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go_exchange2006-12-26 03:57 pm
waxbean.livejournal.com) wrote in go_exchange2006-12-26 03:57 pm
Entry tags:
Happy Holidays, Alys_wonder!
Title: Adam in Wonderland
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
allthisnonsense
Recipient:alys_wonder
Rating: R
Pairings: Aziraphale/Crowley, Adam/Pepper.
Prompt:alys_wonder requests: A rating of R; Crowley/Aziraphale, Crowley and Aziraphale, the Them gen, Adam/Pepper; A/C, hurt/comfort, angst is perfectly fine, historical, Wales.
Summary: Adam is a very average sort of boy.
Author’s Notes: Hope it’s pleasing! I think it’s nearly two fics. Most of it is heartily spoofed from Lewis Carroll’s story of Alice in Wonderland, available here. Happy Christmas!
Adam was beginning to get very tired of his eleventh birthday party. No one had shown up yet – indeed, who would? He was an angelic-looking boy with good marks in school, a decent moral upbringing, a healthy interest in all things mucky and adventurous…
…and no friends.
Sighing heavily, Adam contemplated pestering his older sister (talking on the phone) to start a game of chess, or perhaps a game of pirates and ninjas, or something, anything, when an Angel passed him.
He – for it was a he – was dressed frumpishly in a suit of tweed, with a pair of fatherly glasses and a wavy blond haircut that looked reminiscent of the fifties, if not earlier. The great big pair of white wings behind him that shuddered and picked up the wind even slightly was the only sign that he was an Angel at all. They came straight out of his back, with extraordinary muscles – must be heavy, Adam thought sympathetically – to support them, and they smelled, for lack of a better word, heavenly, in the breeze.
Adam straightened up, blinking.
Wings fluttering, the Angel pulled a small bible out of his waistcoat-pocket*, glanced at it, and put it away. He hadn’t seen Adam, yet, though they were close enough that Adam could see the lettering of the book – The Buggre Alle This Bible – and the sweat that dripped down his fair flushed skin.
*This struck Adam as odd: firstly, because it was an awfully large bible for such a small pocket; and secondly because no one wore waistcoats anymore.
”Oh dear, oh dear, oh, this cannot be happening…”
Quietly, the boy followed, and watched as the searching Angel found a spot on the ground not so far from where the eleven-year old was crouched, and fell to his knees immediately, drawing circles in the dust and mud there, chanting Words as he spread candles and incense that hadn’t been there a minute ago around.
The simple outline of a circle began to make itself known, glowing a bright blue colour the same as the sky, and Adam kept away, and bit his lip.
The Angel stood, wringing his wrists and fretting out loud. He still hadn’t seen Adam.
”Oh dear, oh de-“
”Hello?”
Taken off-guard, the Angel spun around, took a step backwards in surprise, and, with a harmonic note, disappeared instantly.
In no small amount of shock, Adam found himself staring. This was even cooler than the pirates! Perhaps it wasn’t even an angel, perhaps it was aliens- no, wait, he’d been almost right before! He’d said that aliens had secret underground bases, but really, what if the angels were the aliens? Does that mean that going to church was alien worship?
Adam crawled over the ground to the blue circle, which was still glowing invitingly, and then turned around, thinking about his mum and dad. Well… he could tell them that he was going, but he wasn’t really going anywhere at all, was he? He was still in the yard.
Satisfied with this logic, Adam jumped into the circle.
His first realization was that it was like a great, big slide… except he wasn’t going fast at all, and he wasn’t sitting on anything.
Unbeknownst to him, he was falling, and it was a very, very long drop.
The passage he found himself in had many, many doors, the like of which could only possibly have been opened by an Opener, or possibly someone with a key. He tried them all; he had no other choice, and surely not all of them were locked?
A ruffle of feathers ahead made Adam look up, just in time to see the heavenly being (or possible alien) disappear around a corner that hadn’t been there before.
”Hey!” he called, “Hey, wait!” and started running after him, skidding around the brand new corner. Suddenly, a table appeared before him.
There was a very large pearly set of gates directly before him. Adam looked up in wonder, touching at them briefly – far too heavy for him to move, though, he realized.
He looked at the table.
It contained food. MEALS ™ sat in little boxes next to it.
Or at least Adam thought it was likely food. It smelled like food, in a plastic sort of way. The only trouble is his parents had explicitly told him not to take- no, that was candy, wasn’t it? Besides, he was hungry, and if someone had only TV-dinner sorts of things to offer him then he’d make do – and, importantly, it had “pizza-flavoured” on the box.
There was no sign of the Angel, so he sat down and ate.
”…?” the boy asked a few moments after he’d finished eating.
He was growing.
Exponentially. (His first realization was that his clothes grew with him.) He wondered, for a second, if this was the mysterious Puberty that his older sister had complained so much about, and then shook his head. As far as he knew, Puberty never made you three, six, ten times the height you were originally.
The gate was looking smaller by the second. Soon, Adam could touch the top of it, and then it was at the level of his waist. Well. No sense in waiting, was there?
He started to push open the gate but it wouldn’t budge. Not at all. It sat there, merrily glowing, hopelessly stuck.
Adam turned around, looking for an idea, and found, much to his relief, a very large bottle standing next to him. This one was labelled DRINKS ™.
He grinned. At least they were specific about these things. He picked up the drink and sipped it, only to spit it out immediately, shuddering at the taste.
Ugh, wine, eleven-year-old Adam grimaced, and dropped the bottle, which smashed and formed a great big puddle of blood-coloured liquid.
There was a yelp from behind him and he whirled. The angel was rushing past, clucking his tongue, and being generally gayer than an entire bouquet of daffodils.
”Oh, ineffability, She’ll be so mad if I’m late, what am I going to do, what am I going to do? She’ll say, ‘Aziraphale, you knew exactl-‘“
He was carrying something this time, and was wearing a scarf, oddly normal.
