milliways_bar | Millitimed to February 19th

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aziraphael

Millitimed to February 19th

Billy Batson practically bounces down the stairs, his eyes intent. He scans the main area, looking for someone in particular. When he doesn't see who he is looking for, he sighs and finds a seat at Bar.

He sits for a minute but then starts scanning the room again, his eyes intent. He has finally heard about Ethereals being in the Bar and put two and two together, and now is seeking a particular one. HIs usual bouncy energy is all tied up with nerves and fear and hope as he almost vibrates out of his seat.

(ooc: Plotlocked to Aziraphael, thank you.)

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Aziraphael comes back into the bar from outside (http://a-fell.livejournal.com/43474.html), pink-cheeked with the chill, and wanders over to the bar for another cup of tea.

Nearby, a bouncing, nervous, somewhat wideeyed Billy is sitting, scanning faces, despite not truly knowing what he is looking for. He nods to the stranger and smiles a little, distracted by trying to tell, foolishly, with mortal eyes, who might be an ethereal.

"Hi!"

Aziraphael blinks at him.

"Good afternoon, my dear. Are you... quite alright?"

Billy blinks at being cvalled my dear, but nods, then shakes his ehad, and looks a little confused.

"Yes and no, actually. I am looking for someone."

His voice sounds ever so slightly tinny, almost like a tv out of tune just slightly.

"Well it's an excellent place to be doing so. Even if you don't manage to find the person you're looking for, you're almost sure to find someone you should be talking to. It's that sort of a place."

Billy nods.

"Well, I kinda need to find a certain, ah, class of person, being... agh. I am not so good at explaining things."

he sits with a sigh.

"I'm Billy, by the way"

"And I'm Aziraphael - it's a pleasure to meet you."

Billy stares, no, really, he stares for a long moment, then he gulps.

"A p-p--pleasure to meet you."

he gulps and tries to talk, then tries again.

"You are.... you're... um, areyouanethereal?"

It all comes out in one breath and Billy looks rather like he expects a lightning bolt.

Aziraphael smile widens, rather.

"It's alright, it's not catching."

"Can I... ask you something? Please?"

He gulps and stiffens his resolve, visibly calming as he looks at the seemingly nice person(Ethereal!).

He restrains the impulse to roll his eyes.

"I suppose, but looking only, please. I'd rather you didn't touch."

There's a pause, as he processes the expression on Billy's face.

"You didn't mean the wings? People usually do..."

"Who is the Angel of God's Wrath on your world?"

He holds his breath, his eyes searching the other's, fear rather clentching itself inside him.

"That would be Raguel, but you really shouldn't hold it against him. He has hidden depths. And a charming competitive streak, when it comes to scrabble."

His breath blows out of his mouth slowly.

"So it isnt the Spectre...good. Can you... can you undo what is done by another Universe's spirit, who was insane when he did it?"

He is almost shaking both in hope and in fear and in not knowing.

"Well I have no idea what a Spectre is, my dear boy."

Aziraphael is looking increasingly bemused.

"In my world he is the Spirit of God's Wrath and Vengeance, and he has gone mad. he has begun a war against all magic, and is destroying source after source of magic, turning the magic into wild magic. I stood against him in another form. And he didn't like that. Using his powers, he shifted me back to human form and then... he... he removed my voice box and made it as if it had never been there at all."

Billy looks down, his shoulders shaking. He isn't crying, not yet, anyway.

"Then he cast me down through eternity. I fell a very long time and might have fallen forever, except for the aid of a friend, who sent me this way."

He looks back up at Aziraphael.

"I have learned from my friends who are wizards that only someone of Ethereal level power or higher can undo this. I know.. . it is probably a lot to ask, but... can you help me? Will you help me?"

"...blimey."

It's an awful lot to process.

"I'm - I'm only a principality, you know. I mean, I'm not terribly important..."

"What does that mean?"

He doesnt understand... anything.

"Seventh in the heirarchies of angels. So not terribly - not that the work I do is any less - that is..."

He looks uncomfortable.

"You might be wiser speaking to Raguel, you know."

"I dont know what that really means either...but...okay.

He listens, then sighs.

"Er... how do I find him?"

He sounds somewhat confused, maybe just a tad desperate. He thought he had this licked and now... mor complications. Nothing is ever easy...

"It's not that I don't want to help."

Aziraphael looks apologetic.

"It's only that I'm not sure I can. If it were removed 'as though it hadn't been', you said? Angels - or, at the very least, my sort - can't create."

He looks faintly curious.

"It does beg the question, of course - how are you communicating now?"

Billy smiles.

"A vocoder, a technomagical device capable of reading my mind and transmuting my thoughts into speach. "

He holds up the vocoder watch and earbud.

"I appreciate any help you can give. Where does Raguel usually dwell?"

"Los Angeles, I believe. His sense of irony is second to none."

Aziraphael smiles slightly.

