to take an eternity to tear down all of the redecorating that's been done to this place!"
"This place...?"
"This is SUPPOSED to be the Five Hundred and Twenty-Ninth Circle!"
Theo managed to smile weakly. "Surely it won't be an eternity to change around all this redecorating, will it? I mean, your demons must have managed all of this in less than forty-eight hours--"
"EVERY MOMENT THAT I HAVE TO SPEND IN THE PRESENCE OF SUNSHINE AND DEWDROPS AND FLUFFY ANIMALS IS AN ETERNITY!!!!"
Theo could smell his own hair singing after the Devil finished roaring into his face. "Point taken," he said, meekly.
"Come on," the Devil snarled, reaching out with his swollen, red,
clawed hand and grasping Theo's arm painfully, yanking him forward. "The only way to go from here is down."
"Wait, wait, wait!" Theo pleaded, trying to dig his heels into the soft earth, although that only made the force of the Devil pulling along on his arm that much more painful. "We had a deal! Pauline and you made a deal with me! You said that if we could destroy the miracle in time, and set everything back to normal, then you would--"
"Did I say something like that?" the Devil asked, rhetorically, leering at Theo, showing off his multiple rows of sharp, sharp teeth. "Well, guess what? I lied."
"But you PROMISED!"
"I can break my promises. That's why I'm the Devil."
"But that's not FAIR!" Theo protested, an edge of panic creeping into his voice. "You can't just bring me down here! I'm an ANGEL! I - I - I haven't even been Damned yet!"
"Trust me, you're Damned now."
"That's not FAIR!" Theo wailed again.
"Not fair, you say?!" The Devil swung Theo roughly around until he was facing him in front, and then reached out of his other hand to grasp Theo's other arm, holding him now completely immobile. "NOT FAIR?!" the Devil roared with his fiery breath, into Theo's face. "NOBODY WHO ENDS UP DOWN HERE EVER THINKS IT'S FAIR! But if you ask me, it's more than a fitting punishment for YOU."
"But I haven't sinned," Theo whimpered.
The Devil smiled then, slowly, stretching and pulling back his lips to reveal his teeth again, only this time, he seemed to have dozens more of them than he had just a moment ago. "You created a monster, and then, you unleashed it upon us," he said, smiling more widely than Theo knew it was possible for a human being to smile. His grin was literally stretching from ear to ear. "Is that fair, I ask you? Is that not a sin? Do you think that I can just walk away from an infernal creature like you without exacting my proper revenge? And, most importantly..." His eyes glittered and twinkled, orange and gold flames dancing behind his clear, blank, unlined irises. "Do you think that I can let Heaven keep their hands on a weapon as powerful as you?"
"It was an accident," Theo whispered, his voice trembling.
"A powerfully stupid weapon, then." He let go of one of Theo's arms and raised his clawed hand to Theo's face, gently, tenderly pushing a lock of Theo's hair away from his pale, sweaty forehead. Theo shuddered with revulsion as Lucifer raked the tip of claw ever so lightly across his cheek. "Oh, my dear little boy," Lucifer sighed, his breath escaping as a great rush of superheated air, "You and I are going to have so much fun, so much fun together. You know what's funny? None of my demons are very happy about what your miracle did to any of them, either. I'm thinking I might round up several dozen of my best torturers from the lower circles, and throw you to them - give them free reign to play with you for a few centuries or so. Your screams will be a fair, soothing music to all of us who go to work every day down there. And then..." The tip of one of his claws traced a line across the top of Theo's scalp, following the part of his hair. "And then we'll cut your head open, scoop out that clever little brain of yours, cut it up, slide it under a microscope, and see if we can see what makes such a fantastically talented coder like you tick. Of course," the Devil shrugged, a false note of regret in his voice, "since you technically can't ever be any more dead than you are now, you'll be alive - and aware - of every sight, every sound, every touch, every taste, every sensation that any part of your body will ever experience, from here until the end of an eternity. Even if I cut you up into six hundred and sixty-six pieces, and scattered each piece throughout the Circles, and let my demons have a run with each little piece of you, you'd still feel everything. EVERYTHING. You'd feel everything that happens to each miniscule particle of your sweet, young flesh. And naturally, even if we do cut you up, we'll have to be extra careful," he said, still grinning, "to make sure to keep this ingeniously-designed throat and mouth of yours whole. For the screaming, you understand. We connoisseurs of the Damned highly value the sound of genuine screaming."