”Hallo-“
The Angel leapt, staring, and dropped the collection of junk – a silver crown, a set of scales. (The scarf fell too.)
“No, wait, don’t-“ Adam said, holding out his arms in supplication, but the Angel ignored him and shrieked,
”ANTICHRIST!” and darted off in the other direction, going far faster than Adam had thought possible.
He winced, and shouted, “My name’s actually Adam! It’s not Damien or somebody!” down the long hallway after the Angel’s retreating back.
Adam sighed, and kicked at the ground a little, splashing the red wine. He suddenly realized that it was far closer than it was before, and jerked his head up to look at the table, which suddenly loomed above him.
Uh oh.
He hastily gathered the crown and scales to him, and tied them securely to himself with bits of string, realizing he was shrinking more and more. Soon, the level of the wine-puddle was at his knees, then his waist, and then his neck. Before too long, Adam found himself swimming.
In the short sequence of events that followed, we, the readers, can summarize that a) Adam was, in fact, picked up by a bird, that b) he was also nearly eaten, as they had thought he was an insect.
Normally, he would have taken this as a some sort of insult.
”Hello?” The big one peered down at him, and Adam fumbled in his memory for some of his father’s bird-watching lessons.
”What are you?”
”Monks,” a smaller bird told him, the word echoed by what was quite the large group of fowl around a nest.
”Monks of what?”
”Nipples,” said the Tit.
”What?”
The others looked shocked, and turned to the Great Tit amongst them, which glared at Adam. “I’m very aggressive. Don’t ye play dumb with me, lad, I ken what ye’re up to.”
A little one chattered excitedly to him, ”He knows all. He’s the Great Tit. He fights off the smaller tits. The Royal Society said so.”
The other birds nodded, a few of them chirping, “Teacher! Teacher!” as they crowded about Shadwell.
”What’s your name, then?” He wasn’t mature enough to call someone he could talk to a tit without laughing and he wasn’t entirely sure he should be laughing, under the circumstances. It’s hard to be confident enough to laugh, he reflected, when one is four inches high or so.
”Shadwell,” the Great Tit told him magnanimously. “Shadwell the Great to the likes of ye. Now, a test!”
”But I haven’t studied-”
”How many nipples have ye got?”
Adam wondered if this was under the list of questions he wasn’t supposed to be asked. “Two, I guess.”
They consulted each other, flitting and twirping and another few saying, “See-‘ere” instead of “See-ou” like it ought to be.
“Antichrist!” called one, and the birds scattered, abruptly leaving Adam to himself once again (although there had been a mention of a pin somewhere).
He sat and waited, chucking rocks out of the nest, thinking: “At least I wasn’t food after all.”
”Oh, dear. Oh, my feathers!” the Angel, looking high and low for his scales and tin crown, as he flew by, checking the nests.
”Are you an alien?” Adam called out, and the Angel paused so suddenly he nearly hit the tree branch.
”No, I’m Aziraphale, dear- oh, no, the Antichrist, not yet, go back to where you came from please! We’re not ready for the Great Event yet!” he cried, flying above Adam.
”I can’t go back. What Great Event?”
”The Apocalypse. Oh dear, oh dear, and I haven’t even found the scales yet…”
Adam held out the two items he’d dropped earlier, but the Angel took no notice, as he was already flying away. In the time, however, Adam noticed exactly one shining sword at his waist.
With all this going on, it was no surprise (except possibly to Adam, who was not scared but indeed very excited by it all, and who was already half out of the nest) that a serpent, great and long, had begun to slither up the tree he was in.
It was a very big snake, even though Adam could feel himself starting to grow once again, which was a relief since he didn’t think he’d spend the rest of his time in the nest, either.
It was also grinning.
”Hello,” it grinned at him. “I’m the Cheshire Crowley.”
”How can you grin so?” Adam asked, staring.
”Oh, you wouldn’t believe the things a snake could do with his jaw…”
(He felt rather funny at this. It wasn’t, exactly, that the sheer extensiveness of the grin that bothered him. It was the fact that snakes really only had two sets of fangs… so where did the other teeth come from?)
”All right,” Adam said, making it clear he didn’t believe it. He’d grown big enough that he could step out of the nest and climb down tree, so he did so.
The snake followed, but didn’t leave the tree.
”Where do I go from here?”
”To the Queen, I suspect. Have you played war with her yet today?”
”No, but I will, I guess.”
The snake suddenly stiffened.
”Are you okay?”
”Antichrisssst,” it hissed, and stared with great, big yellow eyes, at odds with its great shining smile.
”That’s what everyone says. What’s an Antichrist?”
”It brings about the end of the world.”
”The Great Event?”
The Cheshire Crowley perked up. “You’ve seen the Angel?”
”Yeah, I have. Uh, what direction is the Queen in?”
”That way,” it said, looking distracted. It had already started to disappear, fading at the edges. The end of its great long tail disappeared entirely, and Adam felt he should be nice and point that out.
”Sssshit,” the snake swore, staring at its tail unhappily. “I guess I’ll see you at the court. Goodbye, Antichrist.”
The smile was the last to go, steady despite the fact that its body was already missing.
”Goodbye,” Adam said, watched as the final white shine of teeth faded and disappeared.
It was basically, he realized, a pack of cards playing War, which was normally two-player but seemed to have a lot of players with the cards themselves playing.
Someone shouted as they spotted him getting closer, and he heard a loud female voice yell,
”Burning at the stake!”
He stopped. The Angel strode out of the crowd and stood next to him, or really half-behind him, as the cards turned and looked at the newcomer with interest.
”Oh, not that again,” Adam heard the Angel whisper, and the Cheshire Crowley appeared somewhere near his left elbow, muttering something about ‘bloody discorporations.’ “I wish they’d be more original.”
”You’re stained in blood,” the Queen cried, stalking over to their small group. “How delightful!”
”Actually it’s wine,” Adam said, but it made no difference, and anyway he thought blood was cooler.
