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Torchlight wavers alarmingly, lurching through him in odd, sick-making waves.
Something... wrong with his head? Must be. Something terribly wrong with his corporation. He shouldn’t be seeing the world like this. It was horribly distracting.
He was...
He’d just been...
In the church, hadn’t he? In the church. Supposed to observe the priest. Dreadfully boring man, venal and small. Can’t think why Heaven’s interested.
Whatever. He’s out now, under the stars. It’s better under the stars, even if the torchlight sends his senses spinning. The fire of it-- heat and oxygen, flame and consummation. He can see the molecules, the slip of the oil, the frozen cells of the wood--
He shouldn’t be seeing this; it’s too much. The ethereal and the material. The bright sparks of the humans, their souls shining out into the night. He usually turns this off, why can’t he turn this off?
“Here, mate, you allr-- Aaah!” Someone tries to touch him, pulls back with a cry.
“Sorry,” he manages. He must be quite close to the surface if he’s burning people. He totters on unsteady legs through souls like stars. Looks around him to find quiet, and finds a conflagration.
Safety, he thinks. Help. Blazing out into the night. He could follow it with his eyes closed.
...That might help, actually. He shuts his eyes.
The material world fades. His dizzyingly doubled vision resolves into only the soul-stuff.
He follows the light through the bright threads of plants in the street, the trees overhanging garden walls. The solidity of stone and the shine of people.
All of it pales beside that snake of fire.
The hard part of being on the outs with hell, Crowley thought as he hurried into town, was that by the time he knew something was going on, it was already going on. The problem with avoiding the water cooler is that you miss the water cooler talk
Blast, he’d come up so much farther away than he’d meant.
He could see the town up ahead, the warm glow of cook fires and lamplight outshone by a golden white bloom of angelic radiance, flickering and flaring madly.
Crowley poured on speed he didn't think he had, spurred on by the sense of wrong wrong wrong.
He hears people crying out, feels their terror. “Be not afraid,” he says, or tries to. He’s sure it’s not enough; it’s all he can manage. Tell them not to fear, try to go around them. Keep moving toward the fire that moves toward him.
“Aziraphale.” Someone takes his arm, lets out a hiss. “Hell’s sake, angel.”
He slumps, stumbles to a halt. Opens his eyes to see Crowley at last-- his body with his red hair and dark glasses, so small inside the firesnake of him that lights the streets.
“You’re beau--” he breathes. Bites it off, hiccups. Not supposed to say. But he’s safe now. Crowley will take care of him, of everything. “I feel a little odd,” he says faintly.
“You're completely bladdered, is what you are. Halfway to manifesting all over the place.” Crowley’s arm is around him, pulling him away from the people-stars. “Can you please tamp that down?”
“N--” he starts, hiccups again. Focuses on moving his feet with Crowley’s “Tried. Can’t... something’s wrong.”
“Yeah. Hastur and Ligur.” They turn a corner and Crowley snaps. Everything quiets behind them. “That should take care of that lot.” They keep moving. “Bragged they’d got something that could ‘fuck up an angel.’ Didn’t say what but Ligur does not bluff, so... I got here as soon as I could.”
“In the church. I was watching the... the...” He searches his memory and his vision splits again, violently, jarring overlap of too many angles. “Aaaugh, can’t think--”
“Just keep moving, angel.” Crowley steers him along. “Smells like they’ve been here. Got to get you well away.”
He closes his eyes again. Focuses on Crowley, the shape of him coiling around them as they move. Protecting them.
Like always.
Crowley is mesmerising like this. The usual sway of his hips is a sinuous slither, a sliver of his true shape.
“Lovely,” he says, words rising in him, spilling into the world. “You’re so...” He’s not supposed to say it, remembers he’s not supposed to but can’t remember why and in any case his mouth isn’t asking him anymore. “So lovely. Were you always this lovely?”
They don’t stop moving. “Shut it,” Crowley says to him, and it sounds like love.
“Could see you,” he says, stumbling along. “Found you. Most beautiful thing I’ve ever--”
“Angel, I am begging you to shut up. You can’t-- There’s... There’s a cave just over here.” He tastes the miracle as it flies from Crowley’s hand; feels the rocks make an obedient hollow. “We can shelter there, but you have to shut up.”
He needs to tell him how lovely he is. He forces his mouth closed, and lets himself be led.
The rocks are still surprised when they get there. He reaches out to soothe them. Thanks them. “I don’t know what’s wrong,” he says, while Crowley miracles up a fire. “I don’t...”
“I’m not sure what they gave you,” Crowley says. “Not sure how. I’ll try to find out later, but...”
The snake’s eyes open, vast nebulas in the dark, looking just at him. Seeing him.
He hiccups again.
“You’re not dying. I don’t think,” Crowley goes on. “Looks like you might be in for a bit of a ride, though. We can wait it out here.”
“Your eyes,” he manages, just as those eyes close.
“Lie down, angel.” Another miracle, and a pallet appears. “Can’t go anywhere with you like this.”
He lets himself be laid down. “Crowley. I--” he says, words jamming themselves up behind his tongue.
“Shhh.” Crowley’s finger stills his lips. “Later. Sleep now. I’ll keep watch.”