"Please don't," Theo whispered again, his lower lip trembling dangerously, unable to hold back the tears spilling down from his eyes anymore. "Please don't do this, please, it was an accident, I never meant to, I didn't--"
"Oh, my." The Devil shook his head at Theo and "tsked" low in his throat. "I sense that you're ashamed to be crying in front of me. Very well then," he said, suddenly brightly. "I'll show you what a nice guy I really am, and I can help you out with that one, all right? Just hold still, and I'll claw your eyes out for you, and tear up your tear ducts until they won't work anymore." He raised his free hand in front of Theo's face, stretched out his fingers, and held his hand floating there, lazily, the bright sunshine of the Five Hundred and Twenty-Ninth Circle gleaming menacingly on the sharp edges of his dark, black claws. "No more crying, no more shame, not now, not ever. Just screaming. We'll both like it much better that way, won't we? Now hold still."
The Devil's hand shot forward.
Theo squeezed his eyes shut and held his breath, waiting for the inevitable.
It would have been over in less than a second, had not the Devil's hand suddenly frozen, the sharp tips of his claws no more than three millimeters away from Theo's eyelids.
Theo heard the Devil suck in his breath quickly. Then Theo dared to open his eyes, and found himself staring up at a tall, shadowy figure standing behind Lucifer, holding the tip of a Colt M4 Carbine's barrel to the back of the Devil's head.
"That's quite enough," Aziraphale said sternly.
The Devil lowered his hand away from Theo's face and twisted his head around to face the angel, disbelieving. "That thing can't hurt me down here," he said, shooting a contemptuous glance down into the barrel of the Colt.
"How much would you be willing to bet on that?" Aziraphale asked darkly.
"Human weapons cannot harm me. Nothing merely four-dimensional can harm me. Especially not down here." He grinned at Aziraphale, showing off his sharp shark's teeth. "What sort of an idiot angel are you, to challenge the Adversary himself here, on his own home turf?"
Instead of answering the Devil's question, Aziraphale calmly posed one of his own. "What makes you think that this weapon is only four-dimensional?"
Lucifer scoffed. "It's a human gun. You got it from a human. I saw it."
"It was a human weapon. It's my weapon now. And I have been tinkering with it."
Lucifer narrowed his eyes. "You're bluffing."
"I most certainly am not. I do consider myself, not without justification, to be quite the firearms expert, amateur hobbyist though I might be. And I will tell you, sir Morningstar, that I know quite enough about human weapons to be able to add extra dimensional aspects to them, when they suit my purpose."
Lucifer's eyes narrowed even further. The one hand that he had still holding onto Theo's arm with tightened its grip, sinking its claws deep into Theo's coat and cutting into his flesh, drawing blood. Theo winced, but would not cry out. The Devil was standing very awkwardly now, between Theo and Aziraphale; most of his front was facing Theo, but his head had twisted around on his neck in an impossible way so that his face was facing Aziraphale, and Theo could only see the back of his head. "When," Lucifer asked Aziraphale, his voice low and dangerous, "has it ever suited your purposes before?"
Aziraphale grinned humorlessly at him. "There's a first time for everything." He hefted the Colt comfortably in his arms. "I've never actually shot at a demon before. The Good Lord knows that Crowley has certainly tempted me many times, whether he realized that he has or not. But now, I couldn't think of a better time, or a better place, to try this little experiment of mine out. Can the bullets from this human-made weapon truly pierce the flesh of the Adversary himself - the real flesh of the Devil, that is? I have utmost confidence that they can. The question is, how much are you willing to risk that they can't?" Aziraphale squinted, taking aim. "Is that boy really worth the risk?"