”I like him!” the Queen announced. “Now, for the trial?”
”Antichrist,” the King intoned, solemn, and his court repeated it.
”Not my nipples again!” Adam thought despondently. What was the obsession even about? “How many nipples do you have?” he asked the Queen. The court gasped.
”Three,” she said flippantly.
Their world went back to chaos as immediate war broke out between those who were suddenly demanding, “Witch, witch!” and those who clung fervently to their Queen.
The King looked startled. “You-“
She, the Queen of Hearts, grinned broadly, sword-glints in her smile. “Only joking. Not, you know, that you would have noticed even if I had that many, what with your goings-on with the Jack. Where is he, anyway?”
The King looked momentarily guilty, fiddling with the slim, parched edge of his clothing, which was fitted and sleek.
”He is…?”
“Under the judge’s table,” King Famine replied meekly.
Queen War laughed in outright amusement. “So that’s why you wanted a trial. I knew you were an exhibitionist.”
”Most of the time when I am exhibited it’s an attempt for people to get rid of me,” Famine said. “Regardless. What happened to ‘Off with his head!’?”
”Only momentarily abandoned, be assured of that.”
Adam looked around. “Right,” he said, looking nervous as the Ace of Spades passed by, its cloak brushing the ground ominously.
”And with him,” War gloated, “we could just up and destroy this world. Can’t we, Antichrist?”
”Actually.”
Everyone looked at the Angel, who quivered slightly. “Actually.”
”Yes, Aziraphale?” the King asked.
”I may have your sword, Majesty, but Adam – the Antichrist - happens to have the scales and crown. And Rule Number One is that he has to give them to you.”
The Jack strolled over, muttering something to the King about waiting far too long in an abhorrent crouching position, and finally getting spotted by a Three of Diamonds, which immediately assumed a game of hide-and-seek was happening. ”Is it Rule Number One? Someone find the bookkeeper!”
The Cheshire Crowley grinned (naturally). “He is the bookkeeper, your Majesty.”
They all looked at Aziraphale. “It is,” he said sheepishly.
The Ace of Spades stalked closer: “AM I ACTUALLY GOING TO GET TO DO SOMETHING NOW? I’M SO SICK OF PLAYING CARDS.”
Adam blinked. “But you are a playing card!”
”I CAN STILL COMPLAIN ABOUT MY EXISTENCE, OR LACK OF IT. NOW, ARE YOU GOING TO GIVE UP THE SCALES AND CROWN?”
”I’d rather he didn’t,” the Cheshire Crowley interrupted, still merely a grin, and not yet a serpent. “All the same to you, Majesty, if he gives them, you’ll destroy us all.”
The royalty collectively sighed happily.
”Adam, dear, would you destroy us? It’s your decision.”
Adam looked to the Angel, and around at the cards, and said, “No.”
The King of Hearts, Queen of Hearts, Jack of Hearts, and Ace of Spades suddenly looked at him.
”Why not?”
”’Cause life is exciting,” he said, “You’re very odd but still exciting, you know. Without you, uh, cards and snakes and angels and things, I’d be pretty bored here in…”
”Wonderland,” the Angel supplied quietly.
”Yeah, Wonderland. So you see…”
The royalty looked at each other, and looked at Adam, and then disappeared back into their courts of cards, most of whom were still obsessed with the Queen’s nipples.
”An’ you,” Adam said, looking at them both curiously, “Why did you want the world saved? I know why I wanted it. Why couldn’t you both just tell me?”
”Well, we have an agreement, you see.” Aziraphale coughed and looked to the Cheshire Crowley, which grinned again, letting its tongue hiss out and touch the shell of the angel’s ear. Aziraphale glanced at the snake, whose body had finally begun to appear, and was preoccupied with wrapping around the Angel. “You never even told him why he was to go to the Queen?”
A grin. ”Nothing againssst you, kid. I wasss rooting for you the whole time.”
”I saved the world,” Adam said to himself, and his grin was more than enough to match the Cheshire Crowley’s.
And then…
And then…
Adam, a normal boy in a terribly normal world, awoke, to his mother calling him.
-fin-
(Except.)
In a very quaint cottage just outside of Cardiff, Wales, a man named Anthony James stirred at the same precise moment. Anthony was CEO of a cigarette company with its headquarters in Manchester (a company named Temptation for the peculiar brand of cigarettes it sold, which were bright red with a miniature, perfectly smooth green leaf near the mouth-end) and he was currently on vacation.
It was also, coincidentally, some ungodly hour of the morning – that is to say, one in the afternoon – and he was wrapped around another man. This, again, was nothing special, except that the man he was rather literally sleeping with happened to be none other than Zirah Fell, a bookseller from London who only managed not to get called ‘twee’ every other moment by Anthony by the dear, simple fact that they were shagging.
A lot.
”Mmph,” came the gentle, less-than-musical groan from Zirah, when Anthony ‘accidentally’ kicked him.
”You’re awake, aren’t you,” he accused.
There was a faint twitch of the soft cheek, and Anthony grinned. Scored one. A soft, “Hardly, my dear, if I was properly awake I’d’ve cleaned up our mess from yesterday,” made itself heard.
Anthony looked at the floor, which was a veritable hodgepodge of all the clothing they’d pulled off (each other) the night before. He was, however, still wearing one sock himself – it wasn’t even his; bloody argyle, it had to be Zirah’s – and he stripped that off, adding it to the pile. “Mess?” he asked, hopping up and chucking it all into the hamper for his landlady to take care of it. “I see no mess. You’re losing your mind, Mr. Fell.”
There was an answering, quiet smile, filled with deeper amusement than just the small teasing. “Is that so, Mr. Crowley?”
Anthony paused and looked back at him, face blank and peculiar eyes faraway.
Zirah’s poor health caught up with them first; cancer, they had told him finally, promising him six months. He’d lived three practically in hospital, and been out for another. A nurse was on call for him as well, and Anthony had carefully ensured his favourite books were lined up downstairs. As time progressed Zirah wanted more and more to leave and die in a dignified fashion, but Anthony’s fear had been too much at first to acquiesce.
