Snippet #17

[gilascave]

Crowley

It was hot. Not just hot, he corrected himself. Fucking hot. Bloody fucking hot. Satan on a pogostick hopping down Picadilly Circus hot.

Hell wasn't this hot.

Crowley laid back on the lounge, which he'd pulled inside from the balcony. Slammed the doors shut against the intrusion of any single molecule of heat that wanted to invade his flat. Stretched out with a bucket of ice cubes and a rotating fan and a washrag, plus three coolers of beer sitting in ice. He'd been too late. The heat had got in and it was remaking his flat in its own image.

Hot hot hot. Too hot to move. Too hot to think. Too hot to breathe, which made it a good thing he didn't have to. How could the air-con be on, and it still be this hot? Was it broken? Was it just blowing air, hot air, hot miserable uncool air?

Was he going to have to stand up and go look at it?

He groaned. No way in Milton Keynes was he standing up. He didn't even want to open his eyelids and found out what that horrible crashing sound had been. It had come from the vicinity of the front door, so it was either a demon from hell come to drag his arse home -- in which case he'd kiss their toenails and sign over his lease to the Bretmens down the hall. Or it was someone come to burgle his flat, in which case he'd wait until they came within striking distance and turn 'em into fans.

"What are you doing?"

He let his head fall sideways, and slid one eyelid partway open. "Angel. What the fuck."

Aziraphale was standing there. Fully dressed. Long pants, short sleeves, and a vest. He wasn't even sweating. Fucking angels.

Aziraphale raised an eyebrow. "What in the world have you done to your living room?"

He'd tried to make it a frozen wonderland. Had had the strength sapped out of him by the heat before he'd half-snapped his fingers. It had left him with penguins, but no ice floes. The penguins had burrowed into the beer coolers.

"Murgle," was all he could say. Hot. Damned hot. More than damned hot. It was something so hot that he couldn't think of a metaphor. Hot like really, really hot things.

Aziraphale just kept looking at him. Crowley glared back, then had to close his eyes and recover from the effort.

"You're a demon. Of angelic stock, originally. You don't feel heat."

Crowley flipped him off. That was still easy. "It's the idea, angel. It's bad enough."

"Ah." Aziraphale sounded amused. No sympathy in the slightest. "Well, sorry to have bothered you, then. I'll fix the door on my way out -- you didn't answer, and I could hear the most godaw-- alarming sound, which I now see were just the sea lions in the kitchen."

Crowley grunted.

"I'll just be off by myself, then, to Brisbane. Tend to my business alone."

Crowley opened his eyes. Brisbane? Southern hemisphere?

WINTER?

He was standing, dressed, and penguin-free with a snap of his fingers. "Why didn't you say so?" He hustled Aziraphale towards the door. "I'm with you. Thwarting you the whole way -- well, once we get there. Why Brisbane?" he asked casually as they stepped into the hallway. He locked up his flat with another snap of the fingers.

"Er." Aziraphlae grinned, sheepishly. "Because it's too bloody hot."