Fic: A London Werewolf in Sandford (1/2)
Title: A London Werewolf in Sandford
Fandom: Hot Fuzz
Author: dr-tectonic
Word Count: 19,000+ (Peas. and. RICE!)
Pairing: NA/DB (some AC/AW)
Rating: R for depictions of sexuality, graphic injury, and attempted suicide. And fer cussin', of course.
Warnings: Pretends to be made of grim and angst; is actually made of crack and fluff.
Disclaimer Due Credit: I wrote the words, but Wright, Pegg, & Frost, et al, made the originals worth writing about.
Summary: see Title
Note: So who's this Officer Bobby fellow? In the movie, there's a police officer who shows up in the background at about the 34:39 mark. According to the UK commentary tracks, he's named "Bob", but I figured he would be called "Bobby" to distinguish him from PC Walker. You can see a screen-cap in this post showing that I'm not making this up. Anyway, Officer Bobby clearly needed to reprise his cameo in some fic. So you can blame that small part of this story on that post. As for the rest of it, I... really have no idea. If anybody can figure out what's wrong with my brain, please tell me.
* * *
Monday, June 26th
4:30 pm
In the eight weeks since their station house exploded, the Sandford Police Service had collectively managed to: get themselves healed up and released from the hospital in Buford Abbey, hand the bulk of the investigation and cleanup of the NWA case over to a special task force based in Bristol (after a suitably arduous and time-consuming series of briefings and depositions, of course), take some mandated vacation time for counseling and emotional recovery, and begin to get settled into their temporary digs in the old vacant bookshop a block off the main street.
What they had not yet managed to do was make a measurable dent in the task of reconstructing a decade's worth of detonated records, figure out how to fit more than two people at a time into the storage closet that served as a locker room, scavenge enough mugs for everyone to drink tea at the same time (though the Turners had drawn up a detailed rota assigning mug-use periods and scheduled washings), or provide more than a token show of any actual, as it were, policing. Fortunately, that last turned out to be mostly unnecessary, as many years' worth of shadowy and conspiratorial terror were not to be thrown off overnight, and the good folk of Sandford turned out to be generally just that-good-and not inclined to much in the way of significant crime.
Of course, there were still plenty of other, uniquely Sandfordesque problems to solve, as today had demonstrated.
"I'm back," said Constable Danny Butterman, depositing a box of files on the corner of the table with a thud. "C'mon, this stuff can wait until tomorrow. Knock off work early and let's go to the pub."
Chief Inspector (Acting) Nicholas Angel thought for a moment. "Yeah, all right," he agreed, standing and stretching.
"Really? Eyyy!" Danny did a little victory clap. "I didn't think that would work."
"You would not believe the day I have had."
Danny looked almost worried. "I didn't miss anything, did I?"
Nicholas made an impatient noise. "Not unless you'd be excited about A, getting cursed at by a caravan load of hippies, B, wading into Mrs. Lukechnios's ornamental fish-pond to rescue her cat, or C, lecturing the hoodies for tagging the tourists with spray paint again. Oh, and D, spending more than an hour on the phone with one Inspector McManus of Scotland Yard for no reason at all."
"Is that the bloke who's been callin' for you all week? What did he want?
"Would you believe he's trying to open up a case from twenty-five years ago? Some American boy went missing in Crickadarn back in '81 and he wants to know if it might have been the NWA."
"That was years before they started killin' people."
"He thought they might have been 'warming up'."
Danny rolled his eyes. "Where's Crickadarn, anyway? I've never even heard of it. Can't be anywhere nearby."
"That's what I said."
"Pfuh. City coppers."
"I know!"
Nicholas led the way into the tiny storage-closet-stroke-locker-room. Had they both been trying to change out of their uniforms at the same time, it would have been exceedingly cramped quarters. As it was, Danny was already in his civvies, and just followed Nicholas in there to continue the conversation. Or so they could claim, if anyone asked.
It had been a long enough day that Nicholas didn't even bother to neatly line up the seams on his trousers, instead just folding them roughly in half and flopping them onto his section of shelf. As he pulled his undershirt off over his head, it made a faint scraping sound against the stubble on his cheek.
He tskd at himself and checked his face in a little mirror hanging from a nail on the wall. "I could have sworn I shaved just yesterday morning." He generally only needed to shave every other day to keep his face smooth.
"That's all right. A bit of scruff's kinda nice. It makes you look prop'rly tough and heroic."
"It's damned unprofessional," said Nicholas.
"Naw," said Danny, leaning over to tap a finger against a darkened spot at the base of Angel's neck, "that's unprofessional." He grinned, cheekily.
Nicholas flushed. Until he came to Sandford, he had thought of himself as straight, though if he were honest with himself (which he hadn't been very often, as it was so much easier just not to think about it), he would have admitted that he was probably "questioning". But it was amazing the shift in perspective that could result from events like your boss trying to have you murdered, your best friend taking a bullet for you, and a building blowing up around you. Sitting next to Danny's bed in the hospital, he realized that he felt different than he ever had before. Part of it was being medicated out of his gourd, of course, but it really didn't take very many hours with nothing to do but think for him to realize that the thing that was significantly exacerbating his anguish and worry over Danny's condition was being totally and completely besotted with the man.
He had tentatively identified this strange and novel feeling as falling in love and decided that it was really pretty wonderful, except for the bit where the object of his ardor might be dying. Which in turn meant that he probably wasn't as straight as he would have liked to believe, and frankly, that would explain an awful lot about his romantic history. (Nicholas was a great believer in the power of logical deduction to uncover the truth, no matter how disquieting or absurd.) Besides, regardless of whether he was latently homosexual or bisexual or what, it was pretty clear that he was very definitely Danny-sexual, so bugger this whole sexual-identity crisis nonsense for a game of soldiers, because that was the only thing that really mattered anyway.
Thus, by the time Danny regained consciousness, he had nerved himself up to the point of being able to say something about it, to wit: "You can't die on me, Danny. I love you."
Danny's response was to smile weakly, squeeze Angel's hand, croak the word "brilliant", and promptly lapse back into unconsciousness.
A hospital room was not the best of places for conducting a whirlwind secret romance, but they gave it their all, exchanging hidden glances and stealing kisses behind the orderlies' backs. Happily, Danny made a remarkably rapid recovery, and was soon sent home with instructions to take it easy. "No strenuous activity," said Dr. Weatherall, with a look that suggested perhaps they had not managed to be quite as covert as they had thought. So they went home, and were very careful, and took things slow and easy.
At first, anyway.
Danny, it turned out, was rather more excitable than one might expect for a fellow of his size and demeanor, and had become downright frisky as his strength returned. Over the weeks, the third acts of many movies went completely unwatched on first playing, furniture in a variety of rooms was displaced and abused, and Nicholas became quite adept at sewing buttons back onto both their shirts. On such an evening last week, he had acquired a sizeable bruise-mark-a hickey, Americans would call it-just above the collarbone; thankfully it was low enough to be covered by his shirt, and had healed considerably over the weekend.
He was buttoning up a pale blue oxford over it when Officer Bobby rapped on the door and poked his head in. Danny slid to one side to make room. Bobby spent weeks at a time manning the tiny constabulary outpost in nearby Little Kennevale, keeping an eye out for... well, not much, really. Sheep-related troubles, according to what little paperwork Nicholas had seen. PC Walker had been assigned to reconstruct the young officer's records, and while his penmanship was impeccable, he had a penchant for abbreviation that left his writing as cryptic as his speech typically was, if not moreso.
"Hi, Chief," said Bobby.
"We're almost done," said Nicholas.
"I just wanted to return this." He held out a stab vest. "I was in a bit of a hurry when I changed this morning. Must've grabbed yours by mistake."
"Did you?" Angel checked the name tag. Sure enough, it was his. "So you did. I must have been wearing yours, then. I thought it hung a little funny."
"Sorry 'bout that."
"No problem." He shuffled Bobby's vest from the bottom of his pile onto the adjacent section of shelf and put his own vest in its place.
"Sorry about the hand," said Bobby. On Friday, Nicholas had been careless during a training exercise and gotten a severe nipping from Saxon. It wasn't that nasty a bite-pressure and a cold compress had stopped the bleeding in fairly short order-but PC Walker was deeply contrite, and Bobby, being quite close to the older policeman, was undoubtedly concerned on his behalf.
"Oh, it's fine," Angel reassured him. "Tell Bob I know Saxon didn't mean it."
"Naw. Just got a bit excited."
"Exactly."
"Is it healin' up okay?"
"I think so. Tony gave me some salve from his Gran that's supposed to prevent scarring."
"Yup, smelled it," said Bobby, wrinkling his nose. The salve was quite pungent. "Well. See ya." He nodded farewell and closed the door.
"Set to go?" asked Danny, once Angel had changed his shoes and finished tucking in his shirt.
He patted his pockets, checking that he had everything. "Yes. Wait." He turned to Danny and planted a kiss on his lips. It made Danny's ears blush pink in the most gratifying way. "Now I'm ready." He grinned.
Out in the hall, DS Wainwright slouched cross-armed against the wall. "Finally comin' out of the closet, you two?" he asked. DC Cartwright, leaning one-armed behind his partner, paused in the chewing of his gum to smirk at them.
Nicholas looked the pair up and down, then gave them a smile that was almost entirely genuine, with only a tiny bit of extra tooth to it.
"I do believe we're out. It's all yours, fellows." He gestured invitingly to the locker room, then clasped Danny's hand and led him toward the side door. "C'mon, Danny, let's fuck off down to the pub for a drink." A thought struck him. "You know, it was just pride weekend in a lot of places. I bet they'll do free drinks for couples." He looked back at the Andes. "Maybe you two will join us?"
"Cor," said Danny, shaking his head in awe as they left the building. "That was wicked." He let go of Nick's hand once they were outside-some habits die hard-but still walked close to him.
"I've been saving that comeback for six weeks," said Nicholas with satisfaction. "I knew as soon as I saw where the locker room was set up that one of them was eventually going to make a smart remark about it, so I thought that up and I waited."
"Blam! Verbal ambush."
"I feel kinda bad about teasing them like that, but they do bring it on themselves. Why does Andy have to be such a dickhead all the time?"
"It's not all the time," said Danny.
"Well, no, I suppose not."
"It's a small town, Nicholas. Even with the NWA gone, everyone's got their secrets they like to keep."
"Mmm," he mused, noncommittally. "Did you get a haircut today?" Danny had taken off at lunchtime to drive several large flex-folders of reconstructed expense reports up to Gloucester and exchange them for two reams of blank payroll forms. He'd planned to stop by Virgin Megastore and do some other errands while there.
Danny nodded. "It's not too short on top, is it?"
"No, it's perfect. I like it. It looks really good. Very smart."
"Aw, thanks," said Danny, obviously chuffed. "Guess what else I got!"
"No idea."
"Director's cut of See You Next Wednesday on DVD!"
"Ooo, very nice."
* * *
8 pm
Although the Porters were currently imprisoned awaiting trial, the needs of a small town go on, and so The Crown had come under new management. Someone's cousin's brother's something's something-Angel was still no better at keeping track of that sort of thing than when he'd first arrived-had undertaken repairs and reopened it. Today was Monday, which meant the pub would be at its least crowded, and therefore gave a police officer the best odds of getting in a good stretch of off-duty relaxation before some well-meaning civilian spoiled the mood by asking how all the cleanup was going and reminding them of exactly how much of it there still was. Monday also meant Special Mixed Drinks Hour, and the constabulary had dutifully gathered to do their part in helping to restore a sense of normalcy by buying a single round before they switched over to beer.