"I'm not giving up the boy."
"But that's all that I'm asking for. Let go of the boy, or I'll shoot."
"No," Lucifer growled. "You drop your gun, or I'll wrench the boy's head off."
"Ah. Afraid of this thing now, are you?"
No, Theo begged Aziraphale silently, No, please, stop, you idiot angel, please don't taunt him!
But now the Devil was grinning again. "You can't shoot me here. You'll hit the boy." He suddenly wrenched Theo around to his back, and then turned his body below the neck so that his front was aligned with his face again. He held Theo in front of him, his fiery eyes blazing with triumph. "You can't shoot me now. You can't shoot me now!"
Aziraphale hesitated for a moment, and then the Devil laughed. "Ha, ha, ha, you useless, shortsighted angel! I win! I WIN! I'll stroll all the way down to the Bottom holding this boy close to me and YOU won't be able to do a single thing about it!" He sneered at the angel. "Go back Up where you came from and tell your superiors what a lousy teacher you are. Tell them honestly how you lost your apprentice; I'm sure they'll appreciate the subsequent excuse they'll have to rid themselves of you." He began backing away, pulling Theo along with him. Theo stared down at the grass, afraid to meet his angel's eyes.
But suddenly they both heard Aziraphale call out, "Wait!"
The Devil paused, a bemused grin on his face. "Oh, what could it be now?" he wondered aloud, mockingly.
"You really think that you have won?" the angel asked, coldly.
"Considering this ending? You call this a victory?"
The Devil stepped back toward Aziraphale, wrenching Theo out in front of him. "Are you daft? I couldn't be happier!"
"And that's your only prize?" Aziraphale gestured dismissively at Theo. "Your only prize to show, for all of this?" He swept his rifle around in an arc, indicating the blue sky, the bright glowing sun, the green grass, the colorful flowers swaying gently in an inexplicable spring breeze. "That's a little disappointing, don't you think? I mean, Theo isn't even a genuine angel. He hasn't even earned his wings yet. He's weak, powerless, incompetent, and not exactly someone that Heaven would be too terribly upset about losing."
Theo felt his cheeks beginning to flush with, as unbelievable as it was, anger. He stared at the grass and at his feet, though, refusing to meet Aziraphale's eyes.
Aziraphale continued coolly. "You realize, of course, what this is going to look like, when you rush back down to that Bottom of yours and show everyone else how courageously, how triumphantly, you overpowered a helpless whelp of a would-be angel and brought him back down to be your sniveling plaything for all eternity. Heaven will be glad to have him gone, and I can assure you that Hell will be most unimpressed--"
"But I AM Hell!"
Aziraphale raised one eyebrow at him. "But won't they still laugh at you for this? Your other demons, I mean. Your entire kingdom was invaded, violated, and destroyed. And Theo is all that you have to show for it, in the end? A paltry revenge, indeed."
"I know what you're trying to do," Lucifer growled, "and it's not going to work. I'm not giving up the boy. Sniveling, helpless whelp though he may be, anything is better than going back Down there to face all of them empty-handed!"
"I'm not asking you to face them empty-handed." Slowly, with great dignity, Aziraphale unstrapped his rifle and lowered it to the ground, setting it down on the soft grass. He straightened up, and purposefully stepped away from it, keeping it out of his reach. "I'm offering you a bargain. That's what you demon lot are supposed to be good at, right? So let's make a deal. You give up the boy, but I give you something better in exchange."
Theo felt his breath catch in his throat. No, he thought, dully. Oh, no!
But the Devil was smiling again, and although he already knew what the answer would be, he asked the taunting question anyway: "What, pray tell, do you have that you could offer to me?"
Aziraphale raised his hands to his chest. "Me."
"You," the Devil scoffed, but there was an unmistakable note of sudden greed in his voice.
"I'll do it," Aziraphale said. "I'll really do it, I'll Fall, I'll
go with you willingly. After I see that Theo is returned safely to the Surface."
