#who's there?

[orion-lake]

[amiedelabc]

sometimes I resent the fact that I am not fighting for freedom in 1830s France. then I remember I'm a French teacher and can decorate my classroom like enjolras threw up on it and it's almost the same 🇫🇷

[howlingday]

Ruby: At last! After all these years, I've finally developed a new, clean, infinite energy source that's cheaper than any dust source!

SINISTER KNOCKING INTENSIFIES

Ruby: D-Did I say cheap? I meant expensive! Super expensive, and it's not limitless at all! It's completely limited!

[scaredy-katts]

i definitely think yaku has a thing for giving yn hickies, especially after she insists she never hit on him at the bar bc then he has physical proof of her attraction to make fun of her with (and even though he teases her so meanly she still begs for more the next time they hook up) ((this 100% goes to his head and he goes a little overboard))

yes I am answering this immediately and yes it is depraved hours heyyyy

you are 100000% correct!! he loves to bite and mark regardless but he goes IN when he knows he shouldn't lol he would make it a point to only leave them in places where people could see too and make them dark as fuck

[callaeidae3]

Whumptober2023 Day 23/24: "Who's there?" | Goodbye note

The human he helped is now on a safe shore, recovering. But it's not safe anymore.

[bettinalevyisdetermined]

I have a knock knock joke

Who's there?

[theblackestofsuns]

"Who's There?"

Perla La Loca (2007)

Jaime Hernandez

Fantagraphics Books

[i-am-still-bb]

No. 23

“It’s gonna get me by the end of the night.” | Shadows | Stalking | "Who's there?"

Kili Rating: T AU: Fast Car (formerly Dead Batteries) - Ao3 / Tumblr - Directly follows Brass Knuckles Words: 2,126

--

Kili stumbled, sore and disoriented, from his bed to the bathroom late in the morning. His skin was split open over his cheekbone and eyebrow. Both were red and swollen with darkening bruises spreading out around them in a wide radius. “Fuck,” he breathed. There was no way he was going to be able to hide any of this with make up and there was no way it was going to be gone by Monday morning. It was actually going to look a lot worse by then. 

“Fuck.”

He stripped off his shirt and underwear to wash away the dried blood from his face and the dirt. He also hoped that the warm water would soothe the ache in his muscles. While washing away dirt and the stink of fear from his skin he found more bruises than he remembered receiving. There were bruises on his knees, one shin was darkening along the bone, one hip had a bit of road rash where he must have landed on it with subsequent bruising. There was one that concerned him. It was the one on his back. It was dark and tender to the lightest touch. He twisted to see it better under the spray of the water, but his body protested and pain from that area shot up his spine. He touched it and wondered if he should go into the ER to have it checked. 

The ER doctor would ask questions that Kili did not want to answer. 

He was wearing sweatpants and drying off his hair when there was a knock at his door. Kili froze and moved closer to the open bathroom door. He listened. 

The note that had been pinned to his chest said Friday. But since when had blackmailers stuck to pre-arranged schedules? Kili did have a key to the pharmacy.

Then another knock. It was harder this time. 

Kili set the towel down and tiptoed into the kitchen. He opened one of the drawers silently. From its contents he picked the meat tenderizer. He knew from those martial arts classes that your chances of being cut when in a knife fight were 100%. You just tried to control where you got cut. Kili would much rather have a blunt object at his disposal than a sharp one. 

Kili walked silently to the door. “Who’s there?”

“It’s us!” Tauriel answered. “Open the door!”

Kili relaxed his grip on the tenderizer mallet. He looked through the spy hole in the door. Tauriel and Ari stood there. Ari had paint on her face.

“Is it just the two of you?”

Tauriel frowned. “Yes? Were we supposed to bring someone else?”

Kili opened the door. He did consider telling them that he was sick, the flu (even though he got the flu shot the first chance he got every year) or something similarly mundane. But he knew that Tauriel would not let it go. She would be back with soup and a stack of crap movies. “I forgot that we had plans,” he said lamely as he opened the door.

“How’d you forget?” Ari asked. “It’s all Tau has talked about for weeks,” she teased. She was busy hanging her outerwear on the rack by the door. 

“Do you want me to paint your face too?” Tauriel was asking at the same time. She dropped her bag and shrugged out of her coat. 

Kili shut the door and waited for the reaction he knew would come the moment they saw him.

And there it was. Tauriel’s jaw dropped and her eyes widened. “What happened?”

