Part 10

Sitting on a park bench, Alex watched a jogger run by him and he glanced down at his phone, moving his little space ship from one side of the screen to the other. Little blue and pink lasers fired out of the end of the ship and destroyed a few meteors ahead of him.

He heard the bell of a bike and looked up towards the noise his face meeting with the grill of a five ton truck as it leaned on his horn and smashed into him.

He leaned up abruptly in bed, thrashing as he knocked Angel off of him and Alex fell onto the floor, scrambling backwards into the wall. Terror gripped in his chest and he wanted to scream but no sound came out as he saw Angel sat up confused and trying to say his name.

"-exy, you alright?"

He glanced about, blinking rapidly and swatting at bugs and sparks that weren't there, only then looking at his clawed hands, seemingly frightened of his own skin. Alex's chest heaved. He couldn't calm his heart rate or control his breathing as he panicked and lost control over the rhythm of his lungs, struggling with the concept of in-in- and out-out-

He felt the presence of two clawed fingers on his chin, leaning him back and looked up into the worried face of the spider, "Alex! Alex, look at me! breathe!" he did the breathing with him, slowly coming back to his normal self. He curled forward, resting his head on his knees and exhaled hard.

"Oh fuck..." Alex pressed his palms against his eyes, "oh fuck... I forgot. Oh fuck, I forgot." His tail slapped against the floor and it made him jump, moving to get away from it, panicking thinking it was a snake chasing him.

Angel took his wrist to steady him, "Alex, Alex!" he snapped his fingers in front of him, trying to bring him back again. Slowly Alex calmed and took deep breaths as he squeezed the hand that held him.

He had already forgotten that this was his reality. Claws, scales, tail. This was who he was now, and he leaned forward on all four, thinking he was going to throw up. Nothing but some nauseous noises came out as he heaved and placed his palm to the side. Nothing came out, and he gagged as Angel patted his back, "sh-h-h-sh. It's ok, it's ok. It's new. Deep breaths. It takes some time gettin' used to. We've all been there. Deep breaths, babe"

Alex dry heaved again and it subsided. Slowly, he pulled himself together and pulled his legs around, laying on his back on the floor of the hotel room, his breathing erratic as his panic attack made his face tingle and he felt light headed, his vision turning into a million fireworks.

He knew he wasn't breathing enough as he glanced upwards at the star filled ceiling, stars flickering and making noise. He leaned his palm to his forehead and started to choke and broke into another sob.

Then the silver wrappings around his wrists began to thrum and a golden light began to emanate from them that Angel had never seen before. It lit the darkness and burned the shadows around him, seething through the curtains. Angel panicked, reaching for him.

"ALEX?"

Alex wheezed, and the wrappings unfurled from his wrists and forearms, slithering out from his hands and one of them coiled around Angel's wrist and he yelped in fear, jerking his arm back, looking down as it held him. Angel hesitated, his breath heavy and loud as he watched it wrap itself around his bicep and fore-arm, leading his claws to lie gently atop the long glowing and spiraling filament.

"Alex...Alex...you're ok. Just...just relax." The wrappings glow began to dissipate slowly, flickering before finally going out as the lizards hyperventilating began to slow and he could finally get his grip. The silver began to unfurl from Angel's arm and slither back to the lizard's body, returning to his forearm and wrist.

There was a small knock at the door.

Angel looked up at the doorknob as it began to turn and scrambled to it, throwing his weight against it and sitting at the bottom so it couldn't open, "everything's fine! We're good!" He heard the shifting at the doorknob

"Angel?"

"It's ok, Charlie. Everything's fine. We're...fucking."

"...oh"

"Yeah, we're fucking" Angel held the doorknob tighter as she leaned her head against it, and could tell from her shifting position that she wasn't completely convinced, but was too embarrassed to question it.

Unfortunately, there was someone else who wasn't too embarrassed to question it.

"Angel!" Shit. Vaggie, "Angel you open the door! I know what it sounds like when you are having sex and it's never this quiet."

Angel, who did his best not to glare towards the voice, sat still as he tried to reason with her, "Vaggie, we're tryin' somethin' new is all, kinky stuff. You wanna' hear our safe word?"

"Open the door or I'm breaking it down!"

Angel groaned and hung his head low, leaning forward on his knees as he sighed, his grip on the door slackening a bit and leaned off of it, helping Alex get to his knees. "It's open..."

Vaggie stood in the doorway, her spear in hand; more than likely having brought it from the commotion of Alex's night terror. That was expected. What wasn't expected was the moment she saw Alex on his knees she was already in the room and shoved her foot down into the Lizards chest, blade at the ready against his cheek, "DON'T MOVE!"

Alex wheezed at the sudden boot in the gut and then cried out in surprise as he got slammed against the ground, Vaggie holding her blade across his chest as she pointed it at his chin and it looked as though it would split open at the flick of the wrists, "don't you move a muscle, do you hear me?!"