"And how do I know that you'll keep your word on that?"
"Because, unlike you," Aziraphale said darkly, "we angels have to keep our promises."
"And why, pray tell, would I be at all interested in accepting your offer?"
"You want revenge, don't you?" Aziraphale snapped, impatiently. "Well, fine! Take revenge on me. This whole ordeal was my fault in the first place. I failed to teach Theo proper coding and proper safety procedures to observe while executing a miracle; everything that came after is a direct result of my negligence."
Theo was still staring resolutely at his feet as Aziraphale's words rang into his ears, his cheeks burning red. He's only saying exactly what you were thinking to yourself, not less than a day ago, a nasty little voice in his head was telling him. So why, then, does it sound like every word coming out of his mouth is some sort of lie?
The Devil had considerably loosened his grip on Theo's arm by now, and was smiling brightly at Aziraphale, his flaming eyes shining. "I don't know," the Devil drawled out slowly, "that still doesn't seem like much of a bargain to me."
"Well," tried Aziraphale, somewhat angrily, fully realizing that the Devil was just baiting him, but that he was helpless to do anything but play along, "think of it this way. I know that you make it your business Down Here to eternally damn as many souls as you can; and that you people DO attach different values to the different types of souls that you can drag down. An angel is surely worth more than a mere human; and an angel who's been around the block for several millenniums is surely worth more than one who hasn't."
The Devil was nodding, thoughtfully. "Mmm-hmm. Mmm-hmm. Most impressive. You seem to understand our system already; I can see that you'll have quite a successful career in this business." And then, unbelievably, he actually thrust Theo aside and stepped forward, toward Aziraphale, then stopped and stood right in front of the angel. "The former angel of the Eastern Gate... I've heard about you. I've been hearing about you since the Beginning. You've caused a lot of trouble for us all, over the years, haven't you? There are plenty of demons Down Here, not least of all myself and Crowley, who would be quite pleased to see you suffering for an eternity, Fallen and cast out of Heaven, consigned to labor as my servant until the end of your days."
Theo stumbled for a few steps before he caught his footing again. He was flushed and sweating all over his body, and in a sort of panic, he realized that he was still wearing his heavy winter coat, but that now he had actually been transported to a bright, warm, sunny place. He unzipped and wrenched off his coat, throwing it to the ground, as he turned and watched the two of them, Devil and angel, as they stood facing each other. Even without his coat, Theo still felt hot and stifled, as if he couldn't breath. His heart was thumping in his chest. I'm not seeing this, he thought, numbly, I'm not seeing this!
The Devil was no longer wearing his L.L. Bean coat - it had vanished as if it had never been there at all. He reached out, grasped Aziraphale's chin in his hand, and turned the angel's head from side to side, gazing at it appreciatively, as if he were appraising the value of a rare and beautiful diamond. Aziraphale made no sound of protest, and the expression on his face remained stony, set, determined.
"Your wings," the Devil said, dropping his hand away from Aziraphale. "Let me see your wings."
Aziraphale silently began to remove his coat, then hesitated, one arm still in its sleeve. "The other part of the deal," he said firmly, "will be that you must not cut off my wings until Theo is gone."
"Don't want him to see you change, do you?" the Devil leered at him. Then he laughed and said, "Sorry, but I haven't agreed to any deal yet, have I? I have to inspect every bit of the chicken before I agree to pay market price. You understand, of course."
"Of course," Aziraphale said dully. He finished removing his coat, took off his sweater, unbuttoned his shirt, removed that, and finally slipped off his vest. He stood there, naked from the waist up, a short, slightly pudgy, obviously aging man, with curled blonde hair and unsettlingly clear blue eyes that now seemed grayed and dulled by the weight of a great, crushing sadness. Still, he held his back straight and his chin high, managing somehow to maintain his dignity, and did not so much as even wince when his wings suddenly unfurled behind him, and one of them was clearly bent and twisted in a way that surely must have been very painful.
The Devil ran one finger along part of the edge of Aziraphale's undamaged wing. "Very poor quality, these," he commented. "Ungroomed, messy, molting, and the one is obviously broken in some way."