“What?” Ari asked, turning, but then she too stopped. 

“It looks worse than it is,” Kili shrugged. 

“You look like shit,” Tauriel said. 

“Gee, thanks.”

“Really, though,” Ari said, “what happened?”

Kili shrugged again, “I was walking home late last night, that’s what happened.” He moved to put the meat tenderizer away. 

Tauriel’s eyes narrowed. “Is that why you were prepared to brain someone when you answered the door?”

“Yes.” Kili quickly thought of what he could say, what story he could give that would be plausible, but would not be the truth. The last thing he was going to do was drag his friends into this. Nothing was coming to mind. 

Tauriel crossed her arms. “And why would a mugger come to your door less than 12 hours after he robbed you?”

“I—”

“Let him be, Tau,” Ari scolded. “You,” she pointed at Kili. “Sit down and let me take a look at you.”

“I’m fine,” Kili protested.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” she replied brusquely. “You do have a first aid kid, correct?”

Kili’s shoulders slumped in defeat, “Beneath the bathroom sink.” He did not have the energy or the mental agility to argue. The room was so bright that it was giving him a headache. He kept meaning to have blinds, curtains, something installed over the floor to ceiling windows that created the exterior walls of his open plan kitchen and dining room. He had put curtains in the bedrooms, but the main living spaces seemed less important. But now, with his head throbbing more with each passing minute, he was annoyed with himself for putting off such a simple task. 

Ari pointed to the couch, “Sit.”

Kili did as he was told. He sat on the edge of the low black sofa, elbows on his knees. 

“Stay.” Ari disappeared into his bathroom to find his first aid kit. 

Tauriel stood in front of him and crossed her arms, “So what really happened?”

“I told you, I was walking home, it was late—”

“Kili.”

“What?”

“Did you file a police report?”

“What?”

Tauriel repeated herself, enunciating each word, “If you were mugged did you file a police report?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s not worth it,” Kili snapped defensively.

“You have seen your face, haven’t you?”

“They didn’t take anything important.” 

“And that’s a good reason not to report it?” Tauriel asked skeptically, raising one eyebrow.

Kili did not answer. 

“Leave him alone,” Ari scolded gently, pushing Tauriel to the side. “Not everyone wants to report every little thing to the authorities.”

“They should,” Tauriel shot back. “Even if there’s nothing to recover in terms of stolen property or money it helps them track crime data and enhances their ability to make decisions about where their time and energy should go.”

“Simmer down,” Ari replied calmly, lowering one hand to demonstrate. “Yelling convinces nobody of anything.”

Tauriel grumbled under his breath, but she did settle down. 

Ari laid out the items she had found in the bathroom on a clean hand towel on the ottoman. “You don’t have much in there,” she said.

“I wasn’t expecting to need anything more heavy duty than some bandaids and antibiotic ointment,” Kili replied. “You’re lucky I had that much.”

Ari sat on the ottoman so she could face Kili without having him move. “Let me see,” she said under her breath, turning his face from one side to the other. She felt along Kili’s cheekbone and brow bone, the same thing he had done himself last night, feeling for any obvious fractures and reading his responses. 

“Ow!” he pulled away when she touched a particularly tender spot.

“Stay still,” she pulled him back into place. “Do I need to give you a der Lutscher like I give to my kids?”

“Sucker,” Tauriel translated for Kili before he could even ask. 

“Do you have one?” Kili asked hopefully.

“No,” Ari replied brusquely. She tore open an alcohol wipe and used that around the open wounds. “I can’t promise that nothing’s broken,” she said. “You would need to go to a hospital for that.”

“I know.”

“And I’m assuming that that’s out of the question for the same reason that filing a police report is out of the question?” 

Kili did not answer.

“You know the symptoms of a concussion as well as I do, and if you have any other concerning symptoms you should take yourself down to the ER regardless of whatever your inhibitions are.” Ari was busy opening a couple of butterfly bandages as she said this. “Can you be trusted to do that?”

“And before you answer, know that I am more than happy to stick around and make sure that you do exactly that,” Tauriel interjected. 

“You both do know that I’m a grown person, right?” Kili asked saltily. 

“That is currently up for debate.”

“Hold still,” Ari instructed again as she applied the bandages, pulling the split open skin back together. When she was done Kili had 3 butterfly bandages on his face. “I can’t do anything about that bruise on your back. A doctor—”

“Or the ER.”