The drinks were only a pound each, which wasn't so much by way of a promotion as it was an apology. The new barman, Terrence, was still slowly reading his way through Trader Vic's Bartender's Guide, so Iris, who had been the server there for years, had to tell him how to make most of the drinks. Unfortunately, Terrence was a bit hard of hearing and had a tendency to become flustered under pressure. Iris had quickly developed the habit of announcing to people what they were actually getting when she delivered the drinks, since it might bear little resemblance to what they had ordered. Still, it was their pub in their town; where else were they going to go?
It didn't help matters that the repairs had included installation of a jukebox with a vast and eclectic library that was perpetually set on random. At the moment Warren Zevon was singing about walking through the streets of Soho in the rain, but odds were good that before the end of the night they'd get a spot of '80s hair metal, three or four country and/or western tunes, at least two dance hits by young women destined someday to show up on Doctor Who, and possibly some Paganini violin concertos.
None of which would help keep Terrence from grabbing bottles at random if he lost track of where he'd put the Midori.
The usual post-work decompression had begun to set in when Iris arrived with a tray of drinks.
"First off, a Long Island Iced Tea for you," she said, handing the glass to Constable Walker. "All correct and not from mix." There was a brief spate of applause and a couple subdued cheers.
"Now, what else have I got? Gin and grapefruit for you." She set a salt-rimmed glass in front of Officer Bobby. "And here's your vodka cran," she said to Angel, "and a gin-whiskey-orange for the lady. He couldn't find the SoCo, so he made it with Jack instead."
"Oh, that's all right," said Doris. "Sometimes I like it a bit rough." She waggled her eyebrows. Everyone laughed.
"Pair of whiskey sours for the two of you." She set them in front of the Andes. It was neither's favorite drink, but having found something both palatable and reliable, they stuck with it.
"And, um. There's yours. Sorry." She set a goblet filled with murky brown liquid in front of Danny.
"What's this?" he asked.
"Rum and coke with pineapple juice. It got a bit loud by the time we got to yours."
Danny took a pull. "It's not bad, actually."
"You're a sweetheart, Danny Butterman." She gave him a quick kiss on the forehead before she left.
"'Ere, Angle, she's musclin' in on your territory," said Wainwright. "You gonna take 'er down?"
"I hear he's been practicin' his flyin' kick," suggested Cartwright. As always, their teasing was half-friendly and half-aggressive. The events of The Incident had thawed their attitudes toward Angel considerably, but there was still some source of tension he hadn't resolved.
"Aw, he's got nothin' to worry about," said Danny. "I seen Iris try to shoot a gun once. She couldn't hit nothin'. Worse shot than your mum, Andy," he nodded at Cartwright. Before the dig had time to settle in, he moved on. "Hey, I picked up See You Next Wednesday on DVD. You gonna come watch it with us? It's got time travel," he lilted. Danny knew that was a favorite of Andy's. Danny knew everyone's cinematic tastes.
"Sure, yeah. When?"
"Wednesday, o' course."
"What time-" he broke off as Wainwright leaned over to whisper in his ear. Andy looked faintly annoyed. A brief discussion, or perhaps an argument, ensued between them in a secret shorthand language of facial expression, abbreviated gesture, and barely-verbalized almost-words known only to the two of them.
Cartwright turned back to Danny. "Sorry, can't. We're goin' to Flappers on Wednesday."
"That's all right, you can borrow it."
"Yeah. Thanks."
A lull descended. Angel pondered whether he ought to do something to get the decompression back on track, but just then Tony arrived, to everyone's approval.
"So how was Germany?" asked Doris, after greetings had been exchanged. Sergeant Fisher had just returned from taking his family on a cycling tour of Communist architecture in former East Germany.
"Lovely, lovely. I even brought back a little of it to share." He hefted a pair of paper bags that clinked. "I see you've all already had your first round of the evening, so the second round's on me. A little something I picked up in Magdeburg."
Cheers were voiced, bottles opened, toasts made, and beer drunk.
"What do you think?" asked Tony.
"It's rather bitter," said Angel, "And it has quite an unusual aftertaste. Makes my tongue feel a bit funny."
"It's a very old-fashioned dunkel bock," said Tony. "We ran across a monastery that was doing a special brewing using the same ingredients they would have used back in the 14th century. That aftertaste is the herbs. Very authentic."
"I like it," said Wainwright. He turned out to be the biggest fan of Tony's find, but all agreed that it did a perfectly respectable job of being an alcoholic beverage. There may have been an attempt to sing a traditional German drinking song led by PC Walker, but fortunately there were no witnesses willing to testify.
"So, has anyone been to that new cafe, the Sun & Moon?" Nicholas asked later on, when the conversation lulled again.
Without the members of the NWA voicing quiet disapproval, Talbot Wilson had finally sold his exceedingly quaint and traditional little restaurant near the village green to Enid Lopez (nee Fetherston-Wallace) and retired to the Canary Islands. Enid and her American husband, Carlos, had announced that they had no intention of remodeling, because they "loved the character", but they did rename the place and revise the dishes on offer. It was change of a kind that Angel expected Sandford would be seeing much more of in the future. Though how ready the town was to embrace California-style Mexi-Thai fusion cuisine remained to be seen.
Doris was a case in point. "Ooo, I don't know," she said. "I looked at their menu the other day and I couldn't even pronounce half of it! Seemed a bit adventurous for a simple country girl like me. Though the girl they've got workin' there had nice tits. That should draw some customers." Doris was an equal-opportunity appreciator of pulchritude.
"Give it a try, you might like it," said Andy Cartwright. "Me and Andy went there Friday mornin' for our... for breakfast. It was pretty nice. Good food, a bit private-like."
"Yeah, 'cept they wouldn't let us smoke," said Andy Wainwright. "No smokin' at breakfast? Bloody Californians."
"Addabrrido f'lunchlasweek. Zawrite. Toomushlandro, tho," proclaimed PC Walker.
"The cilantro was fine," countered Bobby. "I thought what I had was quite tasty."
"Yulleetanythin," said Walker, with a dismissive wave. Bobby shrugged in acknowledgment.
Tony spoke up. "It's a bit of a mixed bag, if you ask me. The missus and I had breakfast there last Sunday and I would go so far as to say that it was an absolutely perfect full English breakfast. Just classic. And then we had dinner on Tuesday and it was... well, it wasn't bad, but it was very strange. I could not in good conscience recommend the Panang Curry Tacos to you, though my wife did like her Pad Baja. I guess the moral of the story is, if you're going to the Sun & Moon, go while the sun's up and beware the moon." That elicited a chuckle from the others.
Officer Bobby looked out the window at the oncoming dusk and checked his watch. "Ooo, it's getting late. I'd best be going. Good to talk to you all again."
"Awoggyaback," said Bob Walker. "Nite awl."
It was a Monday, so none of the rest of them stayed very late after that. As he walked home hand-in-hand with Danny, the stars shining bright in the moonless sky, Nicholas reflected on how humdrum and uneventful life had recently become, and how unexpectedly pleasant he found it.
* * *
A week passed, during which time, quite remarkably, nothing whatsoever noteworthy happened to any member of the Sandford police service. Well, except for a screaming row between the Andes when Andy stepped on Andy's sunglasses during their run-in with Paul Wilton's fence-hopping cow, but the less said about that the better. Andy showed up at Andy's place late that night with a replacement pair of shades and a bottle of tequila. They were back to their usual selves the next morning.
* * *
Wednesday, July 5th
Late evening
Since it was a Wednesday evening, Nicholas went over to Danny's to watch movies. Ostensibly.
They were twenty minutes into something dreadful starring Steven Seagal when the back of Danny's finger brushed against the outer curl of Nick's ear. Normally that would make him shiver and start to melt a little, but tonight he was feeling a bit off. He made a noncommital noise in the back of his throat.
"You feelin' all right?" asked Danny.
Angel turned to meet his gaze and sighed. "Not really."
"What's the matter?"
He frowned. "Don't know. I feel sort of... prickly. Listless. Generalized malaise, I suppose."
Danny pressed a wrist against his forehead and tsked. "You're feverish." He hauled himself to his feet. "I'll make you up some Lemsip."
Organizationally, Danny's kitchen cupboard was a bit of a disaster, but it was well-stocked. He flicked on the electric kettle and rummaged in a biscuit tin.
"You don't have to," Angel called toward the kitchen. He hugged a throw pillow to his chest. "I'll be fine."
"Shut up," Danny called back, amiably. He reappeared a minute later with a cup of steaming liquid. "Here you are. It's still hot, don't burn your tongue."
Angel glowered at him. "I'm not that pathetic, am I?"
"You are. Lucky for you it's endearing." He patted Nicholas on the head, then dropped to the couch and took up the remote.
"You don't mind taking a rain check on the sex, do you?" asked Nicholas a few minutes later, as Seagal engaged in a series of spinning jump kicks of dubious tactical merit.
"Course not!"
"It's just I could probably manage a bit of snog-and-wank."
Danny paused the movie. "Nick'las, it's fine. Really. Don't feel like you need to fool about with me if you're not feeling well."
"Yeah, but... I like fooling about with you. Getting you off makes me happy."
Danny looked at him with an expression of mixed pleasure and puzzlement. "If you say so. But I'm not kissing you. It's unhygenic!" he protested in response to Angel's pout. "Don't they teach you nothin' in the city? If you're coming down with something, I don't want to catch it, too!"
"Might be too late for that."
"Well, just remember that when I'm lyin' ill in bed and you bring me soup, you 'ave to pat me on the head and say 'poor little bunny'."
"Is that what your Mum used to do?"
"No, I just think it'd be funny."
Nicholas chuckled. Danny patted him on the thigh. The movie thundered back to life.
"I could do with a bit of a cuddle," said Nicholas, as Seagal punched an elephant seal.
"C'mere, then." Danny shifted down so Angel could lie with his head resting on Danny's belly, Danny's arm draped protectively over him like a blanket.
He was asleep before the first helicopter exploded.
* * *
Monday, July 10th
9:30 pm
Angel's cottage was exactly as charming as Frank had promised in the call to London, but he still had trouble sleeping there some nights. Especially lately. He was exhausted, but couldn't get to sleep.
He wished Danny were here. He never had trouble shutting down and drifting off with his partner by his side, whether it was on the couch, in his own too-small bed, or on Danny's broken-down futon. But maybe it was better that he was off in Wiltshire for a few days, at a training seminar in anticipation of a try at promotion to Sergeant. Angel had been irritable and snappish today, to the point that when the Andes began joking that it was his "time of the month" and he'd reminded them, rather sharply, that he was Acting Chief Inspector and their superior officer, Sergeant Turner of all people had suggested that perhaps he needed to take the rest of the afternoon off.
He'd brought some paperwork home with him, but an hour of being too tired to focus on it yet too wired to actually relax left him feeling even more off-kilter. Danny had given him a stack of DVDs a foot tall to keep him entertained while he was gone, but none of them could hold his attention for long. He tried to call Danny at dinnertime, but was bounced straight to voice mail. He'd let the battery die on his mobile, like as not.