"It doesn't matter," Aziraphale said through gritted teeth. "You'll have to cut them off anyway, won't you?"
"Yes, and then we'll get you a set of nice new black ones. Still, we're also going to have to teach you some lessons about the proper care and grooming of your new wings. I don't want to see any of my demons ever running around in a state like this."
"Fine, fine," Aziraphale hissed, growing increasingly impatient with the Devil's obvious mocking of him. "Are we agreed, then? Will you let Theo go now?"
"NO!" Theo screamed, and they both turned to look at him, startled, as if they had both forgotten that he had still actually been standing there. Theo fixed his feverish, accusatory gaze on Aziraphale. "I won't go! YOU CAN'T DO THIS! I won't let you do this!"
Aziraphale gave Theo a patient, understanding look, as if he had been expecting this. "Don't worry about me, Theo," he said somberly, "I'll be fine."
"That's a lie, and you know it!"
The Devil tapped his lower lip with one clawed finger, thoughtfully, and then turned back to Aziraphale, commenting casually, "Ungrateful little brat, isn't he?" Then back at Theo: "Your angel is making a great sacrifice in order to provide you with an opportunity to escape. I'd accept his offer, if I were you. The next time that I lay eyes upon you, I can guarantee you that you will not be so lucky."
"So we're agreed, then?" Aziraphale repeated. He held out his hand to the Devil. "Let's shake on it. Like gentlemen."
"Of course." Still grinning his terrible, shark-like grin, Lucifer raised his hand toward the angel's.
Before Theo could even stop to think about what he was doing, he found himself leaping forward, his heart jumping into his throat. He had to stop that handshake - his thoughts were consumed with the fact that he had to stop that handshake - if they shook hands, he knew, the pact would be sealed, and then it would be all over. "DON'T!!" he screamed, his voice cracking, and he ran straight into the Devil's outstretched arm, throwing himself against it, knocking it away from Aziraphale's hand, and clinging to it tightly.
Aziraphale froze with his hand in the air, staring, horrified. The Devil roared with rage and flung his arm about, but Theo clung to it, wrapping his arms around it, squeezing as tightly as he could.
Which was a very stupid thing to do, Theo realized, a split second later, because the Devil still had one arm free, and Theo was now in very close proximity to that arm, and that arm was topped off by a hand sporting five fingers tipped by five sharp, long claws. The Devil's free arm swung down toward Theo--
"You said you wouldn't harm him!" Aziraphale cried out, and Theo barely felt a rush of thirteen-dimensional equations speeding past his ear before the Devil's arm suddenly froze in mid-swing, inches from Theo's face and neck. The arm seemed to grow and bulge outward, for a horrible split second, and then burst, the lower arm and hand and fingers erupting into a spray of black, gooey substance. The Devil roared again, swinging his maimed stump of a forearm wildly, flames erupting from his eyes. But this time, his roar of rage was barely concealing the screams of pain beneath it. There was black, gooey blood, and bits of red flesh and white bone and black claw, splattered all over the Devil's front, and all over Theo as well. There was goo and a sharp bit of claw stuck in Theo's hair, and something warm and wet and chunky splattered across one of his cheeks. The Devil roared again and this time his rage seemed to cause his entire body to heat up; his arm was suddenly so searingly hot that it was impossible to hold onto any longer. Theo screamed and let go of the Devil's arm, falling away from him, gasping for breath and shuddering, feeling his cheeks and fingers and the skin on one of his arms beginning to blister. "YOU BASTARD!" the Devil screamed as Aziraphale, fire shooting out of his mouth, as Aziraphale lunged forward, grabbed Theo's arm, and began pulling Theo back away from him. "NO MIRACLES!" the Devil screamed at them, "THERE ARE NO MIRACLES ALLOWED DOWN HERE! NOBODY USES MIRACLES AGAINST ME!! THE DEAL'S OFF, YOU HEAR ME?! THE DEAL'S OFF!!!" He danced and screamed with rage, waving his bloody stump of an arm wildly, and Theo saw with a thrill of horror that the Devil's maimed arm was already stretching out again, growing, extending, healing itself, and the bud of what would become his new hand was already forming at its tip--
One again, Theo found himself being held in Aziraphale's arms, pressed against Aziraphale's bare chest, as the angel flapped his wings madly and twisted around, facing away from the Devil, lifting off the ground, and soaring into the bright blue sky. We're going to make it, Theo thought wildly, feeling his chest swell with hope, clinging to his angel tightly as the ground and the sight of the screaming Devil receded rapidly below them. We're actually going to make it, we're going to fly
right out of here, we're saved! Then Aziraphale cried out with pain and
lurched toward the ground; they seemed to float in midair for a moment, but then they plummeted, Aziraphale's injured wing twisting painfully and flapping uselessly against the air, and a moment later, they crashed back into the soft, grassy earth, Theo squashed beneath the angel.