“Or the ER would be your best bet for that.” Ari worked as a school nurse for some private school that Kili was always forgetting the name of. She would double as a substitute for their German classes when needed or as a conversation buddy when needed. 

“What, you don’t carry a CAT scan in your back?” Kili asked with faux incredulity.

“You’re deflecting.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Do I have to be half-naked to have this conversation, or can I get my shirt now?”

Tauriel narrowed her eyes. 

“Go,” Ari waved her hand. 

Kili took his time picking out a shirt. Nothing felt quite right. He was looking for something specific, but he could not put his finger on what that something was. He flipped the hangers in his closet, one by one. Each sweatshirt or shirt had something that just did not work right now. Either the fabric was too scratchy, it fit too snuggly, it was not warm enough, and on and on. And then he saw the item that was hanging in the back of his closet. A worn plaid shirt in an outdated pattern hung in the very back, behind everything else. He could count on one hand the number of times that he had worn it. But it was never tossed into the donation pile or delegated to use as a gym shirt, paint shirt, or turned into a rag. It was carefully folded up and moved from place to place with him. It had traveled from California to his first dorm room, from that dorm room to later dorm rooms, and spare bedrooms in Tauriel or Ari’s parent’s houses for the summers, then to his grad school apartment, his first apartment without a roommate, and then this one. Sometimes it was folded in the back of a dresser drawer, sometimes hanging in the back of his closet like now, sometimes in a box on a shelf, once it had even found a place beneath his pillow.

It was Fili’s shirt. It had been loose on Fili then, even looser on Kili when it first came home with him in his backpack. It was the shirt Fili had been wearing that time he almost fought Kili’s dad in his front yard, it was the shirt Fili had worn countless times while working on something in the shed.

Now Kili pulled the shirt over his head and rolled the sleeves up. It was loose and soft, warm but not so much that he started sweating. And he felt safe. He ran his hands through his hair, preparing himself to go back into the main room and being subjected to more questions. 

Ari and Tauriel were whispering back and forth when Kili came out of his bedroom. 

“Ask,” he said, flopping onto the couch.

“We’ve decided that if you don’t want to talk about it then we will respect that,” Ari said.

Kili raised an eyebrow skeptical, before wincing and trying to arrange his expression differently, “We?”

Tauriel scowled, arms crossed.

“Yes,” Ari took one of Tauriel’s hands. “We.”

“But if you do want to talk about it then we’re more than happy to listen.”

Kili shook his head. He propped his feet on the ottoman and sank back into the couch. “I don’t.”

“And we will respect that. So,” Ari changed the subject. “What is the plan?”

“We could still go to the game,” Tauriel suggested.

“I’m not really up for that. Sorry,” Kili said. “But you two can still go. I completely understand.”

Tauriel shook her head. “We’re supposed to be hanging out today.”

“I get to see her everyday,” Ari said. “I don’t see you everyday.”

Kili smiled with amusement, “Jealous?” he asked Tauriel. “That I get to pick what we’re doing.”

“Nope. You only get to pick because you have a black eye,” she replied imperiously.

They ended up staying in, watching 90s sitcom reruns and ordering in pizza. None of them brought up Kili’s “mugging” again that day, but Kili did catch Tauriel looking at him suspiciously on more than one occasion.

--

Taglist Everything@silvermoon-scrolls @metztliluaa-blog @i-am-pinkie

Fili/Kili@dubhlachen

[kayamark]

Whumptober: No. 23 - "Who's there?"

Link: Eat, love, kill (2022)

Ep 15

[chaoticjoke]

Knock knock

"Wrong knock pattern."

[spockvarietyhour]

[rainbowsprinkledpirate]

Excuse me... just having to rewatch The Mandalorian, Stranger Things, and all the Marvel Movies with Bucky in them since I've been out of my element for a while with writing. But hey you know..... the wips are still in fact there and I'm not dead. (Sorry bout not putting out any more chapters to any series much less simple oneshots an dipping off the face of the earth 😞)

[starliight-whump]

Shadows

No. 23: “It’s gonna get me by the end of the night.”

Shadows | Stalking | “Who’s there?”

Cameron took a left turn in the alley that made the walk back to his apartment considerably shorter. He'd just finished closing up the store and was looking forward to getting some rest and getting something to eat. Maybe he should stop by that sushi place on the way home? Yeah, that would be nice. Maybe even something sweet, or some chips to celebrate that it was the weekend and that he'd actually have some time off.