He wondered if there was something wrong with his endocrine system. After his morning run, he really noticed the smell from his sweat, and he had to shave every day now, despite Danny's protestations that it was unnecessary. And though he didn't quite have few enough hairs on his chest that he could count them, there did seem to be more of them lately. Could hormonal strangeness cause the skin problems, though? He'd had to stop wearing the St. Christopher medal his mother gave him because the chain gave him a rash on his neck. Allergies, maybe?
After dinner the silence and emptiness of his cottage became oppressive. Fuck it, Monday Pub Night was important to the team's morale. He could apologize for being a prick and see if a few pints would help him switch off. And he certainly wasn't going to improve his mood any by sitting at home stewing.
He went, he apologized, he drank, he felt no better. At 9 pm he stumbled home, fairly tipsy but more tired than drunk, performed his evening ablutions (biting his tongue painfully while brushing his teeth), and retired to the bedroom to work on failing to fall asleep instead of failing to relax.
Despite his fatigue, it was a futile endeavor. His joints ached, the July weather was much too hot, something smelled funny in his bedroom, there was an exceedingly annoying high-pitched whine just on the edge of hearing coming from one of the small electronics in the living room, and even the damned moon was too bright, shining into his room like a bloody spotlight.
And he itched everywhere.
He shucked his pyjamas off and lay naked beneath the single sheet, tossing and turning uncomfortably before throwing it onto the floor as well. Still too hot. He sat up and wobbled under a wave of dizziness. Did he have a fever? He must be sick. That would explain why he felt so strange, why he'd been so cross today. He always got a bit emotional when he was coming down with something.
He noticed that his pulse was elevated and he was panting, breathing shallow and fast. Yes. Sick. He ought to take some pills. The itching was getting worse, a prickly burning sensation like standing under a too-hot shower. It was worst in his legs. The moonlight streaming through the window highlighted his leg-hairs, lighting them up like a pale halo. He leaned forward to scratch, and the tingling spread across his whole body.
Out the window, the moon... it was huge. He turned to look at it.
Something was... definitely... Definitely wrong. The moon was... so bright. So... big. So... moon.
It seemed to swell, filling his field of vision, its pale light flooding his mind, washing away thought and memory, until it drowned out consciousness itself.
* * *
Tuesday, July 11th
4:03 am
He awoke lying face-down on the floor of the living room, the polished hardwood cool beneath his naked skin. He felt... not well, but better. He was tired, and sore all over, almost like after a really good workout, but the itching and the aching were gone. He pressed a wrist against his forehead. It felt normal, but it would be best to check his temperature anyway.
He made his way creakily to the bathroom and had just found the thermometer when his stomach clenched in sudden cramp. Nausea scrabbled in his guts and he stumbled hunched-over to the toilet, getting the lid up just in time before it all came up. He vomited so hard it made him see stars. Jesus! It was dark and red and chunky and smelled unbelievably foul. Was that... fur? Bits of bone? What the fuck? He felt disoriented, and flushed to get the horror away from him. And then he puked again. And again.
Mercifully, he didn't get the dry heaves. The nausea faded as soon as his stomach was empty. He rinsed out his mouth several times and brushed his teeth. Exhausted, he then dutifully shambled to the kitchen and chugged a pint glass of water. Didn't want to get dehydrated. The back door had come open. He closed it. The clock on the microwave oven said it was 4 in the morning. Normally he would be getting up in another hour and a half. Not today, he suspected. Somehow he made his way back to bed and collapsed into unconsciousness.
He roused himself mid-morning just long enough to call in and let the squad know he wouldn't be in today (because he was sick, not because Danny was back early, thank you very much Sergeant Turner), then went back to sleep again.
When he finally woke up around noon, he felt better than he had in weeks. Had he been working too hard again? He hadn't thought so, but if it took a bout of food poisoning on top of a hangover to make him sleep long enough to really feel rested, maybe he was. He consciously set aside the requisition forms for whiteboards for the new station and spent the day watching badly dubbed wuxia movies.
He drank water with lunch and cranberry juice with dinner, just to keep on good terms with his stomach. It wasn't healthy to drink alone, anyway. He went for a walk after dinner, not a run, and made a point of not keeping an eye out for possible trouble. It was just a casual walk to appreciate the evening summer air. Then he went to bed promptly at 10 pm, before twilight had really begun to fade.
It was when he awakened for the second time naked on the living room floor with the back door wide open that he began to worry that maybe there was something more wrong than simple stress from overwork.
* * *
Wednesday, July 12th
9:30 am
"Anything interesting happen while I was out yesterday?" he asked Tony. He wasn't really worried about what the answer might be. Or so he told himself.
"Oh, not really. Bit of a quarrel between Jason Smith and his missus; Doris took care of it. Bob and I finished transferring the expense numbers for March of '02. Detectives Cartwright and Wainwright spent all day dealing with Dickie Baker's missing goat."
"All day? Did they find it, at least?"
"Oh, yes. That's why it took so long. They'll want to give you an extensive report, if I'm any judge." He pointed a pen at the two CID officers, who had spotted Angel and were homing in on his position.
Indeed, he received quite an earful from the pair. The goat had gone missing sometime Monday night. Mr. Baker had called in a report first thing in the morning, and Tony had asked the detectives to investigate as soon as they slouched into the station. Searching about the Baker farmstead, they had, in complete defiance of Angel's expectations, not only found some suspicious-looking tracks, but followed them to actually locate the missing goat. Well, part of the goat. And then another part. And several more, scattered across a sizeable patch of woods. Dickie was satisfied with their report, and suggested that one of the stray dogs known to roam that area had likely gotten to it. The Andes, however, were not content to end the matter there.
The problem, Angel eventually deduced, was not that they were dissatisfied with that explanation, nor, as he'd initially surmised, that they were unhappy with Tony's handling of their assignment to the case. No, it was that they found the carnage of the recovered goat-bits so thoroughly disgusting and offensive that they had to vent about it to their commanding officer. For nearly an hour.
His temper fraying, Angel finally suggested that perhaps they might want to take bereavement leave for the rest of the morning, at which point he was made to feel a thorough shit upon learning that as a child, Andy had had a dearly beloved pet goat. That had vanished one summer night. Likely also the victim of wild dogs.
At least they left him alone after that.
Danny got back from Wiltshire just after lunch. Angel immediately set aside the budget reconciliation and sent himself and his partner out on patrol. They spent a lovely boring afternoon driving around the town, observing absolutely nothing untoward going on.
He made Danny sleep over at his cottage that night. It was Wednesday, after all, and they had movies to watch. He didn't mention his apparent sleepwalking, but made sure to lie on the side of the bed farthest from the door.
He slept soundly, and woke up the next morning right where he'd gone to bed.
* * *
Unfortunately, that first night turned out the be the high point of the month. As days passed into weeks, he was troubled by strange dreams in which he was never quite himself. He had vivid nightmares of running naked through the woods, chasing after deer or fleeing from black-cloaked figures. Cornering Skinner in the greenhouse and tearing his throat out. Being nibbled to death by swans.
Lack of sleep made him moody, sometimes mopey, sometimes manic. Worse, he started noticing things. Strange things. He became convinced that the squirrels in the town were watching him, stalking him. He tried to tell himself it was just his imagination, but then he'd see one hopping along a fence, pacing him. If it wasn't the squirrels, it was the pigeons, circling overhead like tiny, fat, bread-eating vultures.
He couldn't bring himself to tell Danny about the blackouts and sleepwalking. He'd just worry needlessly and feel guilty about being gone when it happened. But he kept a careful eye on how much he drank when they went to the pub. He downed a lot of cranberry juice. His kidneys would be clean as a whistle, at least.
It was clear that Danny sensed there was something wrong. He asked Nicholas whether he was feeling all right more often than he asked whether he wanted something from the shop. Nicholas did his best to keep from snapping at him, but didn't expound on his feelings. It was almost a relief when Danny told him he'd have to miss their movie night on the 9th because he'd be visiting some cousin's boyfriend's university roommate's bastard child's parole officer's au pair's dance instructor or whatever off in Bristol.
Well, except for that whole dreadful sense of foreboding thing.
* * *
Tuesday, August 8th
8:30 pm
Because it was Andy Wainwright's birthday, Pub Night (which is to say, the night when everyone at the station went to the pub after work intentionally and as a group, rather than the nights when most or all of them ended up there by default) was moved to Tuesday.
Angel had planned not to drink at all, but it was one of those late evenings when the light of the setting sun drenched everything in melted butter and made the whole world feel warm and relaxed. Sitting in the pub with his colleagues, his constabulary, his comrades, he felt better than he had all month, like that light was oozing into his pores and filling his veins. And besides, it would have been awkward not to partake. It was Andy's birthday.
So he had a pint. And another. The light in his blood cooled and turned from soft and cozy to glimmering and prickly, like moonlight on water. He felt... pent-up. Charged. It wasn't a bad feeling, but he was definitely no longer relaxed. He wished Danny were here. He wanted to take him home and do things to him.
He went to the bar to get one last pint. Andy Wainwright clapped him roughly on the shoulder as he passed behind him and settled onto the seat beside him. Without even looking, he could tell who it was by the smell of him, a distinctive blend of stale cigarette smoke, musky sweat beneath Old Spice deodorant, and some god-awful cheap cologne that he spritzed into his pants. Owing to some strange olfactory alchemy, the combination actually smelled all right... if a tad over-enthusiastic in its masculinity.
"Actin' Chief Inspector Nick'larse Angel," said Andy.
Caught by a strangeness in the voice, Nicholas turned to look, and realized it wasn't Andy Wainwright at all, but rather Andy Cartwright. His eyes were half-lidded and his breath redolent with alcohol. He was clearly quite drunk.
"Andy."
Cartwright gave him a bellicose look. "You ought t' know this. Amaretto sour." He held up a nearly-empty glass. "Izzat a proper drink for a bloke? Or is it, y'know... poof juice?" He swilled the last of the drink.
Nicholas suppressed a surge of annoyance. "I'm sure I have no idea."
"Andy," Cartwright shot a heated look across the room, where Detective Wainwright was exaggerating his part in the NWA takedown for the benefit of some young woman from out of town, "sez it's fer girls. And benders." He slammed the glass defiantly onto the bar.
"Well, I'll defer to his expert judgment," said Angel.
"But don't you know? 'Cos you are a bender. You an' Danny. Officers Angled an' Bummerman."
Angel took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Contrary to popular expectation, my relationship with Officer Butterman has not granted me any special insight into the suitability of particular drinks to stereotyped gender or sexual roles. Of course, I haven't received my gay card, yet, either. Maybe it's in that welcome packet I never got, along with the mixed-drinks manual. And my free toaster."
"Where is yer little love-walrus, anyway?"
"Danny," he gave Andy a warning glare, "has gone home to pack because he's going on holiday tomorrow. You may want to consider going home, too, because it's clear that you've had too much to drink and your judgment is impaired."
"Off on holiday? You two havin' a spat? Lovers' quarrel?"
"Look!" Angel snapped at him. "I don't know what's eating you this evening, but whatever it is, I suggest that you Get. Over. It. Because if you keep this up, you're going to make me very angry. And you won't like it if I get angry. Got it?" That last was very nearly a growl.