Neither of them spoke about it anymore – the treatments looked useless, the cancer had metastasized, there was very little to do except wait for Time to come and claim him – but it stood between them, sometimes. A reminder that their world would soon end, as it were. Their Eden.
Zirah refused it the most. He had taken the original announcement more quietly, while Anthony had raged on against the world and gone searching for every possible, improbable alternative, but now, it seemed as if only Anthony still hoped, or looked. The quiet, wise acceptance had become mere waiting.
Their gaze caught, though, in the frozen silence of the room, and Zirah smiled gently. “Back to bed,” he said, and Anthony nodded, and gave himself a shake.
”Right,” he agreed, and climbed in next to Zirah, and then rolled right on top of him, looking much closer at his wide, blue eyes.
”You look like an angel,” he said, grinning, and Zirah laughed. “You say that to all the nice booksellers you shag, don’t you.”
Anthony snorted. “Because I shag so many poofy, old, gayer-than-daffodils bookshop keepers. They’re just my type.” He punctuated this by kissing the blond deeply, insinuating one hand to cup the man’s cheek, allowing the other to slip down and cup the man’s round arse.
”Lucky for me,” Zirah murmured, and began to snog back in earnest, eyes falling shut. He grasped Anthony’s leg and hitched him up so he was straddling him, almost, words falling from the younger man’s mouth into his.
They broke apart, gasping for air, and laughed again, foreheads pressed together as they watched each other. “Insatiable,” Zirah said, biting his lip and smiling, “Didn’t we just do this? An hour ago?”
”A complaint? Why, I must not be trying hard enough.”
”We-ell…” A pillow suddenly hit him in the face, and Anthony rolled off Zirah, landing with an oomph. The other man rolled over to greet him, authoritatively – and efficiently – pinning him.
“If you’re going to act that way, my dear…” he threatened faintly, and Anthony squeaked*.
*He’d never, ever admit to this, but it’s quite true. He squeaked.
”Oh yeah? What are you going to do to me, then? Tie me up? Flog me?”
”Oh, no, none of that, wouldn’t want to mark up the skin that you spent ever so much time getting ‘the perfect tan’ in Greece for… No, no, I’m afraid not, I’ll have to figure out something completely different…”
”Fuck me?”
There was no reply, because Zirah’s talented, gentle hands had become suddenly firm and decisive, darting beneath the bedclothes, and his mouth had been just as suddenly occupied with Anthony’s neck, sucking and nipping, until Anthony moaned.
”Well, when you put it that way, dear boy…”
He rose up, for the first time, too-long hair (he hadn’t cut it while so ill) framing his round face – like a halo, Anthony reflected, the way the lightness brightened at the edges with the half-hidden sunlight picking out light gold and silver strands – and shifted them both so he could settle between Anthony’s spread legs, humming.
Zirah stopped, mouth forming an ‘O’ in surprise. “Er.”
There was rustling, and the sound of a bedside bureau being opened and slammed shut sloppily. A bottle was tossed at him. “Here.”
Zirah looked grateful. ”Thank you.”
”The better thanks would be if you would just get on wi- naaaagh.“
His toes curled, and he began breathing quite a bit harder, concentrating on relaxing, he must relax, and- and- oooooh.
”Rather,” Zirah replied eventually, but it was only a distracted comment; he was too heavily focused on what he was doing, and the reactions of Anthony – when he crooked his fingers just so and stroked, Anthony shouted, and Zirah beamed.
Infuriatingly polite, Zirah asked him, an entirely sadistic smirk on his face, ”All right?”
”Fuck, yes,” he panted, head falling back against the luxurious pillows and creating a messy, black-haired sprawl, “Bastard. Would you just- just-“
”So impatient,” but it was said with a delighted tone, and a few more minutes of making Anthony twist and writhe and swear at him, until Zirah removed his fingers (hushing Anthony’s keening whine), held him steady, and thrust deeply.
They both moaned then, Anthony’s odd eyes wide as he stared blankly upwards, breathless. Zirah was no better – his eyes were closed, of course, and head bent over Anthony, but his figure no less strained with the effort, trembling, and he was possibly more breathless.
Human instinct. Zirah moved, and thrust again, sparking another moan from Anthony, who began to move too, so that they thrust in counterpoint, coming together with a great, coordinated force, a storm between them, great broiling black storm clouds filling the sky with rampant, spontaneous electricity and the angry, passionate rumble of thunder.
Black hair stuck to the pillow as sweat gathered at temples, between them, pooling in the hollows of skin and structure, and Anthony moaned. “Zirah-“
“Hush,” Zirah told him, hips lifting and going faster, louder in the country room.
Anthony whined. “Please-“
It took pity on him, the hand, and wrapped around him, encouraging something that hadn’t need a hell of a lot of encouragement in the first place. It took moments; Anthony’s hips jerked and he came violently with a slight yelp as Zirah bit down on his bared neck, face a picture as his own orgasm overtook him.
Breath slowed, and they curled apart, mere limbs tangled now, a sprawled elbow resting against chest, a foot hooked around an ankle.
Zirah looked at the ceiling, thinking, as Anthony rubbed his face in deeper into the overstuffed pillow, panting softly into it.
He opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Opened it again.
Thought about it.
Closed it.
Opened it and said it, exhaling.
”I love you, my dear.”
There was silence, then, as Anthony’s breath halted and back stiffened, and Zirah, sensing the sudden vulnerability, gathered him close and rocked him, gently. Anthony licked the shell of Zirah’s ear to distract him from any actual soul-searching, and the pudgy blond started, a half-memory surfacing. “I should tell you, I had this dream…”
”Oh?”
Author:
allthisnonsense Recipient:
alys_wonder Rating: R
Pairings: Aziraphale/Crowley, Adam/Pepper.