Alex kept his arms above his head, "I didn't do anything! I haven't even said anything-g-g-g" he squeaked and pressed his cheek to the side, the blade lifting his chin and throat

Angel had his back against the wall and couldn't speak as his breath shook. He didn't know how to react and the guilt hit him harder, knowing what he knew, "Charlie! Stop her!"

"Vaggie! Calm down!" Charlie grabbed the end of her spear and trying to pull it back, "Alex is new. He only got here a few hours ago!"

Vaggie wrenched the spear back from her, keeping it pressed to the lizard's cheek, "I don't give a damn about that. Where did you get those?!"

Trembling, Alex had a hard time responding, "What? What did I do?!" He started to cry. Vaggie pressed forward, "those!" She moved the spear only for a moment tapping the wrappings on one of his wrists with her spear. For a brief moment there was a spark as her spear bounced off the fabric before she pressed it back to his cheek, "Are you a spy? Are you here to kill one of us?! Answer me"

"I DON'T FUCKING KNOW-W-W!" He was sobbing now, "They were there when I got here! I can't take them off!"

Vaggie snarled, pressing the blade closer to his neck and making him cry out and tilt his head back, exposing the length of his throat, his tail curling into his legs, "Bullshit!" She glanced over to Angel for just a moment, "has he hurt you Angel? At all?"

"No!" he called, shaking and grabbing Vaggi's shoulder to move her a bit, "Vaggie, just calm down, what are you thinking-?"

"He's working with someone. Who is it? Heaven? Exorcists?! Answer me or I swear-"

There was an audible click and Vaggie glanced again to Angel, a pistol aimed at her, "toots...stop. Now. I'm not going to let this happen."

There was a small moment and the stare between them could've broken mountains. Finally she put her blade down. But she wasn't done. "You," Angel, "you keep him right there. If he leaves it is on you and he won't be able to outrun me." She glanced back to Charlie, "we need to talk. Office. Now."

With that, both women left.

Angel stayed for a little longer, making sure she wasn't hiding near the door to wait. With the all clear, he relaxed a bit and looked down at Alex, sitting next to him on the floor, "sorry... I don't know why she did that..." He was trying to calm himself down after what he had just witnessed and leaned his forehead on Angels chest and stayed there for a little while, wrapped in his arm, slowly getting his bearings back, "I hate it here."

"I know..." He turned Alex's face up so that he looked at him, rubbing at his tears with the pads of his thumbs, "it's just rough because ya landed a little strange..."

Stomping down the hallway, Vaggie entered Charlie's office first, throwing the door open and moving to a large stack of books sitting on a chair. She rummaged through them, pulling one out and flipping through the pages quickly before tossing it over her shoulder and grabbing another.

"You could have killed him," the princess yelled at her from across the office, watching as Vaggie ignored her and continued to search the texts frantically, "Vaggie!"

"Charlie," she turned to look at her, "this. Is. Serious!" She grabbed another book and tossed it.

"Of course it's serious, he's new-"

"THOSE aren't new!"

The princess of Hell remained firm, crossing her arms, "you are in soooo much trouble when this is over. Now spill it. What is going on?"

"You need to have that thing expelled." She threw another book over her shoulder and grabbed a rather large one in her arms, dropping it onto Charlie's desk and flipping through several pages."

"Hey-hey. First of all, I'm not gonna' make anyone leave if they don't want to. There aren't a lot of people here and if we're really trying to fix this, I think everyone deserves a fair shake."

"Babe, those are divine-fucking-armaments!" She pulled the book and shoved it into the blond's chest, jabbing at a picture in one of the book passages with her finger, "these aren't some new accessory, these things are old. Really old."

On the page showed a crude, almost cave drawing, of an angel floating in the sky, long silver threads extending from its hands and coiled tightly around a demon. The demon, larger than the angel, was on its knees, arms bound behind its back as it roared out, "you have a brand new demon, walking around, currently living in THIS hotel, wielding a divine weapon. Not an angelic weapon! A DIVINE weapon."

Outside the office, Alastor had a smile on from ear to ear as he eves dropped, turning his staff in his claws over and over again.

"A weapon SPECIFICALLY meant to kill demons in a hotel FOR demons. I would say that's a really REALLY big deal, Charlie."

Placing the large book down on her desk, Charlie ran her hand down the text, unable to read it but able to pick up specific words in clusters as it wasn't written in a language she knew, "can't quite read this. There are references to protection and...guardianship?" She read a little lower, "What are they called?"

Vaggie glanced over her shoulder, "Les points de Colère. Uh...The...Angry Sutures?" she fumbled a bit.

Alastor turned and made his way back down the hall, biting his lip to stop his almost childlike giddiness, the wheels already turning.

"Someone gave him those weapons, Charlie. You can't just pick them up. And if he did kill himself then he is here by his own hand and was sent here. So...someone from on high is trying to...I really don't know."

A small scratching noise from behind them drew their attention and there, standing in the doorway, was the small, excited, almost ravenous look of Nifty who stared at them, "I smell a boy."