Andy blanched, his belligerent posture deflating. "Yeah," he mumbled.
"Good." Angel peered searchingly at him. "You're a good police officer, Andy. You're a real credit to the service when you put your mind to it. Don't go messing it up by forcing me to reprimand you for being an insubordinate and homophobic twat, all right?"
"Sorry, Chief." Andy stared glumly into his empty glass. "Didn't mean it."
"You're forgiven. But do it again and I'll chew your arse off. Officially."
Observing that the two were no longer raising their hackles at one another, Terrence finally approached their end of the bar to take their orders. "What can I gitcher, officers?"
"Pint of lager, please, Terrence."
"'Nother amaretto sour."
Angel abandoned his plan to rejoin the others when Cartwright showed no signs of moving, but just steadily and morosely nursed his drink where he was.
Andy Wainwright's voice abruptly cut across the room, an over-loud punchline to a lewd joke, accompanied by a burst of feminine laughter. Cartwright's expression tightened and he knocked back half his drink in a single swallow.
"Right," said Angel, setting his own glass down. "I think you're done for the evening. C'mon." He helped the mustachioed detective to his feet, and led him stumbling toward the door.
"Any trouble, Chief?" asked Tony as they passed the constabulary's table.
"Not yet, but Officer Cartwright has had a bit much to drink, so I'm going to walk him home before we do."
"Stayovvamurrs. Stiktadrode," advised PC Walker.
"Stay off the moors?" Angel's ability to interpret Bob's accent had improved considerably since his arrival.
"That'll be Moor Lane and Moor Alley," explained Tony. "They've got 'em all torn up, replacing a drainage pipe. If you're goin' to Andy's place, you'll want to stick to East Proctor Road instead, to avoid the mess."
"Good to know." He consulted his mental map of Sandford. It was a little blurry; someone had spilled beer on it. The ink was bleeding. He probably could have done without that third pint after all. "Well. Have a good evening, all. See you in the morning."
He had to take a moment to orient himself when they got outside. It was nearly 9 o'clock, but the late summer sun was only just setting. The sun was in the west, which meant... that way. Right! Off we go!
Cartwright was beginning to weave. Angel draped Andy's arm across his shoulders to steady him. "We'll have to apologize to Andy for leaving his party early, but I think home and to bed is the best place for you."
Andy's expression crumpled, just a little. "'S not fair," he mumbled, as they walked.
"What's not fair?"
"Been at it f'r years, an' iss all..." He shook his head. "An' you. You 'n Danny. Show up, all h'roic. Shootin' th' NWA, blowin' up the station. Few months, an you're... inna locker room. Not inna locker room. Y'know?"
"Uh, no. Sorry. I have no idea what you mean."
They stumbled onward for a bit. "You two do it proper," said Andy, after a while. "Y'know? Don' hafta... get pissed first, or fin' some bird t' share as an excuse. Y' don' care 'bout... wha' people might say. 'Sall okay."
Angel wished that he'd only had the one pint. Or maybe none at all. Some part of his brain was telling him that Andy was saying something significant, but the rest of his brain was distracted. He no longer felt filled with light reflecting off water; now it was a cold, quicksilver buzzing that made his teeth itch and the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He felt like he was being watched. It made him edgy and unfocused. Wait! Was that-no, it was only a garden gnome.
Andy was still talking. Something about somebody not saying something, and what's the big deal, people say things all the time, g'mornin', havva nice day, so's yer mum. Sounded like he was working himself into a state. "Howcome people won' jus' say 'I love you', hunh? What's so hard 'bout that?" he demanded.
Even buzzy and distracted, Angel knew how that one went. "Well, you know. People get scared. They worry about messing it up. Sometimes they're waiting for the other person to say something first." He scanned the darkened house-fronts. What street were they on, anyway? He steered them left at the corner.
Andy blinked owlishly at him. "Never thought of that."
"Where are we?" he asked, exasperated. There were no functioning lights along this stretch of street, and he couldn't read the sign at the corner in the gloaming twilight.
"Moor Lane. Thass Ryan Close over there."
Ah, right. That big open area coming up on the right was Naughton's Field; on the other side, it bordered the car park where they kept the patrol cars.
"Well, bugger. We were supposed to stick to the road." His skin was crawling. There was definitely something watching him. There! By the base of that tree-no, no, just a shadow. Across the field, the edge of the full moon was peeping up over a hilltop.
They walked a bit further, past a side street, and had to detour around several large piles of dirt. They both startled when a cat yowled and hissed at them, then fled.
"Shit!" said Andy.
"Ssh!" Angel hushed him. There was a rustling in the hedge at the edge of the field and a low, sort of moaning-growling noise. "Did you hear that?"
"I heard that," said Andy.
"What was it? D'you think it's a dog?" He could feel his pulse pounding in agitation. Whatever it was, it was starting to piss him off.
"Dunno. Do you see anything?"
The rising moon lit the landscape better by the second, but he still couldn't make anything out.
"No. Keep walking." He kept a hand on Andy's back to steady him. He found the other hand curling and flexing involuntarily. His lip twitched.
The noise of movement kept pace with them. The growling faded, then rose into a long, drawn-out scream.
"Oh shit, what is that?" asked Andy. He walked faster. "It's movin'. It's followin' us!"
"Andy." Angel's voice was rough. There was something welling up inside him. Something predatory. A blue-white fury that make his skin itch and burn. Andy was too close; he needed to be further away. Much further.
"Chief?"
"Run."
The detective stumbled away from him, stepped into a shallow trench, and fell with a clatter into a trash bin.
Angel caught a rush of movement from the corner of his eye, low to the ground. Snarling, he whirled toward it. A cold heat washed over him like a wave. Everything went white.
Somewhere, there was screaming.
* * *
9:17 pm
Numbly, Nicholas parked the patrol car at the edge of the gravel lot, killed the lights and the engine, and sat motionless in the dark. The park was washed-out and ghostly in the moonlight. The engine ticked quietly as it cooled, until the only sound was the far-off rustling of rural life.
After long minutes he shook his head woozily and looked around, confused. Had he blacked out again? What was going on? He felt drunk and unfocused. There was a thick layer of felt coating his mind. Trying to remember what had just happened was like biting down on a broken tooth. It hurt, and he couldn't bring himself to bear down on it hard enough to get anywhere. Something with Andy Cartwright. He could recall arguing with him in the pub, and then...
The radio crackled to life.
"Turner, this is Tony. I'm on Moor Lane, near Fitchley Street." He sounded shaken, and was enunciating with the care of someone trying to suppress panic. "We have a... we've got an officer down. Andy's hurt. Call an ambulance. There's... there's quite a bit of blood. No sign of Angel, either. Don't know what happened to him. Inspector Angel, if you're with your car, please report in. Everyone else, keep an eye out for him."
"I'm on it," responded Turner, on duty at the bookshop. "Any idea what happened?"
"I don't know. It looks like he's been mauled by some kind of animal. There's-"
Angel switched the radio off.
He fumbled the door open and stepped out. The gravel was sharp under his bare feet. Tattered sleeves flapped wetly around his wrists. The front of his shirt felt heavy and sticky. For some reason, all the buttons were missing. There was a sickly metallic scent, repellent but strangely familiar.
Oh, no. Please no.
He touched a hand to his darkened shirt. It was damp and left a dark stain on the tips of his fingers. The pallid moonlight drained all color, but he knew what color it would have been if he could see it: a dark, dark red, browning as it dried. It was blood. It was a lot of blood, soaking his shirt and splattered across his face.
Oh god no.
It wasn't an animal that had mauled Andy. It was a monster. A monster named Angel.
All the clues came together, just like when he first figured out why Sandford had so many "accidents". The blackouts. Moodiness. Dickie Baker's missing goat. The feeling that he was being watched by squirrels and other animals. Oversensitivity to smells and sounds. The strange pull the moon had for him lately...
It was obvious.
He'd gone mad.
Somewhere along the way, under all the stress, he'd had a psychotic break. Now he was suffering from paranoid delusions and episodes of violence that his conscious mind blacked out. Even in his drunkenness, it all made hideous sense.
In his delusional state, he'd attacked Andy. Killed him. He wanted to believe that Andy would live, that maybe he wasn't fatally injured, but... there was so much blood. He clamped down hard on a memory that rose unbidden to to the surface, trying not to remember the smell of blood, the taste of it hot on his tongue, the feel of flesh tearing and bone crunching, and worst of all, a sense of savage joy permeating the memory. No, no, oh god, no.
What kind of inhuman monster was he?
Well, that was easy to answer. The kind that had to die.
He didn't want to die, obviously, but how could he live with this? Knowing what he'd done? Knowing that he'd killed a fellow officer-a friend-with his bare hands? And, he tried not to think about it, his teeth.
And even if Andy lived, what if it happened again? What if next time it was Danny?
He couldn't take the chance.
He knew his mind wasn't working properly, refusing to think about the details of what had happened, circling around the event like a bird, too skittish and afraid to land. There were recent memories it refused to touch. He was also somewhat drunk. But he could still follow the chain of reasoning to its logical conclusion. Cold logic told him there was only one way to be absolutely certain that it never happened again. Only one sure way to protect his fellows.
Nicholas Angel had become a monster. Therefore, Nicholas Angel had to die.
He tried not to think about what it would do to Danny. The important thing was what wouldn't happen to Danny. He wouldn't be attacked by a madman who used to be his partner. He wouldn't die. It might tear a hole in his heart that would never heal, but at least that heart would go on beating.
He walked around to the passenger side of the car and fumbled his pistol from the glove box. It wasn't regulation to keep it there, but he had a fear he couldn't quiet that maybe, just maybe, the NWA had had one more member. He wanted to be ready just in case one more Tom Weaver popped up.
Or a Nicholas Angel, as it turned out.
The pistol was heavy and cold. He stared down the bore of the muzzle, something he'd never been reckless enough to do before. It really didn't look anything like the opening of a Bond film.
He opened his mouth. Then closed it. He couldn't do it. Not like that.
He pressed the barrel up against his sternum. Maybe like that? Not certain enough, though. He shifted it to the left and it nudged against the notebook in his pocket. Shit.
He pulled the notebook out with trembling fingers. There was a slit in the cover. And through all the pages, in fact. He'd started looking into ways of refilling the paper when it ran out. He swallowed, painfully.
A note. He should leave a note. Let them know they didn't need to search for a killer, at least.
He didn't get any further than "Danny, I love you and I'm sorry," before a tear splatted a fat wet spot onto the page and made it impossible to write any more. It had taken him long minutes to get that far anyway. He closed the notebook and replaced it in his pocket.
He picked the gun back up. The moonlight reflected hypnotically off the chrome.
The crunch of footsteps on gravel snapped him out of the trance. It was Danny, he knew by the sound of the gait. Be brave, he told himself. He knew he wouldn't be able to go through with it if Danny argued with him. It was now or never.
"Nick'las?" Danny called. He hadn't seen his partner yet.
"I'm so sorry, Danny," Nicholas whispered. He pressed the barrel of the gun firmly against his temple.
The last thing he heard before he pulled the trigger was Danny yelling "Don't!"
* * *
*Author's note: I swear to you, I'm not such an utter bastard as to want to put a break here, but LJ is forcing me to split the story into two posts because of size limits. Quickly! Onward to
Part 2!
