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English
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Part 1 of The Shelter Of Your Wings
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Published:
2019-12-26
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2,713
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1/1
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105
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Someone To Watch Over Me

Summary:

Crowley believes fondly that it’s always his angel who needs to be pulled out of trouble.

It’s a little less one-sided than that.

By the time you get through the crowd and up to street level, they’re out of sight, but you don’t need to see them; you can hear down the alley, behind the bins: “Freak. I should cut you just for bein’ a freak. Get ‘is pockets, Jacky, that was a fat wad.” Hissing and spitting; this'll go bad quickly, but it’s a split second to take it all in as you come abreast of them: one of the punks twisting an arm up behind his back, the other tipping his head up with a flick-knife under the jaw.

That one goes down first.

Notes:

Set about ten years after the Holy Water gift -- a time when some places still needed passwords and secret knocks.

I'm usually a lot more upbeat and funny than this, but the voices in my head tell me what to write...

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

You know that look. It doesn’t come often, but something in you is always watching for it – a hooding of the yellow eyes, the ghost of a snarl, with an extra spit of cynicism about Heaven and holy wankers and your lot. It happens when you’ve been drinking together, and you decide it’s time to sober up, and he doesn’t; he’ll splash an extra-large refill into his glass (spilling, swearing about it, drinking half of it off neat), clank it down rattling and wobbling on the end table next to the horsehair-stuffed chair he likes to sink into.

(It's hard even to like him sometimes, when he's this way. That doesn't change what you do.)

You’d think he’d pass out right there in that quicksand chair, end of problem, but you know what comes next: he’ll pull himself forward, all angular elbows and bony knees, peering at you with the suspicious, slitted gaze of someone who’s already drunk enough that he’s not entirely tracking, and say something like “Well, not done yet. Won’t keep you up,” or maybe something sharper about Heavenly staying power. He’ll lurch to his feet, a stick figure drawing itself against the lamplight, lean and loose, ring himself out with an abrupt goodnight, maybe colliding with the doorjamb as he goes. He’s been known to smack it then, as if it hit him deliberately and needs to be hit back, and the sound of the impact makes you wince. It’s the sound of someone hurting himself, with intent. That’s when you know you have to follow him.

It’s always late when he leaves, but Soho never sleeps. Not here, anyway, where slow decline eventually became explosions of clubs and adult shops and sketchy bars that have no relationship with any sort of inspection or licensure. It’s easy to lose yourself in the general milling on the pavement; but you’d never lose him, not just because that scarlet head of hair shows up like a little flush of flame under every streetlamp, but there’s a sense that will always tell you where he is, just as you know the direction a sound is coming from. He’s got it for you too, you know that, but right now it’s a cinch that none of his senses are reporting in properly.

(All right, it happens oftener lately. It used to be, maybe, every decade or two; since you gave him the Holy Water, eight or ten times in as many years. You’ve kept him closer since then, even if you said too fast, and sometimes you worry that maybe that’s why, but you’re coming to feel you can’t do without him – never too close, never too far, the way you’re trailing him now.)

You know where he’s going: not specifically, only that it’ll be one of the dark places, the dangerous places. Not the trendy pubs, where people can be comfortably upscale and tell their friends oh if you go to London you must, but the Mob gambling houses, the backdoor bars, the shooting galleries, the cribs where there might be a plump blond choirboy-faced body on offer, and maybe his ponce to rifle pockets or worse.

(He thinks he’s the one who always rescues you – the Bastille, the Blitz –  but you’ve done it for centuries. You did it in a sailors’ pub in Liverpool in the 1840’s, when he’d taken the King’s Shilling at the bottom of a pint tankard –the tenth? Twelfth? – and was about to be pressganged. He’s always too drunk to remember.)

And you have more than an inkling why.  He does it to drown remembrance, or maybe to defy, to show he can take everything and more: the fall into the Pit, the burning, the voice damning him, the exile. And, maybe, to forget what he wants and can’t have, because you’re afraid, because you’d be no good to him both damned, you don’t know what would happen, and he’s yours to protect, that’s what you do. He’s Hers too, he should be, anyway, but somehow you’re the only one who cares.

(You headed off a disaster when someone in rural Lancashire rumbled him as a demon or at least a work of Hell. You were comfortably drunk but he was arseholed to a fare-thee-well; he let his Hell-sulfured eyes show, declaiming Marlowe while playing chicken with the steps of the parish church –

     Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it:
     Think'st thou that I, who saw the face of God,
     And tasted the eternal joys of heaven,
     Am not tormented with ten thousand hells,  
     In being depriv'd of everlasting bliss?

The sexton, who crossed himself and ran for Holy Water from the font, found you standing in his path. You’d gone full angel, wings spread and beating, one hand raised while the other held him up under one arm like a drunken Pieta: This one is damned to walk the earth till the end of Time, the Lord decrees it; do not interfere with his penance. And didn’t that take some creative paperwork with Gabriel.)

