The Known/Unknown Quantity

Chapter 149: Sticky Fingers

New Chapter 149: Sticky Fingers

"This is my dream," Aziraphale said to no one in particular.

It was a simple statement. A mere observation. Oh, look: I'm somewhere else.

So abruptly had his situation changed it took a while for his brain to catch up with his eyes.

He stood on a sweeping hillside, alongside other hills, feathered in the switchgrass he remembered as the landscape of his fantasy. The wind blew into the sea of faded green, shifting it all around him, whipping his coat around his hips. He looked down as he tightened it closer to his body, and observed that he was unbound.

He was himself in this dream.

"This is my dream," he reaffirmed to himself. And something stirred inside him, and he took a step forward. He said it again. "This is my dream!"

Down the hill he went. "Do you hear me out there, freak?" he intoned. "It won't work! This is my dream! You may have brought me here, but you don't hold sway!"

He curved his path to the right of the slope, and the valley peaked into view.

"I know exactly where I am! And, if I know it's my dream—"

The valley opened wide before him, and he paused. There was the circle, there was the stillness, there was Chaz, waiting.

"--I know it's not real," Aziraphale whispered.

He starred at his doppelganger, one of his dream-selves, waiting serenely to be tortured into ecstasy. Waiting to have his will drained away. And the angel did something he never dared to do alone: he took the path down to meet him.

He entered the circle, apprehension rising, and shakily touched the shadow's chin. Chaz rose to look up at him with gentle eyes. Even the third eye rolled around to inspect him before darting away to something else as it always did. Aziraphale drew his hand back.

"She can't hurt me here," he said uncertainly.

From the back of his mind came a hiss (Angel, sssstaaayyyy withthththththth meeeeeee). He couldn't make it out exactly, but it seemed to be warning him of something.

"Okay, it's okay. Fine and dandy. No problem," Crowley told himself, now that Aziraphale had gone silent. "He's too far in to hear me well. I'm the background music. But we can work with this." The demon didn't give up. Aziraphale hadn't, even if he was a bit discombobulated at the moment. Crowley rebounded, and coiled harder around his friend, and stroked him, and hissed insistently even as his throat grew raw and dry, and the world went dark once more, and threatened to leave him all alone forever.

"She can't hurt me here."

As if to confirm his proclamations, the angel dismissed his shadow with a huff, and straightened, smoothing out his clothes. "No need for alarm. It's just a silly fantasy." Bucking up, he smiled nervously to himself, held his hands behind his back, and paced around Chaz, who by now had forgotten him and fallen back into himself.

There you are! Feeling better already! The hissing in his head became a groan: er, perplexing...

"Everything perfectly under control!" he exclaimed with brittle cheer. "Alright! So maybe you put me here, freak, but I don't have to stay!" He grinned the widest, fakest grin he had in his arsenal. "I can wake up any time I like." He bobbed up and down on his feet, his voice cracking on the work "time" and fading with the word "like." And he looked about, left and right, and saw nothing but the grass and the hills and no evil monstrosity to oppose him.