Fandom: Hot Fuzz
Author: dr-tectonic
Word Count: 19,000+ (Peas. and. RICE!)
Pairing: NA/DB (some AC/AW)
Rating: R for depictions of sexuality, graphic injury, and attempted suicide. And fer cussin', of course.
Warnings: Pretends to be made of grim and angst; is actually made of crack and fluff.
Disclaimer Due Credit: I wrote the words, but Wright, Pegg, & Frost, et al, made the originals worth writing about.
Summary: see Title
Note: So who's this Officer Bobby fellow? In the movie, there's a police officer who shows up in the background at about the 34:39 mark. According to the UK commentary tracks, he's named "Bob", but I figured he would be called "Bobby" to distinguish him from PC Walker. You can see a screen-cap in this post showing that I'm not making this up. Anyway, Officer Bobby clearly needed to reprise his cameo in some fic. So you can blame that small part of this story on that post. As for the rest of it, I... really have no idea. If anybody can figure out what's wrong with my brain, please tell me.
* * *
Monday, June 26th
4:30 pm
In the eight weeks since their station house exploded, the Sandford Police Service had collectively managed to: get themselves healed up and released from the hospital in Buford Abbey, hand the bulk of the investigation and cleanup of the NWA case over to a special task force based in Bristol (after a suitably arduous and time-consuming series of briefings and depositions, of course), take some mandated vacation time for counseling and emotional recovery, and begin to get settled into their temporary digs in the old vacant bookshop a block off the main street.
What they had not yet managed to do was make a measurable dent in the task of reconstructing a decade's worth of detonated records, figure out how to fit more than two people at a time into the storage closet that served as a locker room, scavenge enough mugs for everyone to drink tea at the same time (though the Turners had drawn up a detailed rota assigning mug-use periods and scheduled washings), or provide more than a token show of any actual, as it were, policing. Fortunately, that last turned out to be mostly unnecessary, as many years' worth of shadowy and conspiratorial terror were not to be thrown off overnight, and the good folk of Sandford turned out to be generally just that-good-and not inclined to much in the way of significant crime.
Of course, there were still plenty of other, uniquely Sandfordesque problems to solve, as today had demonstrated.
"I'm back," said Constable Danny Butterman, depositing a box of files on the corner of the table with a thud. "C'mon, this stuff can wait until tomorrow. Knock off work early and let's go to the pub."
Chief Inspector (Acting) Nicholas Angel thought for a moment. "Yeah, all right," he agreed, standing and stretching.
"Really? Eyyy!" Danny did a little victory clap. "I didn't think that would work."
"You would not believe the day I have had."
Danny looked almost worried. "I didn't miss anything, did I?"
Nicholas made an impatient noise. "Not unless you'd be excited about A, getting cursed at by a caravan load of hippies, B, wading into Mrs. Lukechnios's ornamental fish-pond to rescue her cat, or C, lecturing the hoodies for tagging the tourists with spray paint again. Oh, and D, spending more than an hour on the phone with one Inspector McManus of Scotland Yard for no reason at all."
"Is that the bloke who's been callin' for you all week? What did he want?
"Would you believe he's trying to open up a case from twenty-five years ago? Some American boy went missing in Crickadarn back in '81 and he wants to know if it might have been the NWA."
"That was years before they started killin' people."
"He thought they might have been 'warming up'."
Danny rolled his eyes. "Where's Crickadarn, anyway? I've never even heard of it. Can't be anywhere nearby."
"That's what I said."
"Pfuh. City coppers."
"I know!"
Nicholas led the way into the tiny storage-closet-stroke-locker-room. Had they both been trying to change out of their uniforms at the same time, it would have been exceedingly cramped quarters. As it was, Danny was already in his civvies, and just followed Nicholas in there to continue the conversation. Or so they could claim, if anyone asked.
It had been a long enough day that Nicholas didn't even bother to neatly line up the seams on his trousers, instead just folding them roughly in half and flopping them onto his section of shelf. As he pulled his undershirt off over his head, it made a faint scraping sound against the stubble on his cheek.
He tskd at himself and checked his face in a little mirror hanging from a nail on the wall. "I could have sworn I shaved just yesterday morning." He generally only needed to shave every other day to keep his face smooth.
"That's all right. A bit of scruff's kinda nice. It makes you look prop'rly tough and heroic."
"It's damned unprofessional," said Nicholas.
"Naw," said Danny, leaning over to tap a finger against a darkened spot at the base of Angel's neck, "that's unprofessional." He grinned, cheekily.
Nicholas flushed. Until he came to Sandford, he had thought of himself as straight, though if he were honest with himself (which he hadn't been very often, as it was so much easier just not to think about it), he would have admitted that he was probably "questioning". But it was amazing the shift in perspective that could result from events like your boss trying to have you murdered, your best friend taking a bullet for you, and a building blowing up around you. Sitting next to Danny's bed in the hospital, he realized that he felt different than he ever had before. Part of it was being medicated out of his gourd, of course, but it really didn't take very many hours with nothing to do but think for him to realize that the thing that was significantly exacerbating his anguish and worry over Danny's condition was being totally and completely besotted with the man.
He had tentatively identified this strange and novel feeling as falling in love and decided that it was really pretty wonderful, except for the bit where the object of his ardor might be dying. Which in turn meant that he probably wasn't as straight as he would have liked to believe, and frankly, that would explain an awful lot about his romantic history. (Nicholas was a great believer in the power of logical deduction to uncover the truth, no matter how disquieting or absurd.) Besides, regardless of whether he was latently homosexual or bisexual or what, it was pretty clear that he was very definitely Danny-sexual, so bugger this whole sexual-identity crisis nonsense for a game of soldiers, because that was the only thing that really mattered anyway.
Thus, by the time Danny regained consciousness, he had nerved himself up to the point of being able to say something about it, to wit: "You can't die on me, Danny. I love you."
Danny's response was to smile weakly, squeeze Angel's hand, croak the word "brilliant", and promptly lapse back into unconsciousness.
A hospital room was not the best of places for conducting a whirlwind secret romance, but they gave it their all, exchanging hidden glances and stealing kisses behind the orderlies' backs. Happily, Danny made a remarkably rapid recovery, and was soon sent home with instructions to take it easy. "No strenuous activity," said Dr. Weatherall, with a look that suggested perhaps they had not managed to be quite as covert as they had thought. So they went home, and were very careful, and took things slow and easy.
At first, anyway.
Danny, it turned out, was rather more excitable than one might expect for a fellow of his size and demeanor, and had become downright frisky as his strength returned. Over the weeks, the third acts of many movies went completely unwatched on first playing, furniture in a variety of rooms was displaced and abused, and Nicholas became quite adept at sewing buttons back onto both their shirts. On such an evening last week, he had acquired a sizeable bruise-mark-a hickey, Americans would call it-just above the collarbone; thankfully it was low enough to be covered by his shirt, and had healed considerably over the weekend.
He was buttoning up a pale blue oxford over it when Officer Bobby rapped on the door and poked his head in. Danny slid to one side to make room. Bobby spent weeks at a time manning the tiny constabulary outpost in nearby Little Kennevale, keeping an eye out for... well, not much, really. Sheep-related troubles, according to what little paperwork Nicholas had seen. PC Walker had been assigned to reconstruct the young officer's records, and while his penmanship was impeccable, he had a penchant for abbreviation that left his writing as cryptic as his speech typically was, if not moreso.
"Hi, Chief," said Bobby.
"We're almost done," said Nicholas.
"I just wanted to return this." He held out a stab vest. "I was in a bit of a hurry when I changed this morning. Must've grabbed yours by mistake."
"Did you?" Angel checked the name tag. Sure enough, it was his. "So you did. I must have been wearing yours, then. I thought it hung a little funny."
"Sorry 'bout that."
"No problem." He shuffled Bobby's vest from the bottom of his pile onto the adjacent section of shelf and put his own vest in its place.
"Sorry about the hand," said Bobby. On Friday, Nicholas had been careless during a training exercise and gotten a severe nipping from Saxon. It wasn't that nasty a bite-pressure and a cold compress had stopped the bleeding in fairly short order-but PC Walker was deeply contrite, and Bobby, being quite close to the older policeman, was undoubtedly concerned on his behalf.
"Oh, it's fine," Angel reassured him. "Tell Bob I know Saxon didn't mean it."
"Naw. Just got a bit excited."
"Exactly."
"Is it healin' up okay?"
"I think so. Tony gave me some salve from his Gran that's supposed to prevent scarring."
"Yup, smelled it," said Bobby, wrinkling his nose. The salve was quite pungent. "Well. See ya." He nodded farewell and closed the door.
"Set to go?" asked Danny, once Angel had changed his shoes and finished tucking in his shirt.
He patted his pockets, checking that he had everything. "Yes. Wait." He turned to Danny and planted a kiss on his lips. It made Danny's ears blush pink in the most gratifying way. "Now I'm ready." He grinned.
Out in the hall, DS Wainwright slouched cross-armed against the wall. "Finally comin' out of the closet, you two?" he asked. DC Cartwright, leaning one-armed behind his partner, paused in the chewing of his gum to smirk at them.
Nicholas looked the pair up and down, then gave them a smile that was almost entirely genuine, with only a tiny bit of extra tooth to it.
"I do believe we're out. It's all yours, fellows." He gestured invitingly to the locker room, then clasped Danny's hand and led him toward the side door. "C'mon, Danny, let's fuck off down to the pub for a drink." A thought struck him. "You know, it was just pride weekend in a lot of places. I bet they'll do free drinks for couples." He looked back at the Andes. "Maybe you two will join us?"
"Cor," said Danny, shaking his head in awe as they left the building. "That was wicked." He let go of Nick's hand once they were outside-some habits die hard-but still walked close to him.
"I've been saving that comeback for six weeks," said Nicholas with satisfaction. "I knew as soon as I saw where the locker room was set up that one of them was eventually going to make a smart remark about it, so I thought that up and I waited."
"Blam! Verbal ambush."
"I feel kinda bad about teasing them like that, but they do bring it on themselves. Why does Andy have to be such a dickhead all the time?"
"It's not all the time," said Danny.
"Well, no, I suppose not."
"It's a small town, Nicholas. Even with the NWA gone, everyone's got their secrets they like to keep."
"Mmm," he mused, noncommittally. "Did you get a haircut today?" Danny had taken off at lunchtime to drive several large flex-folders of reconstructed expense reports up to Gloucester and exchange them for two reams of blank payroll forms. He'd planned to stop by Virgin Megastore and do some other errands while there.
Danny nodded. "It's not too short on top, is it?"
"No, it's perfect. I like it. It looks really good. Very smart."
"Aw, thanks," said Danny, obviously chuffed. "Guess what else I got!"
"No idea."
"Director's cut of See You Next Wednesday on DVD!"
"Ooo, very nice."
* * *
8 pm
Although the Porters were currently imprisoned awaiting trial, the needs of a small town go on, and so The Crown had come under new management. Someone's cousin's brother's something's something-Angel was still no better at keeping track of that sort of thing than when he'd first arrived-had undertaken repairs and reopened it. Today was Monday, which meant the pub would be at its least crowded, and therefore gave a police officer the best odds of getting in a good stretch of off-duty relaxation before some well-meaning civilian spoiled the mood by asking how all the cleanup was going and reminding them of exactly how much of it there still was. Monday also meant Special Mixed Drinks Hour, and the constabulary had dutifully gathered to do their part in helping to restore a sense of normalcy by buying a single round before they switched over to beer.