Prompt:
alys_wonder requests: A rating of R; Crowley/Aziraphale, Crowley and Aziraphale, the Them gen, Adam/Pepper; A/C, hurt/comfort, angst is perfectly fine, historical, Wales.Summary: Adam is a very average sort of boy.
Author’s Notes: Hope it’s pleasing! I think it’s nearly two fics. Most of it is heartily spoofed from Lewis Carroll’s story of Alice in Wonderland, available here. Happy Christmas!
Adam was beginning to get very tired of his eleventh birthday party. No one had shown up yet – indeed, who would? He was an angelic-looking boy with good marks in school, a decent moral upbringing, a healthy interest in all things mucky and adventurous…
…and no friends.
Sighing heavily, Adam contemplated pestering his older sister (talking on the phone) to start a game of chess, or perhaps a game of pirates and ninjas, or something, anything, when an Angel passed him.
He – for it was a he – was dressed frumpishly in a suit of tweed, with a pair of fatherly glasses and a wavy blond haircut that looked reminiscent of the fifties, if not earlier. The great big pair of white wings behind him that shuddered and picked up the wind even slightly was the only sign that he was an Angel at all. They came straight out of his back, with extraordinary muscles – must be heavy, Adam thought sympathetically – to support them, and they smelled, for lack of a better word, heavenly, in the breeze.
Adam straightened up, blinking.
Wings fluttering, the Angel pulled a small bible out of his waistcoat-pocket*, glanced at it, and put it away. He hadn’t seen Adam, yet, though they were close enough that Adam could see the lettering of the book – The Buggre Alle This Bible – and the sweat that dripped down his fair flushed skin.
*This struck Adam as odd: firstly, because it was an awfully large bible for such a small pocket; and secondly because no one wore waistcoats anymore.
”Oh dear, oh dear, oh, this cannot be happening…”
Quietly, the boy followed, and watched as the searching Angel found a spot on the ground not so far from where the eleven-year old was crouched, and fell to his knees immediately, drawing circles in the dust and mud there, chanting Words as he spread candles and incense that hadn’t been there a minute ago around.
The simple outline of a circle began to make itself known, glowing a bright blue colour the same as the sky, and Adam kept away, and bit his lip.
The Angel stood, wringing his wrists and fretting out loud. He still hadn’t seen Adam.
”Oh dear, oh de-“
”Hello?”
Taken off-guard, the Angel spun around, took a step backwards in surprise, and, with a harmonic note, disappeared instantly.
In no small amount of shock, Adam found himself staring. This was even cooler than the pirates! Perhaps it wasn’t even an angel, perhaps it was aliens- no, wait, he’d been almost right before! He’d said that aliens had secret underground bases, but really, what if the angels were the aliens? Does that mean that going to church was alien worship?
Adam crawled over the ground to the blue circle, which was still glowing invitingly, and then turned around, thinking about his mum and dad. Well… he could tell them that he was going, but he wasn’t really going anywhere at all, was he? He was still in the yard.
Satisfied with this logic, Adam jumped into the circle.
His first realization was that it was like a great, big slide… except he wasn’t going fast at all, and he wasn’t sitting on anything.
Unbeknownst to him, he was falling, and it was a very, very long drop.
The passage he found himself in had many, many doors, the like of which could only possibly have been opened by an Opener, or possibly someone with a key. He tried them all; he had no other choice, and surely not all of them were locked?
A ruffle of feathers ahead made Adam look up, just in time to see the heavenly being (or possible alien) disappear around a corner that hadn’t been there before.
”Hey!” he called, “Hey, wait!” and started running after him, skidding around the brand new corner. Suddenly, a table appeared before him.
There was a very large pearly set of gates directly before him. Adam looked up in wonder, touching at them briefly – far too heavy for him to move, though, he realized.
He looked at the table.
It contained food. MEALS ™ sat in little boxes next to it.
Or at least Adam thought it was likely food. It smelled like food, in a plastic sort of way. The only trouble is his parents had explicitly told him not to take- no, that was candy, wasn’t it? Besides, he was hungry, and if someone had only TV-dinner sorts of things to offer him then he’d make do – and, importantly, it had “pizza-flavoured” on the box.
There was no sign of the Angel, so he sat down and ate.
”…?” the boy asked a few moments after he’d finished eating.
He was growing.
Exponentially. (His first realization was that his clothes grew with him.) He wondered, for a second, if this was the mysterious Puberty that his older sister had complained so much about, and then shook his head. As far as he knew, Puberty never made you three, six, ten times the height you were originally.
The gate was looking smaller by the second. Soon, Adam could touch the top of it, and then it was at the level of his waist. Well. No sense in waiting, was there?
He started to push open the gate but it wouldn’t budge. Not at all. It sat there, merrily glowing, hopelessly stuck.
Adam turned around, looking for an idea, and found, much to his relief, a very large bottle standing next to him. This one was labelled DRINKS ™.
He grinned. At least they were specific about these things. He picked up the drink and sipped it, only to spit it out immediately, shuddering at the taste.
Ugh, wine, eleven-year-old Adam grimaced, and dropped the bottle, which smashed and formed a great big puddle of blood-coloured liquid.
There was a yelp from behind him and he whirled. The angel was rushing past, clucking his tongue, and being generally gayer than an entire bouquet of daffodils.
”Oh, ineffability, She’ll be so mad if I’m late, what am I going to do, what am I going to do? She’ll say, ‘Aziraphale, you knew exactl-‘“
He was carrying something this time, and was wearing a scarf, oddly normal.
”Hallo-“
The Angel leapt, staring, and dropped the collection of junk – a silver crown, a set of scales. (The scarf fell too.)
“No, wait, don’t-“ Adam said, holding out his arms in supplication, but the Angel ignored him and shrieked,
”ANTICHRIST!” and darted off in the other direction, going far faster than Adam had thought possible.
He winced, and shouted, “My name’s actually Adam! It’s not Damien or somebody!” down the long hallway after the Angel’s retreating back.