Suddenly Cameron could hear footsteps in the distance behind him and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. After the strange letters he'd gotten from someone who seemed to like him a little too much and knew his routine a little too well, the thought of being followed instantly had him on high alert and a chill of fear went through him. Maybe taking the alley shortcut had been a bad idea…

Cameron turned around, hoping that he was just being paranoid, but sure enough there was someone there a little ways down the alley. Someone who stopped walking as he did. Cameron's heart dropped. He couldn't see who it was, it looked like a woman based on her height and build but her face was shrouded in shadow.

"Who's there?" Cameron called out, half in annoyance, half in fear. The woman didn't respond, which only confirmed that this was off. Unless she too was scared and this was just some misunderstanding. Cameron sure hoped so, but he had a feeling that wasn't the case… "Fuck this!" He cursed under his breath and turned around and began walking again, but this time he picked up his speed. To his horror, the person did the same by the sounds of it. By now his heart was pounding hard, Cameron could hear it drumming in his ears and the noise was accompanied by the sound of footsteps.

Cameron sped up more and by the time he reached the end of the alley he was practically running. There was a supermarket just down the street and Cameron hoped he could hide in there and maybe talk to security or at least someone working there for help. Thankfully Cameron was a pretty okay runner and the adrenaline fueled him to run even faster. He didn't even care about any weird looks he might have gotten as he barreled down the street and basically slammed through the doors of the supermarket.

Some shoppers seemed startled at the sight of him, a wide eyed mother with two kids looked at him with concern. "Are you okay?"

"No, uh…" Cameron paused to catch his breath. His lungs and his legs were burning from that power sprint. "I- I'm not sure, I think someone was following me.

---

@whumptober-archive, @darkredrevolution

[kaesaaurelia]

god forbid demons do anything

For @whumptober day 23, using the prompts "Who's there?" and the song prompt ("Demons" by Hayley Kiyoko).

Continued from Day 5, wherein Aziraphale returns to Earth, hoping some allies he’s contacted will be able to help him, has a big fight with some archangels, and is horribly injured leaping in front of Crowley, who wasn’t supposed to be there, Day 8, wherein one of Aziraphale’s angelic allies (and an old enemy of Crowley’s) rushes in to distract the Metatron while Crowley scrambles to save a horribly wounded Aziraphale, and the three of them manage to get away from the archangels in the Bentley, Day 15, wherein Aziraphale reveals that he’s stolen the Book of Life, and Crowley reveals that one of Aziraphale’s wounds means he’s probably going to Fall, and Day 16, wherein Crowley sort of kind of makes peace with a former demonic coworker, then treats Aziraphale's wounds a bit more, and the two of them hash out their differences and finally get to just enjoy each other's company knowing they might not have much time together.

Crowley awoke to an urgent knocking at the bedroom door. It had better not be fucking Nisroc, he decided. He made himself clean and dressed with a snap of the fingers, tucked Aziraphale in, and opened the door just far enough to look out with one eye.

It was Muriel. "What," he said, hoping his flat tone would convey to them that he was not very happy to be bothered.

"It's the other angels," said Muriel. "They're having an argument, and I thought..."

"Good," said Crowley. "More angels should have more arguments."

"It's about the Archangel Michael," said Muriel. "It's getting very heated. They wanted to know what Aziraphale thought about it, and --"

"Aziraphale doesn't think anything about it, because he is resting," said Crowley firmly. "He's been very badly hurt, and --"

Muriel nodded urgently. "That's what I said! Only Michael's here and I thought -- well, everybody seems to think Aziraphale's in charge, and they can't agree on what to do with her, and I thought -- I don't know. I thought I'd ask."

Crowley blinked. "Michael's here?" He grabbed his sunglasses from out of the air and put them on. "Let's not bother Aziraphale if we can help it," he said, "but this is going to be messy."

He hurried out, quietly but firmly shutting the door behind him.

"She's in the back room of the bookshop," said Muriel, "they've got her tied up."

"The Archangel Michael," said Crowley. "They've got her tied up?"

"Is -- is that what's happening to Aziraphale?" Muriel asked, shakily. "What's happening to her?"

"Well, not that it's really any of your business, but no, he's not tied up."

Muriel looked startled. "What? No! I meant, is he Falling?"

Crowley stopped. "Who told you that?" he demanded.