The drinks were only a pound each, which wasn't so much by way of a promotion as it was an apology. The new barman, Terrence, was still slowly reading his way through Trader Vic's Bartender's Guide, so Iris, who had been the server there for years, had to tell him how to make most of the drinks. Unfortunately, Terrence was a bit hard of hearing and had a tendency to become flustered under pressure. Iris had quickly developed the habit of announcing to people what they were actually getting when she delivered the drinks, since it might bear little resemblance to what they had ordered. Still, it was their pub in their town; where else were they going to go?
It didn't help matters that the repairs had included installation of a jukebox with a vast and eclectic library that was perpetually set on random. At the moment Warren Zevon was singing about walking through the streets of Soho in the rain, but odds were good that before the end of the night they'd get a spot of '80s hair metal, three or four country and/or western tunes, at least two dance hits by young women destined someday to show up on Doctor Who, and possibly some Paganini violin concertos.
None of which would help keep Terrence from grabbing bottles at random if he lost track of where he'd put the Midori.
The usual post-work decompression had begun to set in when Iris arrived with a tray of drinks.
"First off, a Long Island Iced Tea for you," she said, handing the glass to Constable Walker. "All correct and not from mix." There was a brief spate of applause and a couple subdued cheers.
"Now, what else have I got? Gin and grapefruit for you." She set a salt-rimmed glass in front of Officer Bobby. "And here's your vodka cran," she said to Angel, "and a gin-whiskey-orange for the lady. He couldn't find the SoCo, so he made it with Jack instead."
"Oh, that's all right," said Doris. "Sometimes I like it a bit rough." She waggled her eyebrows. Everyone laughed.
"Pair of whiskey sours for the two of you." She set them in front of the Andes. It was neither's favorite drink, but having found something both palatable and reliable, they stuck with it.
"And, um. There's yours. Sorry." She set a goblet filled with murky brown liquid in front of Danny.
"What's this?" he asked.
"Rum and coke with pineapple juice. It got a bit loud by the time we got to yours."
Danny took a pull. "It's not bad, actually."
"You're a sweetheart, Danny Butterman." She gave him a quick kiss on the forehead before she left.
"'Ere, Angle, she's musclin' in on your territory," said Wainwright. "You gonna take 'er down?"
"I hear he's been practicin' his flyin' kick," suggested Cartwright. As always, their teasing was half-friendly and half-aggressive. The events of The Incident had thawed their attitudes toward Angel considerably, but there was still some source of tension he hadn't resolved.
"Aw, he's got nothin' to worry about," said Danny. "I seen Iris try to shoot a gun once. She couldn't hit nothin'. Worse shot than your mum, Andy," he nodded at Cartwright. Before the dig had time to settle in, he moved on. "Hey, I picked up See You Next Wednesday on DVD. You gonna come watch it with us? It's got time travel," he lilted. Danny knew that was a favorite of Andy's. Danny knew everyone's cinematic tastes.
"Sure, yeah. When?"
"Wednesday, o' course."
"What time-" he broke off as Wainwright leaned over to whisper in his ear. Andy looked faintly annoyed. A brief discussion, or perhaps an argument, ensued between them in a secret shorthand language of facial expression, abbreviated gesture, and barely-verbalized almost-words known only to the two of them.
Cartwright turned back to Danny. "Sorry, can't. We're goin' to Flappers on Wednesday."
"That's all right, you can borrow it."
"Yeah. Thanks."
A lull descended. Angel pondered whether he ought to do something to get the decompression back on track, but just then Tony arrived, to everyone's approval.
"So how was Germany?" asked Doris, after greetings had been exchanged. Sergeant Fisher had just returned from taking his family on a cycling tour of Communist architecture in former East Germany.
"Lovely, lovely. I even brought back a little of it to share." He hefted a pair of paper bags that clinked. "I see you've all already had your first round of the evening, so the second round's on me. A little something I picked up in Magdeburg."
Cheers were voiced, bottles opened, toasts made, and beer drunk.
"What do you think?" asked Tony.
"It's rather bitter," said Angel, "And it has quite an unusual aftertaste. Makes my tongue feel a bit funny."
"It's a very old-fashioned dunkel bock," said Tony. "We ran across a monastery that was doing a special brewing using the same ingredients they would have used back in the 14th century. That aftertaste is the herbs. Very authentic."
"I like it," said Wainwright. He turned out to be the biggest fan of Tony's find, but all agreed that it did a perfectly respectable job of being an alcoholic beverage. There may have been an attempt to sing a traditional German drinking song led by PC Walker, but fortunately there were no witnesses willing to testify.
"So, has anyone been to that new cafe, the Sun & Moon?" Nicholas asked later on, when the conversation lulled again.
Without the members of the NWA voicing quiet disapproval, Talbot Wilson had finally sold his exceedingly quaint and traditional little restaurant near the village green to Enid Lopez (nee Fetherston-Wallace) and retired to the Canary Islands. Enid and her American husband, Carlos, had announced that they had no intention of remodeling, because they "loved the character", but they did rename the place and revise the dishes on offer. It was change of a kind that Angel expected Sandford would be seeing much more of in the future. Though how ready the town was to embrace California-style Mexi-Thai fusion cuisine remained to be seen.
Doris was a case in point. "Ooo, I don't know," she said. "I looked at their menu the other day and I couldn't even pronounce half of it! Seemed a bit adventurous for a simple country girl like me. Though the girl they've got workin' there had nice tits. That should draw some customers." Doris was an equal-opportunity appreciator of pulchritude.
"Give it a try, you might like it," said Andy Cartwright. "Me and Andy went there Friday mornin' for our... for breakfast. It was pretty nice. Good food, a bit private-like."
"Yeah, 'cept they wouldn't let us smoke," said Andy Wainwright. "No smokin' at breakfast? Bloody Californians."
"Addabrrido f'lunchlasweek. Zawrite. Toomushlandro, tho," proclaimed PC Walker.
"The cilantro was fine," countered Bobby. "I thought what I had was quite tasty."
"Yulleetanythin," said Walker, with a dismissive wave. Bobby shrugged in acknowledgment.
Tony spoke up. "It's a bit of a mixed bag, if you ask me. The missus and I had breakfast there last Sunday and I would go so far as to say that it was an absolutely perfect full English breakfast. Just classic. And then we had dinner on Tuesday and it was... well, it wasn't bad, but it was very strange. I could not in good conscience recommend the Panang Curry Tacos to you, though my wife did like her Pad Baja. I guess the moral of the story is, if you're going to the Sun & Moon, go while the sun's up and beware the moon." That elicited a chuckle from the others.
Officer Bobby looked out the window at the oncoming dusk and checked his watch. "Ooo, it's getting late. I'd best be going. Good to talk to you all again."
"Awoggyaback," said Bob Walker. "Nite awl."
It was a Monday, so none of the rest of them stayed very late after that. As he walked home hand-in-hand with Danny, the stars shining bright in the moonless sky, Nicholas reflected on how humdrum and uneventful life had recently become, and how unexpectedly pleasant he found it.
* * *
A week passed, during which time, quite remarkably, nothing whatsoever noteworthy happened to any member of the Sandford police service. Well, except for a screaming row between the Andes when Andy stepped on Andy's sunglasses during their run-in with Paul Wilton's fence-hopping cow, but the less said about that the better. Andy showed up at Andy's place late that night with a replacement pair of shades and a bottle of tequila. They were back to their usual selves the next morning.
* * *
Wednesday, July 5th
Late evening
Since it was a Wednesday evening, Nicholas went over to Danny's to watch movies. Ostensibly.
They were twenty minutes into something dreadful starring Steven Seagal when the back of Danny's finger brushed against the outer curl of Nick's ear. Normally that would make him shiver and start to melt a little, but tonight he was feeling a bit off. He made a noncommital noise in the back of his throat.
"You feelin' all right?" asked Danny.
Angel turned to meet his gaze and sighed. "Not really."
"What's the matter?"
He frowned. "Don't know. I feel sort of... prickly. Listless. Generalized malaise, I suppose."
Danny pressed a wrist against his forehead and tsked. "You're feverish." He hauled himself to his feet. "I'll make you up some Lemsip."
Organizationally, Danny's kitchen cupboard was a bit of a disaster, but it was well-stocked. He flicked on the electric kettle and rummaged in a biscuit tin.
"You don't have to," Angel called toward the kitchen. He hugged a throw pillow to his chest. "I'll be fine."
"Shut up," Danny called back, amiably. He reappeared a minute later with a cup of steaming liquid. "Here you are. It's still hot, don't burn your tongue."
Angel glowered at him. "I'm not that pathetic, am I?"
"You are. Lucky for you it's endearing." He patted Nicholas on the head, then dropped to the couch and took up the remote.
"You don't mind taking a rain check on the sex, do you?" asked Nicholas a few minutes later, as Seagal engaged in a series of spinning jump kicks of dubious tactical merit.
"Course not!"
"It's just I could probably manage a bit of snog-and-wank."
Danny paused the movie. "Nick'las, it's fine. Really. Don't feel like you need to fool about with me if you're not feeling well."
"Yeah, but... I like fooling about with you. Getting you off makes me happy."
Danny looked at him with an expression of mixed pleasure and puzzlement. "If you say so. But I'm not kissing you. It's unhygenic!" he protested in response to Angel's pout. "Don't they teach you nothin' in the city? If you're coming down with something, I don't want to catch it, too!"
"Might be too late for that."
"Well, just remember that when I'm lyin' ill in bed and you bring me soup, you 'ave to pat me on the head and say 'poor little bunny'."
"Is that what your Mum used to do?"
"No, I just think it'd be funny."
Nicholas chuckled. Danny patted him on the thigh. The movie thundered back to life.
"I could do with a bit of a cuddle," said Nicholas, as Seagal punched an elephant seal.
"C'mere, then." Danny shifted down so Angel could lie with his head resting on Danny's belly, Danny's arm draped protectively over him like a blanket.
He was asleep before the first helicopter exploded.
* * *
Monday, July 10th
9:30 pm
Angel's cottage was exactly as charming as Frank had promised in the call to London, but he still had trouble sleeping there some nights. Especially lately. He was exhausted, but couldn't get to sleep.
He wished Danny were here. He never had trouble shutting down and drifting off with his partner by his side, whether it was on the couch, in his own too-small bed, or on Danny's broken-down futon. But maybe it was better that he was off in Wiltshire for a few days, at a training seminar in anticipation of a try at promotion to Sergeant. Angel had been irritable and snappish today, to the point that when the Andes began joking that it was his "time of the month" and he'd reminded them, rather sharply, that he was Acting Chief Inspector and their superior officer, Sergeant Turner of all people had suggested that perhaps he needed to take the rest of the afternoon off.
He'd brought some paperwork home with him, but an hour of being too tired to focus on it yet too wired to actually relax left him feeling even more off-kilter. Danny had given him a stack of DVDs a foot tall to keep him entertained while he was gone, but none of them could hold his attention for long. He tried to call Danny at dinnertime, but was bounced straight to voice mail. He'd let the battery die on his mobile, like as not.