The neon and the noise from the Hellmouths of clubs, the god-awful bebop, are both getting a little fainter; he takes a turning into a mews,  you hang back, he’ll see you if you’re careless. There’s a knock, a murmured colloquy; you hear the password. That kind of a place.

(You’ve got a scrapbook of the places in your head. The caupona in Ostia where he goaded a nearly-as-drunk legionary into almost drawing his weapon, you were pretty convincing as a member of the Vigiles; the shooting gallery where you miracled an overdose out of his system when he was already thrashing and trembling, wide-pupilled eyes rolled up, this close to having to explain an inconvenient discorporation Downstairs.)

You’re going to add a bead to the rosary tonight. You wait for a discreet interval, knock, give the word.

The door’s in a stairwell below street level, and it’s a few more steps down into the smoke and ugly music; the press of bodies doesn’t obscure that flaming head already at the far end of the bar, tipped back to sink the first gulp from a short tumbler, but you’re not so conspicuous, able to disappear into the commotion as you order whatever’s quickest, thread back towards the empty end of a table in the corner. There are only men in here; this is a place where people come with two purposes, and from the look of the pretty boys here and there in the press, a few of them dancing with men who’d look more at home in Westminster or the City, both of them require coin. Mirrors and dim coloured lights try to disguise the facts that the furnishings are minimal and mismatched, the supply of liquor behind the bar mostly cheap.

You’ve got a clear view of him now, spidering over the pub stool as if it’s an armature and not a piece of furniture, pulling out a wad of notes to order another. A clip fits better into the pockets of those snakeskin-tight jeans than a wallet, but this is the kind of place where people notice if someone’s piss-drunk and carrying all that cash; your alarm system goes up a notch, and you don’t take your eyes off him even when you tell a soft, dusky young man who slips in next to you, blinking glitter-dusted eyelids, that you’re waiting for someone. Which you are; he just doesn’t know it.

His head’s bent now, and you see that he’s leaning close to blond curls, a fussy drink with some sort of red syrup or liqueur in it. Waving to the barkeep to bring this young man another. It doesn’t seem welcome. You shift your chair again; the boy’s chubby, round-faced, he looks like the kid who gets beaten up in all the school stories, and he’s got both hands raised, palms outward, in a gesture that’s both placation and refusal. This isn’t going to go well. Voices are rising.

“You leave ‘im alone, mate, ’e’s my date.” Not one of the buttoned-up men from the City who’d lose their livelihoods if anyone who mattered knew they were here. This is someone who hasn’t got social standing to lose.

“And who the fuck are you?”

“I’m his date, what else you need to know?”

“Yeah? Can you keep him?” That voice that you’d know from halfway across the world is rough, combative.

“He don’t want you buyin’ him drinks, mate. Leave it.” That’s the barkeep. He’s used to this kind of trouble.

“Anybody ask you?”

“Leave it.”

He’s not listening to your man the barkeep, focused instead on the party just out of sight, the voice whose words you can’t quite catch now, but they’re not friendly overtures. “You wanna fight? I’ll fight.”

The barkeep’s raised a hand, glancing over the crowd. A tall drag queen – she’s slim and perfect in cream-white, hair piled on her head, betrayed only by a bump of Adam’s apple – has already sidled toward the argument, leaning to lay a hand on the black-jacketed arm, a peacemaker. She’s jolted by the response: “Fuck you, Michael, your lot’s never taken care of him like I have – “ the drag queen stumbles, totters on stilettos as she’s straight-armed back.

He doesn’t see the punch coming, and doubles over. “You lay another hand on Stella – “ That’s the plump boy’s date, who’s obviously a regular, a wiry man a little too old for his pageboy haircut.

Stella doesn't seem to hold a grudge: “He’s drunk, Robbie, just get him out of here.” Somehow the dark glasses have stayed on, and he’s ready to throw hands, even as he's pulling in air with ugly gulps that sound like the whisky’s going to come back up any moment. You’re up, sight lines don’t matter now, a hat and overcoat are enough disguise in a place like this where not asking questions is the first rule, and he’s past seeing anything clearly. But the barkeep’s signal’s brought someone who looks like a boxer gone to seed, forearms like duckpins, a meaty hand that fastens on the collar of the black jacket. The struggle’s momentary but knocks the half-full tumbler of whisky to the floor, splashing Stella’s pristine skirt. Patrons are backing away, clearing a path to the door.

You’re not watching him too steadily to miss the two men getting up, one flicking an eye at the barkeep, who nods back. You’re already threading your way though the bodies: “Fuck you, Hastur,” you hear as the door slams behind him. The two men follow, more quietly.