Adam sighed, and kicked at the ground a little, splashing the red wine. He suddenly realized that it was far closer than it was before, and jerked his head up to look at the table, which suddenly loomed above him.
Uh oh.
He hastily gathered the crown and scales to him, and tied them securely to himself with bits of string, realizing he was shrinking more and more. Soon, the level of the wine-puddle was at his knees, then his waist, and then his neck. Before too long, Adam found himself swimming.
In the short sequence of events that followed, we, the readers, can summarize that a) Adam was, in fact, picked up by a bird, that b) he was also nearly eaten, as they had thought he was an insect.
Normally, he would have taken this as a some sort of insult.
”Hello?” The big one peered down at him, and Adam fumbled in his memory for some of his father’s bird-watching lessons.
”What are you?”
”Monks,” a smaller bird told him, the word echoed by what was quite the large group of fowl around a nest.
”Monks of what?”
”Nipples,” said the Tit.
”What?”
The others looked shocked, and turned to the Great Tit amongst them, which glared at Adam. “I’m very aggressive. Don’t ye play dumb with me, lad, I ken what ye’re up to.”
A little one chattered excitedly to him, ”He knows all. He’s the Great Tit. He fights off the smaller tits. The Royal Society said so.”
The other birds nodded, a few of them chirping, “Teacher! Teacher!” as they crowded about Shadwell.
”What’s your name, then?” He wasn’t mature enough to call someone he could talk to a tit without laughing and he wasn’t entirely sure he should be laughing, under the circumstances. It’s hard to be confident enough to laugh, he reflected, when one is four inches high or so.
”Shadwell,” the Great Tit told him magnanimously. “Shadwell the Great to the likes of ye. Now, a test!”
”But I haven’t studied-”
”How many nipples have ye got?”
Adam wondered if this was under the list of questions he wasn’t supposed to be asked. “Two, I guess.”
They consulted each other, flitting and twirping and another few saying, “See-‘ere” instead of “See-ou” like it ought to be.
“Antichrist!” called one, and the birds scattered, abruptly leaving Adam to himself once again (although there had been a mention of a pin somewhere).
He sat and waited, chucking rocks out of the nest, thinking: “At least I wasn’t food after all.”
”Oh, dear. Oh, my feathers!” the Angel, looking high and low for his scales and tin crown, as he flew by, checking the nests.
”Are you an alien?” Adam called out, and the Angel paused so suddenly he nearly hit the tree branch.
”No, I’m Aziraphale, dear- oh, no, the Antichrist, not yet, go back to where you came from please! We’re not ready for the Great Event yet!” he cried, flying above Adam.
”I can’t go back. What Great Event?”
”The Apocalypse. Oh dear, oh dear, and I haven’t even found the scales yet…”
Adam held out the two items he’d dropped earlier, but the Angel took no notice, as he was already flying away. In the time, however, Adam noticed exactly one shining sword at his waist.
With all this going on, it was no surprise (except possibly to Adam, who was not scared but indeed very excited by it all, and who was already half out of the nest) that a serpent, great and long, had begun to slither up the tree he was in.
It was a very big snake, even though Adam could feel himself starting to grow once again, which was a relief since he didn’t think he’d spend the rest of his time in the nest, either.
It was also grinning.
”Hello,” it grinned at him. “I’m the Cheshire Crowley.”
”How can you grin so?” Adam asked, staring.
”Oh, you wouldn’t believe the things a snake could do with his jaw…”
(He felt rather funny at this. It wasn’t, exactly, that the sheer extensiveness of the grin that bothered him. It was the fact that snakes really only had two sets of fangs… so where did the other teeth come from?)
”All right,” Adam said, making it clear he didn’t believe it. He’d grown big enough that he could step out of the nest and climb down tree, so he did so.
The snake followed, but didn’t leave the tree.
”Where do I go from here?”
”To the Queen, I suspect. Have you played war with her yet today?”
”No, but I will, I guess.”
The snake suddenly stiffened.
”Are you okay?”
”Antichrisssst,” it hissed, and stared with great, big yellow eyes, at odds with its great shining smile.
”That’s what everyone says. What’s an Antichrist?”
”It brings about the end of the world.”
”The Great Event?”
The Cheshire Crowley perked up. “You’ve seen the Angel?”
”Yeah, I have. Uh, what direction is the Queen in?”
”That way,” it said, looking distracted. It had already started to disappear, fading at the edges. The end of its great long tail disappeared entirely, and Adam felt he should be nice and point that out.
”Sssshit,” the snake swore, staring at its tail unhappily. “I guess I’ll see you at the court. Goodbye, Antichrist.”
The smile was the last to go, steady despite the fact that its body was already missing.
”Goodbye,” Adam said, watched as the final white shine of teeth faded and disappeared.
It was basically, he realized, a pack of cards playing War, which was normally two-player but seemed to have a lot of players with the cards themselves playing.
Someone shouted as they spotted him getting closer, and he heard a loud female voice yell,
”Burning at the stake!”
He stopped. The Angel strode out of the crowd and stood next to him, or really half-behind him, as the cards turned and looked at the newcomer with interest.
”Oh, not that again,” Adam heard the Angel whisper, and the Cheshire Crowley appeared somewhere near his left elbow, muttering something about ‘bloody discorporations.’ “I wish they’d be more original.”
”You’re stained in blood,” the Queen cried, stalking over to their small group. “How delightful!”
”Actually it’s wine,” Adam said, but it made no difference, and anyway he thought blood was cooler.
”I like him!” the Queen announced. “Now, for the trial?”
”Antichrist,” the King intoned, solemn, and his court repeated it.
”Not my nipples again!” Adam thought despondently. What was the obsession even about? “How many nipples do you have?” he asked the Queen. The court gasped.
”Three,” she said flippantly.
Their world went back to chaos as immediate war broke out between those who were suddenly demanding, “Witch, witch!” and those who clung fervently to their Queen.