He wondered if there was something wrong with his endocrine system. After his morning run, he really noticed the smell from his sweat, and he had to shave every day now, despite Danny's protestations that it was unnecessary. And though he didn't quite have few enough hairs on his chest that he could count them, there did seem to be more of them lately. Could hormonal strangeness cause the skin problems, though? He'd had to stop wearing the St. Christopher medal his mother gave him because the chain gave him a rash on his neck. Allergies, maybe?
After dinner the silence and emptiness of his cottage became oppressive. Fuck it, Monday Pub Night was important to the team's morale. He could apologize for being a prick and see if a few pints would help him switch off. And he certainly wasn't going to improve his mood any by sitting at home stewing.
He went, he apologized, he drank, he felt no better. At 9 pm he stumbled home, fairly tipsy but more tired than drunk, performed his evening ablutions (biting his tongue painfully while brushing his teeth), and retired to the bedroom to work on failing to fall asleep instead of failing to relax.
Despite his fatigue, it was a futile endeavor. His joints ached, the July weather was much too hot, something smelled funny in his bedroom, there was an exceedingly annoying high-pitched whine just on the edge of hearing coming from one of the small electronics in the living room, and even the damned moon was too bright, shining into his room like a bloody spotlight.
And he itched everywhere.
He shucked his pyjamas off and lay naked beneath the single sheet, tossing and turning uncomfortably before throwing it onto the floor as well. Still too hot. He sat up and wobbled under a wave of dizziness. Did he have a fever? He must be sick. That would explain why he felt so strange, why he'd been so cross today. He always got a bit emotional when he was coming down with something.
He noticed that his pulse was elevated and he was panting, breathing shallow and fast. Yes. Sick. He ought to take some pills. The itching was getting worse, a prickly burning sensation like standing under a too-hot shower. It was worst in his legs. The moonlight streaming through the window highlighted his leg-hairs, lighting them up like a pale halo. He leaned forward to scratch, and the tingling spread across his whole body.
Out the window, the moon... it was huge. He turned to look at it.
Something was... definitely... Definitely wrong. The moon was... so bright. So... big. So... moon.
It seemed to swell, filling his field of vision, its pale light flooding his mind, washing away thought and memory, until it drowned out consciousness itself.
* * *
Tuesday, July 11th
4:03 am
He awoke lying face-down on the floor of the living room, the polished hardwood cool beneath his naked skin. He felt... not well, but better. He was tired, and sore all over, almost like after a really good workout, but the itching and the aching were gone. He pressed a wrist against his forehead. It felt normal, but it would be best to check his temperature anyway.
He made his way creakily to the bathroom and had just found the thermometer when his stomach clenched in sudden cramp. Nausea scrabbled in his guts and he stumbled hunched-over to the toilet, getting the lid up just in time before it all came up. He vomited so hard it made him see stars. Jesus! It was dark and red and chunky and smelled unbelievably foul. Was that... fur? Bits of bone? What the fuck? He felt disoriented, and flushed to get the horror away from him. And then he puked again. And again.
Mercifully, he didn't get the dry heaves. The nausea faded as soon as his stomach was empty. He rinsed out his mouth several times and brushed his teeth. Exhausted, he then dutifully shambled to the kitchen and chugged a pint glass of water. Didn't want to get dehydrated. The back door had come open. He closed it. The clock on the microwave oven said it was 4 in the morning. Normally he would be getting up in another hour and a half. Not today, he suspected. Somehow he made his way back to bed and collapsed into unconsciousness.
He roused himself mid-morning just long enough to call in and let the squad know he wouldn't be in today (because he was sick, not because Danny was back early, thank you very much Sergeant Turner), then went back to sleep again.
When he finally woke up around noon, he felt better than he had in weeks. Had he been working too hard again? He hadn't thought so, but if it took a bout of food poisoning on top of a hangover to make him sleep long enough to really feel rested, maybe he was. He consciously set aside the requisition forms for whiteboards for the new station and spent the day watching badly dubbed wuxia movies.
He drank water with lunch and cranberry juice with dinner, just to keep on good terms with his stomach. It wasn't healthy to drink alone, anyway. He went for a walk after dinner, not a run, and made a point of not keeping an eye out for possible trouble. It was just a casual walk to appreciate the evening summer air. Then he went to bed promptly at 10 pm, before twilight had really begun to fade.
It was when he awakened for the second time naked on the living room floor with the back door wide open that he began to worry that maybe there was something more wrong than simple stress from overwork.
* * *
Wednesday, July 12th
9:30 am
"Anything interesting happen while I was out yesterday?" he asked Tony. He wasn't really worried about what the answer might be. Or so he told himself.
"Oh, not really. Bit of a quarrel between Jason Smith and his missus; Doris took care of it. Bob and I finished transferring the expense numbers for March of '02. Detectives Cartwright and Wainwright spent all day dealing with Dickie Baker's missing goat."
"All day? Did they find it, at least?"
"Oh, yes. That's why it took so long. They'll want to give you an extensive report, if I'm any judge." He pointed a pen at the two CID officers, who had spotted Angel and were homing in on his position.
Indeed, he received quite an earful from the pair. The goat had gone missing sometime Monday night. Mr. Baker had called in a report first thing in the morning, and Tony had asked the detectives to investigate as soon as they slouched into the station. Searching about the Baker farmstead, they had, in complete defiance of Angel's expectations, not only found some suspicious-looking tracks, but followed them to actually locate the missing goat. Well, part of the goat. And then another part. And several more, scattered across a sizeable patch of woods. Dickie was satisfied with their report, and suggested that one of the stray dogs known to roam that area had likely gotten to it. The Andes, however, were not content to end the matter there.
The problem, Angel eventually deduced, was not that they were dissatisfied with that explanation, nor, as he'd initially surmised, that they were unhappy with Tony's handling of their assignment to the case. No, it was that they found the carnage of the recovered goat-bits so thoroughly disgusting and offensive that they had to vent about it to their commanding officer. For nearly an hour.
His temper fraying, Angel finally suggested that perhaps they might want to take bereavement leave for the rest of the morning, at which point he was made to feel a thorough shit upon learning that as a child, Andy had had a dearly beloved pet goat. That had vanished one summer night. Likely also the victim of wild dogs.
At least they left him alone after that.
Danny got back from Wiltshire just after lunch. Angel immediately set aside the budget reconciliation and sent himself and his partner out on patrol. They spent a lovely boring afternoon driving around the town, observing absolutely nothing untoward going on.
He made Danny sleep over at his cottage that night. It was Wednesday, after all, and they had movies to watch. He didn't mention his apparent sleepwalking, but made sure to lie on the side of the bed farthest from the door.
He slept soundly, and woke up the next morning right where he'd gone to bed.
* * *
Unfortunately, that first night turned out the be the high point of the month. As days passed into weeks, he was troubled by strange dreams in which he was never quite himself. He had vivid nightmares of running naked through the woods, chasing after deer or fleeing from black-cloaked figures. Cornering Skinner in the greenhouse and tearing his throat out. Being nibbled to death by swans.
Lack of sleep made him moody, sometimes mopey, sometimes manic. Worse, he started noticing things. Strange things. He became convinced that the squirrels in the town were watching him, stalking him. He tried to tell himself it was just his imagination, but then he'd see one hopping along a fence, pacing him. If it wasn't the squirrels, it was the pigeons, circling overhead like tiny, fat, bread-eating vultures.
He couldn't bring himself to tell Danny about the blackouts and sleepwalking. He'd just worry needlessly and feel guilty about being gone when it happened. But he kept a careful eye on how much he drank when they went to the pub. He downed a lot of cranberry juice. His kidneys would be clean as a whistle, at least.
It was clear that Danny sensed there was something wrong. He asked Nicholas whether he was feeling all right more often than he asked whether he wanted something from the shop. Nicholas did his best to keep from snapping at him, but didn't expound on his feelings. It was almost a relief when Danny told him he'd have to miss their movie night on the 9th because he'd be visiting some cousin's boyfriend's university roommate's bastard child's parole officer's au pair's dance instructor or whatever off in Bristol.
Well, except for that whole dreadful sense of foreboding thing.
* * *
Tuesday, August 8th
8:30 pm
Because it was Andy Wainwright's birthday, Pub Night (which is to say, the night when everyone at the station went to the pub after work intentionally and as a group, rather than the nights when most or all of them ended up there by default) was moved to Tuesday.
Angel had planned not to drink at all, but it was one of those late evenings when the light of the setting sun drenched everything in melted butter and made the whole world feel warm and relaxed. Sitting in the pub with his colleagues, his constabulary, his comrades, he felt better than he had all month, like that light was oozing into his pores and filling his veins. And besides, it would have been awkward not to partake. It was Andy's birthday.
So he had a pint. And another. The light in his blood cooled and turned from soft and cozy to glimmering and prickly, like moonlight on water. He felt... pent-up. Charged. It wasn't a bad feeling, but he was definitely no longer relaxed. He wished Danny were here. He wanted to take him home and do things to him.
He went to the bar to get one last pint. Andy Wainwright clapped him roughly on the shoulder as he passed behind him and settled onto the seat beside him. Without even looking, he could tell who it was by the smell of him, a distinctive blend of stale cigarette smoke, musky sweat beneath Old Spice deodorant, and some god-awful cheap cologne that he spritzed into his pants. Owing to some strange olfactory alchemy, the combination actually smelled all right... if a tad over-enthusiastic in its masculinity.
"Actin' Chief Inspector Nick'larse Angel," said Andy.
Caught by a strangeness in the voice, Nicholas turned to look, and realized it wasn't Andy Wainwright at all, but rather Andy Cartwright. His eyes were half-lidded and his breath redolent with alcohol. He was clearly quite drunk.
"Andy."
Cartwright gave him a bellicose look. "You ought t' know this. Amaretto sour." He held up a nearly-empty glass. "Izzat a proper drink for a bloke? Or is it, y'know... poof juice?" He swilled the last of the drink.
Nicholas suppressed a surge of annoyance. "I'm sure I have no idea."
"Andy," Cartwright shot a heated look across the room, where Detective Wainwright was exaggerating his part in the NWA takedown for the benefit of some young woman from out of town, "sez it's fer girls. And benders." He slammed the glass defiantly onto the bar.
"Well, I'll defer to his expert judgment," said Angel.
"But don't you know? 'Cos you are a bender. You an' Danny. Officers Angled an' Bummerman."
Angel took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Contrary to popular expectation, my relationship with Officer Butterman has not granted me any special insight into the suitability of particular drinks to stereotyped gender or sexual roles. Of course, I haven't received my gay card, yet, either. Maybe it's in that welcome packet I never got, along with the mixed-drinks manual. And my free toaster."
"Where is yer little love-walrus, anyway?"
"Danny," he gave Andy a warning glare, "has gone home to pack because he's going on holiday tomorrow. You may want to consider going home, too, because it's clear that you've had too much to drink and your judgment is impaired."
"Off on holiday? You two havin' a spat? Lovers' quarrel?"
"Look!" Angel snapped at him. "I don't know what's eating you this evening, but whatever it is, I suggest that you Get. Over. It. Because if you keep this up, you're going to make me very angry. And you won't like it if I get angry. Got it?" That last was very nearly a growl.