"He's in the bar every now and again, though. Scruffy fellow, but striking. Smokes too much."

Billy nods, and sighs. Then he looks up with a smile.

"Thank you for your help. You probably get people asking for help all the time."

"I didn't help, though. I really am terribly sorry."

"It isnt your fault. I just figured an ethereal... I guess I was looking for a miracle. I shouldnt have bugged you."

Billy stands.

"I'm sorry."

"Miracles are all very well. Miracles I'm more than capable of, it's just the creation aspect. Although... well, I suppose it wouldn't be so much creation as imitation of what went before..."

He's pondering.

Billy stops, hope warring with the desire not to bother anyone, but Gods, he just wants to be able to talk again. Is that so very bad?

He sits quietly, trying not to bounce or disrupt the other's thoughts.

"Or..."

His face brightens a little.

"Of course it wouldn't be creation if I were merely undoing what had come before. And if, as you say, this angel has run mad it's almost certainly my duty."

He trembles slightly. Might this work? Moight he actually have a chance? Might it- He cuts himself off anf concentrates.

"If you can-... please. I... I don't know what to do."

Aziraphael takes a seat at the table and takes a bracing sip of tea, shrugging off his jacket.

"Well this... I've never done this before. Not quite. I can't promise you that it will work."

Billy nods, then tries to calm himself. He looks up at Aziraphael with a small smile.

"Whatever happens, thank you... for trying. Just... thank you."

He takes a long shuddering breath, trying mostly unsuccessfully to stop his ehart from racing.

Aziraphael, unbuttoning his shirt cuffs, folding them back and tucking them in neatly, shrugs.

"Don't thank me; God's power working through me, you know. The miracles are His."

Aziraphael rubs his hands together, frowning slightly, pondering the best way to go about it. A faint suggestion of pearly white light collects about his head and hands.

Billy watches and thinks about what he has said. He has met other angels before, like Zauriel and seent he powerr of God. he knows it is real. He closes his eyes then and concentrates on that knowledge. He was always taught that faith is imporetant and so he thinks and tries, with everything he has, to remmeber that knowledge, that surety that God's power works.

Aziraphael stretches his hand out, resting cool fingers on the skin of Billy's throat; he almost flinches back instantly.

It feels... Raguel, but wrong. Tainted, somehow, with an undercurrent of burning that sets his teeth on edge.

The trick is to seperate what is angelic from what is not, to follow the thread of it until he can see where to unfasten the working. Only mentally he fumbles because he wants to seperate it from the anger that runs through it like rusted threads among gold. Only the anger is a part of it.

With Crowley, Raguel had been dutiful, intent. With Adam, resigned. Aziraphael suppresses a slight shudder and prays that he never sees him angry.

The shudder is the only movement he has made for a few minutes. To all appearances, he's doing nothing at all, 'though there's a frown of concentration on his face.

Billy's eyes flicker open for a moment, then closed again, hoping, willing, thinking, and... remembering. Remembering the anger, the rage on the Spectre's face, the disdain with which he had moved and done it. It had all happenned so fast... and then he had fallen.

He dragged himself back to the now and again just hoped, tried to concentrate on believing.

Time drags past.

Eventually a soft noise of satisfaction; the angel's fingers move, slightly, against his neck and the pearly white light that had flickered before now intensifies.

It takes long and long.

But there'll be water if God wills it, and Aziraphael is an embodiment of that will. Or he tries to be.

He sits - slumps - back in his chair.

Billy starts as feeling of warmth rolls over him and something of rightness and ...Truth. He feels it in his bones, like a burning that doesnt hurt but might, somehow. It rolls through and over him and into every cell of him even as he coughs and feels his throat bulge and twist and shift. Everything changes and suddenly he is coughing clearly, with sound as he sags forward, his wheeze having noise to it. he rips the vocoder away as he speaks for the first time in weeks.

"Og, my Lord, my Lord..."

He is crying now, unable to stop as he falls to knees weak with soething more than hope or faith and joy.

"My God, my thanks."

His eyes go upward, and then to Aziraphael. Even as he coughs he stands for a moment and crosses to the Angel. He stops, hesitant and then speaks again.

"Are you okay, Sir?"

Aziraphael's head is bowed, a frown on his face as he pinches the bridge of his nose.

"Nothing to worry about; a headache, that's all."

He lifts his head and makes the effort to smile.

"I take it all went to plan?"

Billy shows the vocoder, deactivated and silent in his hands.

"It worked. I am... I am cured, or healed... I dont know what to say but thank you. And Thank God..."

He falls speachless, his eyes wide and trembling.

"Can I get you anything for the headache? I dont... know what I could do, but, ah..."

He again falls silent, unsure as any alter boy newly come to the cloth.

"Thank you, but no."

He gets a little unsteadily to his feet, face pale.

"Go in peace, to love and serve the Lord. And try not to annoy angels, in future."

Aziraphael gives Billy a small smile, and heads for the door.

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Millitimed to February 19th

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