The King looked startled. “You-“
She, the Queen of Hearts, grinned broadly, sword-glints in her smile. “Only joking. Not, you know, that you would have noticed even if I had that many, what with your goings-on with the Jack. Where is he, anyway?”
The King looked momentarily guilty, fiddling with the slim, parched edge of his clothing, which was fitted and sleek.
”He is…?”
“Under the judge’s table,” King Famine replied meekly.
Queen War laughed in outright amusement. “So that’s why you wanted a trial. I knew you were an exhibitionist.”
”Most of the time when I am exhibited it’s an attempt for people to get rid of me,” Famine said. “Regardless. What happened to ‘Off with his head!’?”
”Only momentarily abandoned, be assured of that.”
Adam looked around. “Right,” he said, looking nervous as the Ace of Spades passed by, its cloak brushing the ground ominously.
”And with him,” War gloated, “we could just up and destroy this world. Can’t we, Antichrist?”
”Actually.”
Everyone looked at the Angel, who quivered slightly. “Actually.”
”Yes, Aziraphale?” the King asked.
”I may have your sword, Majesty, but Adam – the Antichrist - happens to have the scales and crown. And Rule Number One is that he has to give them to you.”
The Jack strolled over, muttering something to the King about waiting far too long in an abhorrent crouching position, and finally getting spotted by a Three of Diamonds, which immediately assumed a game of hide-and-seek was happening. ”Is it Rule Number One? Someone find the bookkeeper!”
The Cheshire Crowley grinned (naturally). “He is the bookkeeper, your Majesty.”
They all looked at Aziraphale. “It is,” he said sheepishly.
The Ace of Spades stalked closer: “AM I ACTUALLY GOING TO GET TO DO SOMETHING NOW? I’M SO SICK OF PLAYING CARDS.”
Adam blinked. “But you are a playing card!”
”I CAN STILL COMPLAIN ABOUT MY EXISTENCE, OR LACK OF IT. NOW, ARE YOU GOING TO GIVE UP THE SCALES AND CROWN?”
”I’d rather he didn’t,” the Cheshire Crowley interrupted, still merely a grin, and not yet a serpent. “All the same to you, Majesty, if he gives them, you’ll destroy us all.”
The royalty collectively sighed happily.
”Adam, dear, would you destroy us? It’s your decision.”
Adam looked to the Angel, and around at the cards, and said, “No.”
The King of Hearts, Queen of Hearts, Jack of Hearts, and Ace of Spades suddenly looked at him.
”Why not?”
”’Cause life is exciting,” he said, “You’re very odd but still exciting, you know. Without you, uh, cards and snakes and angels and things, I’d be pretty bored here in…”
”Wonderland,” the Angel supplied quietly.
”Yeah, Wonderland. So you see…”
The royalty looked at each other, and looked at Adam, and then disappeared back into their courts of cards, most of whom were still obsessed with the Queen’s nipples.
”An’ you,” Adam said, looking at them both curiously, “Why did you want the world saved? I know why I wanted it. Why couldn’t you both just tell me?”
”Well, we have an agreement, you see.” Aziraphale coughed and looked to the Cheshire Crowley, which grinned again, letting its tongue hiss out and touch the shell of the angel’s ear. Aziraphale glanced at the snake, whose body had finally begun to appear, and was preoccupied with wrapping around the Angel. “You never even told him why he was to go to the Queen?”
A grin. ”Nothing againssst you, kid. I wasss rooting for you the whole time.”
”I saved the world,” Adam said to himself, and his grin was more than enough to match the Cheshire Crowley’s.
And then…
And then…
Adam, a normal boy in a terribly normal world, awoke, to his mother calling him.
-fin-
(Except.)
In a very quaint cottage just outside of Cardiff, Wales, a man named Anthony James stirred at the same precise moment. Anthony was CEO of a cigarette company with its headquarters in Manchester (a company named Temptation for the peculiar brand of cigarettes it sold, which were bright red with a miniature, perfectly smooth green leaf near the mouth-end) and he was currently on vacation.
It was also, coincidentally, some ungodly hour of the morning – that is to say, one in the afternoon – and he was wrapped around another man. This, again, was nothing special, except that the man he was rather literally sleeping with happened to be none other than Zirah Fell, a bookseller from London who only managed not to get called ‘twee’ every other moment by Anthony by the dear, simple fact that they were shagging.
A lot.
”Mmph,” came the gentle, less-than-musical groan from Zirah, when Anthony ‘accidentally’ kicked him.
”You’re awake, aren’t you,” he accused.
There was a faint twitch of the soft cheek, and Anthony grinned. Scored one. A soft, “Hardly, my dear, if I was properly awake I’d’ve cleaned up our mess from yesterday,” made itself heard.
Anthony looked at the floor, which was a veritable hodgepodge of all the clothing they’d pulled off (each other) the night before. He was, however, still wearing one sock himself – it wasn’t even his; bloody argyle, it had to be Zirah’s – and he stripped that off, adding it to the pile. “Mess?” he asked, hopping up and chucking it all into the hamper for his landlady to take care of it. “I see no mess. You’re losing your mind, Mr. Fell.”
There was an answering, quiet smile, filled with deeper amusement than just the small teasing. “Is that so, Mr. Crowley?”
Anthony paused and looked back at him, face blank and peculiar eyes faraway.
Zirah’s poor health caught up with them first; cancer, they had told him finally, promising him six months. He’d lived three practically in hospital, and been out for another. A nurse was on call for him as well, and Anthony had carefully ensured his favourite books were lined up downstairs. As time progressed Zirah wanted more and more to leave and die in a dignified fashion, but Anthony’s fear had been too much at first to acquiesce.
Neither of them spoke about it anymore – the treatments looked useless, the cancer had metastasized, there was very little to do except wait for Time to come and claim him – but it stood between them, sometimes. A reminder that their world would soon end, as it were. Their Eden.