By the time you get through the crowd and up to street level, they’re out of sight, but you don’t need to see them; you can hear down the alley, behind the bins: “Freak. I should cut you just for bein’ a freak. Get ‘is pockets, Jacky, that was a fat wad.” Hissing and spitting; this'll go bad quickly, but it’s a split second to take it all in as you come abreast of them: one of the punks twisting an arm up behind his back, the other tipping his head up with a flick-knife under the jaw.

That one goes down first. You may look soft, but when you smite, it’s not pretty or gentle; he doesn’t know what hit him, won’t ever be able to describe it, will only know he came to in the scatter of trodden rubbish in this alley. His friend has a moment to turn and see you, and you realize you’re starting to shed the light that precedes your wings into existence; you get a view of his face just as he flies back three or four feet and hits a bin with a sound like a gong before sliding down.

The red hair you’ve followed through the streets like a beacon is fanned across a puddle, the long limbs sprawled, the face naked as it never is in the open. He doesn’t look hurt, only collapsed. Jam the blade into the mortar of the blank wall to blunt and break it; find the glasses, slide them gently onto his face. He stirs then.

“ ‘Ziraphale? What’y’ doin’ here? Shouldn’t be here.”

“It doesn’t matter, dear. I am here.”

“Not safe. Y’should be at shop. Safe. You don’ know these places.” (You know them all.)

“Come along now. Get up. Can you get up?” You half-lift, half-steady him as he clambers up on slewing, boneless legs, get his arm over your sturdy shoulders. They’ve carried him before; this is nothing.

“Really n’t safe out here,” he repeats as you turn your footsteps back toward the shop. “Don’ know what you w’r thinkin’. Good thing  y’have me to look after you.”

A few incurious glances. Someone having to be helped back to a flat, a cab, the Tube isn’t that odd a spectacle in late night Soho.

“Love y’, angel, y’know that? Never told you. Stupid.” (He’s told you dozens of times. Doesn’t remember a single one.)

“I know, dear.”

“C’ld hurt you though. Don’ wanna hurt you. S’why I don’t tell you. Oughta know though. Wrong for you not t’know.”

“It’s all right. There’s a kerb here. Watch your step.”

“Snake. Could just crawl. They told me now you crawl. Wasn’t fair.”

“No, my dear. I don’t think so either.”

“All tossers. Gobshites. ‘cept you.” His knees try to go out from under him at the far kerbstone; you snug him to you more tightly. “See, ‘f’you loved me back, they’d do something to you too. Damned. Fucking gobshites, none of em could take what I have. Love you like I do.”

“No. They couldn't. It’s all right, keep trying… Not far now, just one foot in front of the other…”

His head lolls against yours, momentarily his weight drags at you; then he rights himself, leans on you hard, rakes the wet hair back. “Sorry, angel, can’t stop everything movin’… How’d you get here?”

The way I always do, you don’t say. He forgets he’s asked a moment later. The foot traffic has thinned now, it’s late.

Get him up the steps, through the door; he’s already steadier, the surroundings are a kind of home. You can slide him back into the chair as if he never left it, find a tufted footstool, the one you set your feet on when the skylight is filling like a cathedral with quartets and masses, the sounds you’ll play, later, to wash the memory of that bebop away.

Miracle the muck of a London alley off boots and clothing, so he won’t know he’s ever moved from this chair; from the lank, damp red hair, just with the wave of a hand, but get a dishtowel and a bowl of hot water to gently daub it from the angles of his face, clean the nick under the chin where the knife bit. In the morning you’ll be there, watching, when he wakes, saying Ugh, passed out before I sobered up again, didn’t I? Ach, my head…

You’ll bring him coffee from around the corner then (even with a miracle you haven’t got the hang of doing it right), put something cold at the nape of his neck; lower the shades so the light doesn’t pierce those yellow, sensitive eyes; keep the door locked until he says Don’t know why I’m taking up space here, leave you to it, see you soon (it’s never really soon enough).

But for now, you snug a knitted throw over him – he hates to be cold –  and kneel beside him while he settles, watching the lashes flutter a little, go quiet. You can lean forward then, stroke the rough red hair, kiss the pale forehead and the purplish eyelids; sit back to cover the long-fingered hand briefly with your own. He stirs a little then, burrows further into the soft squashy chair, says again as if to himself: “Love you, angel.”

You don’t answer above a whisper, because you’re frightened too -- even though you know it doesn’t matter whether you say it, only that it’s true and Someone probably already knows, and you’re waiting for the hammer to fall, though it hasn’t yet.

He won't remember.

Yes, I know. And I love you.

 

 

finis

 

Notes:

The lines Crowley declaims in the recalled playing-chicken scene are from Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, spoken by the subsidiary devil Mephistophilis (headcanon: Crowley sat for the portrait, as it were; Marlowe was trying to get into his breeches.)

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