"I don't know, people were worried about him, and, and one of the Huldufólk -- you know, that Icelandic lot -- made a joke about it, and then the one that's in charge, that American --"

"The one that's in charge?" Crowley asked. "I thought everybody thought Aziraphale was in charge."

"Well, yes, but he isn't downstairs," said Muriel, "and he's not the one criticizing how I've organized the books even though they weren't organized for her and she's been saying very rude things about Jim, and also, she started organizing things into fiction and nonfiction as if that's a meaningful difference when humans think dinosaurs are --"

"Ah," said Crowley. "You mean Vehuel." A week or so after Aziraphale had left, she had come over ostensibly to cheer Crowley up, and had instead helped him stress-organize his music collection while criticizing said music collection. (She maintained that the Earthly sort of soul music was better than the Hellish sort, and that if you wanted to listen to the torments of damned souls, there were any number of human musical genres that could provide that experience. Crowley pointed out that she did not have the senses to properly appreciate the torments of damned souls, and perhaps her feelings were a case of sour grapes, an allegation to which she had never really responded.) "She didn't spill the beans, did she?"

"What? No. There weren't any beans," said Muriel. "Why would there be beans?"

"Never mind the beans," said Crowley, "what did she say?"

"Well, she told them to be respectful, which I suppose is fair, but general consensus seems to be that she would've just said he wasn't Falling if he wasn't Falling," said Muriel, "so. Is he Falling?"

"Don't tell anyone," said Crowley.

Muriel winced. "Is he -- does he look like Michael?"

"What? No, he looks like Aziraphale," said Crowley. "Why would he look like Michael?"

"I think you'd better come downstairs," said Muriel.

As Crowley followed them down the stairs, their words did another lap around his brain and he groaned to himself, realizing what they'd meant. "Does Michael look... er...."

"Bad?" Muriel asked.

"Bad," agreed Crowley.

"Well," said Muriel. They considered this. "I think a lot of humans might -- that is -- but it's not fair to -- well." They frowned, and Crowley was about to assume that they were just too nice to say, yes, she looks bad, when they said, "How do you feel about insects?"

"Ah," said Crowley, steeling himself for David Cronenberg's Greatest Hits. He had the sudden urge to go back upstairs and have a look at Aziraphale. He didn't actually know if Satan had one specific animal aspect or if he just got to pick whatever he liked; goats were a whole thing with him, but so were dragons. And there was no telling how that would carry over to Aziraphale at all.

If Aziraphale was going to be Assigned Bug At Fall From Grace, Crowley was reasonably sure he'd still be fussy and adorable (he had a sudden mental image of a bee in a waistcoat) but he was worried about how Aziraphale would feel about it. And aesthetics weren't the only issue. "Is she... uncomfortable?"

"Er." Muriel paused to consider this as they reached the foot of the stairs. "I don't know? It looks uncomfortable."

Crowley swallowed. He wanted to go back upstairs to Aziraphale, but he knew that Aziraphale would care about these other people, and so he supposed that the best way to give Aziraphale the sort of rest he deserved would be to handle this in Aziraphale's place.

He approached the small clot of angels at the back of the bookshop. They were all whispering furiously at each other, presumably to keep Michael from hearing them through the storage room door, even though at least three people had miracled it soundproof. There were less of them there than he'd expected. "Where's the rest of you?" he asked, not feeling obligated to hiss along with them. He did enough of that on his own time.

"Out on patrol," said Vehuel. "Actually, you -- you can help!" Oh no, Crowley thought. "You were there during the fight, weren't you? Did you get the impression she was in trouble with Heaven?"

"Not at first, but she got her face sliced open with her own sword, and then the Metatron kicked her and told Uriel and the others to deal with her," said Crowley. "Which in my experience doesn't usually mean offering her a generous severance package? It definitely doesn't mean healing her up."

"Told you," said Vehuel to the other angels, who immediately began voicing objections. "Look, why don't we hold her until we can let the others know? There's too many people out on patrol now for me to feel comfortable making decisions for everyone."

"You told us what she had planned," said an angel Crowley didn't know. "You said she was --"

"Barah, come on, I told you for full transparency," said Vehuel, "not because I'm gonna take her up on the offer."

"Honestly I say we let her loose," said Nisroc.

"Easy for you to say," said another angel. "She always liked you. I don't think she should leave this place alive."