"A HA HA HA HA!" The Devil pointed at them, laughing gleefully, as if this were the funniest thing he had ever seen in the world. "Look at that! LOOK AT THAT! Can't run away, can't fly away, now what are you going to do, stupid hateful angel, huh, NOW WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?!?!"
Aziraphale rolled off of Theo and groaned, struggling back into a standing position, his legs trembling beneath him, his face pale and sweaty, his breath coming in great, painful gasps. "I'm sorry, Theo," he whispered, every inch of his body trembling now, "I'm sorry, but I can't fly like this, I can't get us out of here, you'll have to try to run, I'll hold him off as long as I can, but only if you promise to run as far away from here as--"
"No!" Theo protested again, pulling himself up off the grass and standing up to his full height, glaring at the angel. "You heard him - there's nowhere to run from here but Down! We have to fly away!"
"But I can't fly anymore--"
"Then we'll go together!" Theo suddenly lunged forward and wrapped his arms around Aziraphale's waist. Then he pressed his face against the angel's chest and took a deep breath, squeezing his eyes shut, steeling himself for what was about to happen--
The pain was greater than he had imagined. Theo bit his lower lip and forced himself to swallow a scream as a pair of large, powerful white wings burst from his back and ripped straight through his two layers of shirts, unfurling themselves toward the sky. Strange new bones and muscles stretched and creaked where Theo had never felt himself to have bones or muscles before; new nerves tingled with sensation and his new feathers glimmered, slightly damp, beneath the light of the hot, bright sun in the sky overhead. His feathers seemed to dry themselves almost an instant later.
The Devil's laughter stopped, abruptly.
"Theo," breathed Aziraphale softly, "when did you get those?"
"In the woods, I think," answered Theo, giving his new wings an experimental flap. The rustle of his feathers stirred a mild breeze into being. "I dunno. All of a sudden, I just knew that they were there."
The Devil was shaking his head, though. "No," he said, more to himself than to the pair of angels. "No, you can't do that..." He stepped forward, toward them. "I won't... I won't let you..."
"If I help you," Theo was asking Aziraphale frantically, "can we both get high enough up to, you know--?"
"I think so," Aziraphale said, gazing at the sky up above him. "Really, though, it's the only choice that we have left, isn't it?"
"Yeah." Theo nodded, grinning. "Yeah."
Clinging tightly to each other, the angels flapped their wings and launched themselves into the air.
The Devil roared a wordless cry of rage and lunged forward, stretching his good arm toward the sky. But he was too late; his claws snatched at the empty space where Theo's foot had been only a moment ago.
Theo grunted with the effort of lifting Aziraphale airborne; the other angel was heavy, and his own wings were dangerously wobbly, and he wasn't quite sure that he was doing the whole flapping thing right. They both rose into the air, Aziraphale working furiously with his good wing, but Theo was still supporting the bulk of Aziraphale's weight. Theo managed to gasp, "Urgh, you really are getting heavy," before they suddenly swooped dangerously close down to the ground again. Theo's stomach felt as though it had lurched up into his throat, but with an enormous sweep of Aziraphale's wings they were airborne again. The Devil roared again, lunging and missing a second time. The two of them climbed higher and higher into the sky, Theo could hear Aziraphale's labored breathing in his ear, and he was going to make some witty crack about Aziraphale needing to lay off the cheesecake and chocolates, but he couldn't find his own breath anymore, he was too busy concentrating on sweeping his awkward new wings through the air and propelling them both higher, ever higher.