Zirah refused it the most. He had taken the original announcement more quietly, while Anthony had raged on against the world and gone searching for every possible, improbable alternative, but now, it seemed as if only Anthony still hoped, or looked. The quiet, wise acceptance had become mere waiting.
Their gaze caught, though, in the frozen silence of the room, and Zirah smiled gently. “Back to bed,” he said, and Anthony nodded, and gave himself a shake.
”Right,” he agreed, and climbed in next to Zirah, and then rolled right on top of him, looking much closer at his wide, blue eyes.
”You look like an angel,” he said, grinning, and Zirah laughed. “You say that to all the nice booksellers you shag, don’t you.”
Anthony snorted. “Because I shag so many poofy, old, gayer-than-daffodils bookshop keepers. They’re just my type.” He punctuated this by kissing the blond deeply, insinuating one hand to cup the man’s cheek, allowing the other to slip down and cup the man’s round arse.
”Lucky for me,” Zirah murmured, and began to snog back in earnest, eyes falling shut. He grasped Anthony’s leg and hitched him up so he was straddling him, almost, words falling from the younger man’s mouth into his.
They broke apart, gasping for air, and laughed again, foreheads pressed together as they watched each other. “Insatiable,” Zirah said, biting his lip and smiling, “Didn’t we just do this? An hour ago?”
”A complaint? Why, I must not be trying hard enough.”
”We-ell…” A pillow suddenly hit him in the face, and Anthony rolled off Zirah, landing with an oomph. The other man rolled over to greet him, authoritatively – and efficiently – pinning him.
“If you’re going to act that way, my dear…” he threatened faintly, and Anthony squeaked*.
*He’d never, ever admit to this, but it’s quite true. He squeaked.
”Oh yeah? What are you going to do to me, then? Tie me up? Flog me?”
”Oh, no, none of that, wouldn’t want to mark up the skin that you spent ever so much time getting ‘the perfect tan’ in Greece for… No, no, I’m afraid not, I’ll have to figure out something completely different…”
”Fuck me?”
There was no reply, because Zirah’s talented, gentle hands had become suddenly firm and decisive, darting beneath the bedclothes, and his mouth had been just as suddenly occupied with Anthony’s neck, sucking and nipping, until Anthony moaned.
”Well, when you put it that way, dear boy…”
He rose up, for the first time, too-long hair (he hadn’t cut it while so ill) framing his round face – like a halo, Anthony reflected, the way the lightness brightened at the edges with the half-hidden sunlight picking out light gold and silver strands – and shifted them both so he could settle between Anthony’s spread legs, humming.
Zirah stopped, mouth forming an ‘O’ in surprise. “Er.”
There was rustling, and the sound of a bedside bureau being opened and slammed shut sloppily. A bottle was tossed at him. “Here.”
Zirah looked grateful. ”Thank you.”
”The better thanks would be if you would just get on wi- naaaagh.“
His toes curled, and he began breathing quite a bit harder, concentrating on relaxing, he must relax, and- and- oooooh.
”Rather,” Zirah replied eventually, but it was only a distracted comment; he was too heavily focused on what he was doing, and the reactions of Anthony – when he crooked his fingers just so and stroked, Anthony shouted, and Zirah beamed.
Infuriatingly polite, Zirah asked him, an entirely sadistic smirk on his face, ”All right?”
”Fuck, yes,” he panted, head falling back against the luxurious pillows and creating a messy, black-haired sprawl, “Bastard. Would you just- just-“
”So impatient,” but it was said with a delighted tone, and a few more minutes of making Anthony twist and writhe and swear at him, until Zirah removed his fingers (hushing Anthony’s keening whine), held him steady, and thrust deeply.
They both moaned then, Anthony’s odd eyes wide as he stared blankly upwards, breathless. Zirah was no better – his eyes were closed, of course, and head bent over Anthony, but his figure no less strained with the effort, trembling, and he was possibly more breathless.
Human instinct. Zirah moved, and thrust again, sparking another moan from Anthony, who began to move too, so that they thrust in counterpoint, coming together with a great, coordinated force, a storm between them, great broiling black storm clouds filling the sky with rampant, spontaneous electricity and the angry, passionate rumble of thunder.
Black hair stuck to the pillow as sweat gathered at temples, between them, pooling in the hollows of skin and structure, and Anthony moaned. “Zirah-“
“Hush,” Zirah told him, hips lifting and going faster, louder in the country room.
Anthony whined. “Please-“
It took pity on him, the hand, and wrapped around him, encouraging something that hadn’t need a hell of a lot of encouragement in the first place. It took moments; Anthony’s hips jerked and he came violently with a slight yelp as Zirah bit down on his bared neck, face a picture as his own orgasm overtook him.
Breath slowed, and they curled apart, mere limbs tangled now, a sprawled elbow resting against chest, a foot hooked around an ankle.
Zirah looked at the ceiling, thinking, as Anthony rubbed his face in deeper into the overstuffed pillow, panting softly into it.
He opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Opened it again.
Thought about it.
Closed it.
Opened it and said it, exhaling.
”I love you, my dear.”
There was silence, then, as Anthony’s breath halted and back stiffened, and Zirah, sensing the sudden vulnerability, gathered him close and rocked him, gently. Anthony licked the shell of Zirah’s ear to distract him from any actual soul-searching, and the pudgy blond started, a half-memory surfacing. “I should tell you, I had this dream…”
”Oh?”
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(Anonymous) 2006-12-28 04:12 am (UTC)(link)Thought you should know I loved it, dear, even if you never did get around to e-mailing it. Lovely and sweet and all of the comparisons fit into canon and weren't impossible to guess, actually, and the A/C was perfect. It was also really funny, but in a way that meshed well with the Alice in Wonderland theme. And, well, you know I think you're a fantastic writer, but this was really very good.
♥ times like a gajillion
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And the later bit... *wibbles* So very sweet. (And Cardiff! YAYS!)
I love it. Thank you so very much, Shhh! (what an unusual name. XD)
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