"That bitch kicked me out of Heaven for getting pregnant!" said Nisroc, incredulously. "I'm saying, let Heaven hunt her down. I'll make popcorn, I could set up a shaky cam surveillance miracle, it'd be great."

"We're not killing anyone. Or letting anyone hunt her down," said Vehuel. "Or making a fucking horror movie, Nisroc, holy shit. How would we kill her, anyway?" she asked the other angel.

They pointed to Crowley, who felt rather put on the spot. "He could make hellfire, couldn't he?"

"I'm not making a fire in this bookshop," said Crowley. He hated that he could practically feel Vehuel's approval of this statement, so he added. "You could wait 'til she's all the way fallen and use holy water, though. Or use her spear against her. Oh, actually, it was your spear, wasn't it?" he asked Vehuel, and she bristled. "Damn thing slices through anything."

"We're not killing the Archangel Michael tonight," she snapped, "without any kind of -- of due process, or --"

"Look, how do we know you won't sell us out?" Barah asked. "How do we know you haven't already? You're the one who found her snooping around outside, aren't you?"

"Why would I tell you about the plan to sell you out if I was gonna sell you out?" Vehuel asked incredulously. "If I was teaming up with her to sell you out, why would I bring her in here and let everyone know?"

"But didn't you sell out Lucifer's forces to Michael?" said another angel. "How do we know you won't do it again?"

"Because I'm sick of her shit just like the rest of you?" said Vehuel. "I just don't want to go killing anyone over it."

Barah did not seem to appreciate this stance. "This is news to me. Didn't I hear about you melting a demon a couple hundred years back?"

"Oh, that was me!" said Nisroc, cheerfully. "I got better!"

"A pity," said Barah. He turned to Vehuel. "And after all they put you through, you let them live?"

"It wasn't like that," said Vehuel, "I just --"

"So you lied to Heaven also?" said the angel who'd suggested Crowley make hellfire. "It seems like you lie a lot. Who put you in charge of us, anyway?"

"I never said I was in charge, I just... had a notebook and people were listening to me," said Vehuel.

"Guys, I think the best solution here, hands down, is the shaky cam and the popcorn," said Nisroc. "The angels here keep their hands clean, Michael pays for all the shit she's done, Heaven has to figure out how to explain to their loyalists what happened to Michael, and I get popcorn. Everyone's happy."

"You're a demon," said the accusatory angel, "so you don't actually belong in this conversation."

"Wow," said Nisroc. "Literally, what have I ever done to you, Tzadiqel? I'm just trying to live on this planet like everyone el--"

"You were menacing my humans in your horrible hut on chicken feet for centuries!" said Tzadiqel.

"Wow, yeah, how dare I try to add a little bit of whimsy to my evil architecture," said Nisroc. "How dare I help the humans keep a sense of wonder about the unknown alive in their hearts while I offer valuable mentoring experiences to unmarried girls for --"

"Nisroc," said Vehuel, warningly.

"I'm just saying, I was morally ambiguous at worst," said Nisroc. "Anyway you were fine with him," she said, nodding at Crowley, "and he did the whole Fall of Man thing, but I'm so different because I --"

"People died!" said Tzadiqel. "Barah, weren't you telling me they did the same thing where you were?"

"There was no hut with chicken feet," said Barah, "but I seem to remember a lot of hiding in forests and eating travelers, which I for one did not appreciate."

"Oh come on, like half those encounters ended up with me being ripped in half or some shit," said Nisroc. "Your heroes are way the fuck overpowered."

"Maybe you shouldn't have been eating them, then," said Barah.

"Okay, both of you, stop this right now," said Vehuel, "this isn't helping anything and --"

"Oh, stop acting like you're in charge," snapped Tzadiqel.

"Actually, none of you is in charge," said Muriel, who Crowley had completely forgot was here. They pushed into the middle of the group and glared ferociously around at all of them. "This isn't even your bookshop." They looked expectantly at Crowley, and his heart sank as the rest of the group looked at him as well, with varying degrees of expectancy.

"Aziraphale needs ressst," Crowley said, desperately. On the other hand, this was as good an excuse as any to go back up and check on him for any... bug-transformation-related concerns. And he really didn't want everybody at each other's throats when Aziraphale was feeling well enough to actually deal with... whatever nonsense he'd started. "Fine, fine, I'll sssee if he's up to coming down," he said.

[scaredy-katts]

I’m having inappropriate thoughts about vampire Sakusa

as one should