They soared into the infinite blue sky.
And, before Theo realized what was happening, the sky had vanished, and he found himself surrounded by cold, dark bedrock. For a terrifying moment, his heart froze in his chest, and he thought that he had been buried alive, embedded forever within the solid bowels of the Earth. But then he felt himself continuing to rise, and he realized that, even in the midst of all this rock, he was still flapping his wings and propelling himself upward, pulling Aziraphale along while the other angel helped as much as he could, the two of them sliding effortlessly through the rock as if it were nothing more substantial than air itself.
After what seemed like an eternity of flying through dark rock, Theo and Aziraphale suddenly burst through a layer of frozen soil and a blanket of snow, and soared straight up into a bright, crisp, bitingly cold day. Almost as soon as his feet had cleared the ground, Theo let go of his angel and collapsed back into the snow, exhausted, his wings disappearing into his back. The moment his back hit the snowy ground, however, Theo realized what a stupid idea that had been. He began shivering instantly. He was only wearing two thin shirts, and the back of both of his shirts had been shredded and torn open by the eruption of his wings. The snow pressed against patches of his exposed skin, soaking through the rest of what remained of his shirts instantly.
"Oh, bother," sighed Aziraphale, standing in the snow beside Theo and looking down at him, as his wings, too shrank back into his flesh. "You left your coat behind down there, didn't you?"
"It w-w-was th-the l-l-least of m-my w-w-worries," Theo said through chattering teeth.
"Here you go, then," Aziraphale said brightly, dropping a short equation down into Theo's chest.
Theo instantly felt comfortably warm and relaxed, and he could sense that his shirts were now perfectly dry as well, even as he continued to lay on his back in the wet snow. The blistering burns on his hands and cheeks had vanished, too. "Ah," Theo sighed happily, "thank you."
"No. Thank you," Aziraphale said somberly. He sat down heavily in the snow beside Theo, crossing his legs. Theo turned his head and noticed that although the angel was bare-chested, he gave not the slightest indication that he felt any chill; and although he was sitting with his trousers sunk deep into a layer of thick, wet snow, whatever remained of his clothing - his trousers, his socks, his shoes - seemed to remain as dry as a bone. He was looking down at Theo again, although this time from considerably less of a height. "You saved us both. Really."
Theo turned his eyes away from the angel, and gazed up at the sky above - not a bright blue anymore, but a dull, strangely comforting slate gray. "But you shouldn't have done that, you know."
"Done what?"
"Offered... you know."
Aziraphale was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "Theo, I had no other choice. I didn't stand a chance in a fight against the Adversary, and I knew that I could never have outrun him even if I did manage to snatch you back from him. I had no choice but to make a bargain. I told you, angels keep their promises. And I promised you that I wouldn't let you down again. Remember? I promised you that I wouldn't let you get hurt."
Theo was silent, blinking up at the sky and taking his time to digest the angel's words. He had never seen a gray sky that had looked so beautiful in his entire life. "But we did," Theo finally pointed out, obtusely. "We did fight with the Devil, and then we outran him and we escaped."
"Yes, well," Aziraphale said brightly, "I never would have predicted that outcome, myself. Quite a pleasant surprise in the end, don't you think?"
Theo gazed up at the gray sky again, grinning. "Hey," he finally said. "Wanna see something cool?"
"All right," Aziraphale said.
Feeling his grin grow wider, Theo flapped his arms in the snow and pulled his legs back and forth, back and forth. "See?" he said, when he caught a glimpse of Aziraphale staring down at him, looking slightly bewildered. "It's a snow angel!"
Continued.