Andy blanched, his belligerent posture deflating. "Yeah," he mumbled.
"Good." Angel peered searchingly at him. "You're a good police officer, Andy. You're a real credit to the service when you put your mind to it. Don't go messing it up by forcing me to reprimand you for being an insubordinate and homophobic twat, all right?"
"Sorry, Chief." Andy stared glumly into his empty glass. "Didn't mean it."
"You're forgiven. But do it again and I'll chew your arse off. Officially."
Observing that the two were no longer raising their hackles at one another, Terrence finally approached their end of the bar to take their orders. "What can I gitcher, officers?"
"Pint of lager, please, Terrence."
"'Nother amaretto sour."
Angel abandoned his plan to rejoin the others when Cartwright showed no signs of moving, but just steadily and morosely nursed his drink where he was.
Andy Wainwright's voice abruptly cut across the room, an over-loud punchline to a lewd joke, accompanied by a burst of feminine laughter. Cartwright's expression tightened and he knocked back half his drink in a single swallow.
"Right," said Angel, setting his own glass down. "I think you're done for the evening. C'mon." He helped the mustachioed detective to his feet, and led him stumbling toward the door.
"Any trouble, Chief?" asked Tony as they passed the constabulary's table.
"Not yet, but Officer Cartwright has had a bit much to drink, so I'm going to walk him home before we do."
"Stayovvamurrs. Stiktadrode," advised PC Walker.
"Stay off the moors?" Angel's ability to interpret Bob's accent had improved considerably since his arrival.
"That'll be Moor Lane and Moor Alley," explained Tony. "They've got 'em all torn up, replacing a drainage pipe. If you're goin' to Andy's place, you'll want to stick to East Proctor Road instead, to avoid the mess."
"Good to know." He consulted his mental map of Sandford. It was a little blurry; someone had spilled beer on it. The ink was bleeding. He probably could have done without that third pint after all. "Well. Have a good evening, all. See you in the morning."
He had to take a moment to orient himself when they got outside. It was nearly 9 o'clock, but the late summer sun was only just setting. The sun was in the west, which meant... that way. Right! Off we go!
Cartwright was beginning to weave. Angel draped Andy's arm across his shoulders to steady him. "We'll have to apologize to Andy for leaving his party early, but I think home and to bed is the best place for you."
Andy's expression crumpled, just a little. "'S not fair," he mumbled, as they walked.
"What's not fair?"
"Been at it f'r years, an' iss all..." He shook his head. "An' you. You 'n Danny. Show up, all h'roic. Shootin' th' NWA, blowin' up the station. Few months, an you're... inna locker room. Not inna locker room. Y'know?"
"Uh, no. Sorry. I have no idea what you mean."
They stumbled onward for a bit. "You two do it proper," said Andy, after a while. "Y'know? Don' hafta... get pissed first, or fin' some bird t' share as an excuse. Y' don' care 'bout... wha' people might say. 'Sall okay."
Angel wished that he'd only had the one pint. Or maybe none at all. Some part of his brain was telling him that Andy was saying something significant, but the rest of his brain was distracted. He no longer felt filled with light reflecting off water; now it was a cold, quicksilver buzzing that made his teeth itch and the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He felt like he was being watched. It made him edgy and unfocused. Wait! Was that-no, it was only a garden gnome.
Andy was still talking. Something about somebody not saying something, and what's the big deal, people say things all the time, g'mornin', havva nice day, so's yer mum. Sounded like he was working himself into a state. "Howcome people won' jus' say 'I love you', hunh? What's so hard 'bout that?" he demanded.
Even buzzy and distracted, Angel knew how that one went. "Well, you know. People get scared. They worry about messing it up. Sometimes they're waiting for the other person to say something first." He scanned the darkened house-fronts. What street were they on, anyway? He steered them left at the corner.
Andy blinked owlishly at him. "Never thought of that."
"Where are we?" he asked, exasperated. There were no functioning lights along this stretch of street, and he couldn't read the sign at the corner in the gloaming twilight.
"Moor Lane. Thass Ryan Close over there."
Ah, right. That big open area coming up on the right was Naughton's Field; on the other side, it bordered the car park where they kept the patrol cars.
"Well, bugger. We were supposed to stick to the road." His skin was crawling. There was definitely something watching him. There! By the base of that tree-no, no, just a shadow. Across the field, the edge of the full moon was peeping up over a hilltop.
They walked a bit further, past a side street, and had to detour around several large piles of dirt. They both startled when a cat yowled and hissed at them, then fled.
"Shit!" said Andy.
"Ssh!" Angel hushed him. There was a rustling in the hedge at the edge of the field and a low, sort of moaning-growling noise. "Did you hear that?"
"I heard that," said Andy.
"What was it? D'you think it's a dog?" He could feel his pulse pounding in agitation. Whatever it was, it was starting to piss him off.
"Dunno. Do you see anything?"
The rising moon lit the landscape better by the second, but he still couldn't make anything out.
"No. Keep walking." He kept a hand on Andy's back to steady him. He found the other hand curling and flexing involuntarily. His lip twitched.
The noise of movement kept pace with them. The growling faded, then rose into a long, drawn-out scream.
"Oh shit, what is that?" asked Andy. He walked faster. "It's movin'. It's followin' us!"
"Andy." Angel's voice was rough. There was something welling up inside him. Something predatory. A blue-white fury that make his skin itch and burn. Andy was too close; he needed to be further away. Much further.
"Chief?"
"Run."
The detective stumbled away from him, stepped into a shallow trench, and fell with a clatter into a trash bin.
Angel caught a rush of movement from the corner of his eye, low to the ground. Snarling, he whirled toward it. A cold heat washed over him like a wave. Everything went white.
Somewhere, there was screaming.
* * *
9:17 pm
Numbly, Nicholas parked the patrol car at the edge of the gravel lot, killed the lights and the engine, and sat motionless in the dark. The park was washed-out and ghostly in the moonlight. The engine ticked quietly as it cooled, until the only sound was the far-off rustling of rural life.
After long minutes he shook his head woozily and looked around, confused. Had he blacked out again? What was going on? He felt drunk and unfocused. There was a thick layer of felt coating his mind. Trying to remember what had just happened was like biting down on a broken tooth. It hurt, and he couldn't bring himself to bear down on it hard enough to get anywhere. Something with Andy Cartwright. He could recall arguing with him in the pub, and then...
The radio crackled to life.
"Turner, this is Tony. I'm on Moor Lane, near Fitchley Street." He sounded shaken, and was enunciating with the care of someone trying to suppress panic. "We have a... we've got an officer down. Andy's hurt. Call an ambulance. There's... there's quite a bit of blood. No sign of Angel, either. Don't know what happened to him. Inspector Angel, if you're with your car, please report in. Everyone else, keep an eye out for him."
"I'm on it," responded Turner, on duty at the bookshop. "Any idea what happened?"
"I don't know. It looks like he's been mauled by some kind of animal. There's-"
Angel switched the radio off.
He fumbled the door open and stepped out. The gravel was sharp under his bare feet. Tattered sleeves flapped wetly around his wrists. The front of his shirt felt heavy and sticky. For some reason, all the buttons were missing. There was a sickly metallic scent, repellent but strangely familiar.
Oh, no. Please no.
He touched a hand to his darkened shirt. It was damp and left a dark stain on the tips of his fingers. The pallid moonlight drained all color, but he knew what color it would have been if he could see it: a dark, dark red, browning as it dried. It was blood. It was a lot of blood, soaking his shirt and splattered across his face.
Oh god no.
It wasn't an animal that had mauled Andy. It was a monster. A monster named Angel.
All the clues came together, just like when he first figured out why Sandford had so many "accidents". The blackouts. Moodiness. Dickie Baker's missing goat. The feeling that he was being watched by squirrels and other animals. Oversensitivity to smells and sounds. The strange pull the moon had for him lately...
It was obvious.
He'd gone mad.
Somewhere along the way, under all the stress, he'd had a psychotic break. Now he was suffering from paranoid delusions and episodes of violence that his conscious mind blacked out. Even in his drunkenness, it all made hideous sense.
In his delusional state, he'd attacked Andy. Killed him. He wanted to believe that Andy would live, that maybe he wasn't fatally injured, but... there was so much blood. He clamped down hard on a memory that rose unbidden to to the surface, trying not to remember the smell of blood, the taste of it hot on his tongue, the feel of flesh tearing and bone crunching, and worst of all, a sense of savage joy permeating the memory. No, no, oh god, no.
What kind of inhuman monster was he?
Well, that was easy to answer. The kind that had to die.
He didn't want to die, obviously, but how could he live with this? Knowing what he'd done? Knowing that he'd killed a fellow officer-a friend-with his bare hands? And, he tried not to think about it, his teeth.
And even if Andy lived, what if it happened again? What if next time it was Danny?
He couldn't take the chance.
He knew his mind wasn't working properly, refusing to think about the details of what had happened, circling around the event like a bird, too skittish and afraid to land. There were recent memories it refused to touch. He was also somewhat drunk. But he could still follow the chain of reasoning to its logical conclusion. Cold logic told him there was only one way to be absolutely certain that it never happened again. Only one sure way to protect his fellows.
Nicholas Angel had become a monster. Therefore, Nicholas Angel had to die.
He tried not to think about what it would do to Danny. The important thing was what wouldn't happen to Danny. He wouldn't be attacked by a madman who used to be his partner. He wouldn't die. It might tear a hole in his heart that would never heal, but at least that heart would go on beating.
He walked around to the passenger side of the car and fumbled his pistol from the glove box. It wasn't regulation to keep it there, but he had a fear he couldn't quiet that maybe, just maybe, the NWA had had one more member. He wanted to be ready just in case one more Tom Weaver popped up.
Or a Nicholas Angel, as it turned out.
The pistol was heavy and cold. He stared down the bore of the muzzle, something he'd never been reckless enough to do before. It really didn't look anything like the opening of a Bond film.
He opened his mouth. Then closed it. He couldn't do it. Not like that.
He pressed the barrel up against his sternum. Maybe like that? Not certain enough, though. He shifted it to the left and it nudged against the notebook in his pocket. Shit.
He pulled the notebook out with trembling fingers. There was a slit in the cover. And through all the pages, in fact. He'd started looking into ways of refilling the paper when it ran out. He swallowed, painfully.
A note. He should leave a note. Let them know they didn't need to search for a killer, at least.
He didn't get any further than "Danny, I love you and I'm sorry," before a tear splatted a fat wet spot onto the page and made it impossible to write any more. It had taken him long minutes to get that far anyway. He closed the notebook and replaced it in his pocket.
He picked the gun back up. The moonlight reflected hypnotically off the chrome.
The crunch of footsteps on gravel snapped him out of the trance. It was Danny, he knew by the sound of the gait. Be brave, he told himself. He knew he wouldn't be able to go through with it if Danny argued with him. It was now or never.
"Nick'las?" Danny called. He hadn't seen his partner yet.
"I'm so sorry, Danny," Nicholas whispered. He pressed the barrel of the gun firmly against his temple.
The last thing he heard before he pulled the trigger was Danny yelling "Don't!"
* * *
*Author's note: I swear to you, I'm not such an utter bastard as to want to put a break here, but LJ is forcing me to split the story into two posts because of size limits. Quickly! Onward to
Part 2!