(no subject)

[not-helios.livejournal.com]

Date: June 25, 2000 (morning)
Status: Public, COMPLETE
Setting: Manor Proper
Summary: Apollo arrives.


It was an ordinary day. He'd heard the people in the village speak in disparaging tones about the raucous party that had happened almost two months ago*, and when he pinpointed the date, his heart swelled. Pagans** then, if not a few of his own family mixed in!

This morning found him hiking up the rolling grounds. He stopped every so often, leaning on his stick and admiring how nice the air was, now that he was away from cars and people. Lovely...was that a white snake? and a black one...no, it couldn't be....

Apollo found himself running the rest of the way to the manor house. Skidding to a halt outside the door, he caught his breath for a moment.

And that was why, a few minutes later, Aziraphale was greeted with a very tall man walking in, dressed for hiking and sporting a veritable halo of barely-controlled, sunkissed blond curls. Honey-coloured eyes looked at him.

"Hello," he said, looking slightly stunned; regaining composure, he smiled. "I...found some very unusual serpents on your grounds, and wondered if you were aware of their rarity?"

Lying was always so painful, but he'd learned how to sort of lie without really lying, so it wasn't awfully unacceptable.

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*The fact that the town was still talking about it was a mark of how dull things had been lately. Ironic, really.

**Real pagans, not these pansy vegan 'neo-pagans' who compained about the state of the enviroment and mixed up their pantheons.

Comments

[ineffable-angel.livejournal.com]

"Ah. Hello?" the angel hazarded. "Is there something the matter with having odd serpents about? You weren't bit, were you?"

The man looked uneasy, and Aziraphale set his book down, took off his glasses. "Can I help you with something, perhaps? This is a hotel; we've some rooms available for the night if that's what you were looking for."

[not-helios.livejournal.com]

"I wasn't bitten, but I wondered if they...belonged to anyone?"

Stepping up to the counter, he signed the register that Aziraphale pushed toward him as he waited for an answer. His script was neat and down-to-earth.

Zayn A. Sonnen

[ineffable-angel.livejournal.com]

"Well, normally I'd say no, snakes making unusual pets, but I know of at least two snake-minded people here. Do you know what they looked like? I can ring up and ask..."

The angel took the register back, blinking at it. "Mr. Sonnen? Is that a British name?"

[not-helios.livejournal.com]

Contemplating, Apollo weighed that on the one hand he didn't want to look too desperate or eager, and on the other...well tartarus, he missed his little brother!!

"Yes, please ask. Thank you." At the query of his name, he smiled a little. "No, it's a German surname."

[ineffable-angel.livejournal.com]

Aziraphale was shaking his head as the phone rang and rang.

"No," he sighed, "I can't seem to get a hold of them. If you'd like, however, to just take the next hallway down for a bit until you come to the hospital wing, and have a chat with a boy named Hermes there? I would come with you, of course, but I shouldn't be leaving my desk."

He looked down at said desk, fixing his gaze on whorls and knots in the polished wood, hoping the man wouldn't see the half-truth in his own blue eyes. Aziraphale wondered too, for a bizarre and panicked moment, if the man could see the guilt writ there, in the stiffness of his shoulders and the look of his mouth.

It wasn't particularly that he didn't want to visit Hermes, if that even the one that Mr. Sonnen was looking for. It was simply that he refused, point-blank, to cause his friend - were they still friends? Would Hermes allow it? - any more trouble.

[not-helios.livejournal.com]

Reflexively he clenched his fist, his first thought being that Ares must also be here, for Hermes to be in the hospital. Either that or Eros finally snapped. Forcing calm, he noticed the awkward way the creature--had he not noticed it was a Christian Being before?--was acting, and narrowed his eyes, resisting the urge to haul Aziraphale up by the throat.

"What did you do to him?" he growled, accusatory--for acting this guilty meant guilt, in his mind, and he was too angry to write it off as christians always feeling guilty about everything.

[ineffable-angel.livejournal.com]

"I- I didn't mean to do anything..."

Aziraphale cut himself off. This was not the way to explain himself to a stranger. He'd had enough with false assumptions.

"I was friends with him, but I also had someone I was far more intimate with. Hermes took it... rather badly."

There was silence as both of them contemplated that.

The angel sighed. "Please, if you're going there to see him, will you take this basket? Don't tell him it's from me."

Sitting on the front desk was a basket of chocolates, sweets, teas, soaps, scented oils, and two books. Things that Aziraphale had included, things he knew Hermes would enjoy, but things that would not announce it was he who had made it.

[not-helios.livejournal.com]

Unrequited love. Oh fuck, his little brother had never expirienced that. He looked down at the basket, then back at the angel. He calmed, taking a deep breath.

"No," he said, as gentle as he could manage this close after anger. Emotions warred. He'd found someone, his little brother, of all people! But Hermes was hurt, and Apollo couldn't divine it away this time. He didn't notice when he started to weep, his eyes closed to gather his thoughts. "It isn't mine to give. ...What...what happened?" he asked, afraid of the answer. A self-mutilating god was a frightening prospect.

[ineffable-angel.livejournal.com]

Aziraphale noticed he'd started to weep, though, and fumbled through his desk for tissues. "Oh, Mr. Sonnen, I didn't mean to upset you," he said, handing the box over.

He sighed. "It's not for me to tell. Go see him, will you?"

[not-helios.livejournal.com]

"I can't make it better anymore," he said softly, accepting the tissue just one jiffy* after he'd realised he was actually crying. Saying no more, he headed toward the hospital, letting all the new things sink in quietly.

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