Why Karen should never be allowed near a keyboard after midnight

[odditycollector]

 
I'm... not actually sure I have an excuse for this.



Divine Inspiration

 
When the ringing finally stopped, Aziraphale found himself lying on the floor in the dark. He spent a few moments wondering at how marvellously uncomfortable a cheap wooden floor could be, especially when a hundreds of slivers from said floor were sticking into one’s unaccountably exposed buttocks, and then pulled himself into a standing position. Aziraphale tried looking beyond the darkness, but everything remained utterly blank. He raised a hand to his eyes in confusion, and then he let out a shout of a surprise.

There was an answering noise, although it sounded like the offspring of a scream and a moan that someone had rightly tried to strangle at birth. Aziraphale frowned.

“Crowley?” he said. When there wasn’t an answer after a second, he ran his hands across the sides of his head, just to be certain his ears were still attached. “Crowley?” he tried again, louder.

“What!” Crowley snarled from somewhere to his left.

“Crowley, I seem to have misplaced my eyeballs,” Aziraphale said with what he thought was admirable calm.

There was a pause, and then Crowley said, “Really?”

Aziraphale sniffed. “You needn’t sound so happy about it.”

“You have no idea what I need at the moment,” Crowley said. “But the hollowed, blackened skull of that blessed magician would be a good place to start guessing.”

“Now, now,” Aziraphale said. “I’m sure this isn’t Theodore’s fault. There was probably a… a freak convergence of occult and human-based magic that just happened to coincide with the rabbit trick.”

“It was a pretty good rabbit trick,” Crowley allowed. “Maybe I’ll only mostly torture him slowly to death.”

“That’s the spirit,” Aziraphale said. He moved in the direction of Crowley’s voice, and promptly tripped over a piece of furniture. “Oh, for the – I can’t even navigate.”

Aziraphale pushed the small table upright again, and then carefully ripped off a strip of its lace covering. He wrapped the fabric around his head as a makeshift blindfold.

“Now what are you doing?”

Aziraphale sighed. “We’re going to have to find Theodore again, if we intend to fix this, and I must be a sight at the moment. I don’t want to scare the poor man.” He finished tying the fabric and said, “There. Now I can go.” Aziraphale took two steps and ran into a wall.

“This isn’t going to work, is it?” said Crowley.

“No,” Aziraphale sighed. “It appears the only thing I can find at the moment is the floor.”

“Right,” said Crowley. There was the sound of something moving closer. It had an odd, unsteady gait. “Climb on. I’ll find the git, and you can distract him while I rip out his entrails.”

“I’m sure you don’t mean that,” said Aziraphale. He stood up again, and moved an arm until it pressed into something smooth. “Is this you, Crowley?”

“Yess.”

Aziraphale flew up a couple feet, and then slid onto what he assumed was Crowley’s back. The creature he had become was long and cylindrical. Aziraphale didn’t feel any scales under him, but: “At least you’re trapped in a familiar form,” he said helpfully.

Crowley shuddered. “Shut up, angel.”

Aziraphale gave him an encouraging pat, and then stilled as something occurred to him. “Crowley, can you see?”

“As long as I won’t require depth perception, I can see bloody fine.”

When they finally left the room, Aziraphale heard panicked movement and a few screams, and he supposed there might have been more he should have done to avoid a spectacle, at least until his abilities returned properly.

And much later one of those present repeated the story to a young artist named Eugene Le Poitevin, who managed to make quite a notable career for himself in the bargain.

 

This story would probably make a lot more sense if you've seen this picture, but I have no idea if that's a thing to be *desired* or not.

Comments

[odditycollector.livejournal.com]

Thanks!