phosfate | fic post: crazy

TITLE: Crazy
FANDOM: Hot Fuzz
AUTHOR: annlarimer
WORD COUNT: 1,500ish
RATING: PG-13 fer the cussin'
SUMMARY: The screen is set alight with white-line montage action!
WARNINGS: American spelling, spoilers
NOTES: Angel couldn't have driven to Bristol? They have police, and probably even telephones. Is it that whole men-can't-ask-for-directions thing? "Oh God so lost. Where the fuck is...goddamit, Bristol's supposed to be right here! Am I in the Cotswolds or something? Is there -- OH THANK GOD A SIGN FOR THE M4 I CAN FIND LONDON IF I GO FAR ENOUGH!"
DISCLAIMER: Obviously not mine.
ARCHIVE: Please ask first.

The theme for the evening is cognitive dissonance.

His last view of Danny, for example, is strange and wrong, lit red and backwards in the mirror. Danny looks every bit as frightened and miserable as Angel feels. Danny isn't meant to look like that.

Angel drives, because he can't think of anything else to do. If this were one of Danny's movies, this bit would be the white-line montage. The raw, cinematic grandeur of the M4.

He's learned how to switch off, sort of. Nobody warned him that he might not be able to switch back on again. Apparently, he's achieved total melon shutdown. He can't even figure out how to turn on the radio, though he's accidentally activated the inside light (twice), the lighter, the windscreen wipers, and the hazard lights.

I have to think. I'm not thinking. He got scared and I got scared and I let him bundle me out of town, and we should've just taken a minute to sit and think.

I had a knife to his throat. Christ.

Granted, it had been Danny's knife to start with. In retrospect, of course, the idea that Danny Butterman would ever do him harm seems completely ludicrous. It had seemed every bit as ludicrous half an hour ago, but there he'd been, looming, with a giant comedy knife, and stabbed Angel right in the chest. That sort of thing is bound to shake a person's faith, if only for a moment.

The hardest thing had been stifling the urge to laugh, when he'd caught the scent of ketchup, and realized that he wasn't dead. The easiest thing had been maintaining his expression of pure shock.

Note to self: D. Butterman is a fucking scary genius.

I had a knife to his throat.

Of course he nearly ran me over, with this very car. Maybe it all balances out.

It doesn't balance out.

The real problem is, Angel is frightened out of his mind. Usually, when that happens, he's too busy to let it take him over -- there's a Kalashnikov aimed at his head, or a homicidal Father Christmas to subdue, or a girlfriend wanting a good explanation. Now he's got nothing to do but negotiate a near-deserted motorway. He's only got his own head for company. Somehow, in recent weeks, he's learned not to like that much.

When the hell did that happen?

Just one minute to think, we could've come up with something. Just one minute. Just -- I do not ever want to be locked in a car boot again -- one. I shouldn't have left him there. I shouldn't have left him alone.

Just one minute.

You're not thinking. It'll be okay. Get to London, get help, get... "I'll bring the blue fury of the Metropolitan Police Service with me!" Pull the other one. Who in London will even take a phone call from me, let alone summon a tactical unit to invade the fucking Village of the Year on my say-so? I have no proof of any of this.

Okay. Proof. Get proof. Go back with a camera, sneak in, get photos of some dead citizens, don't get yourself killed, easy. Of course, if it were me, I'd've already moved the bodies. And if I get caught, I'm dead. Danny's dead. There's nobody to tell the story until the NWA's inevitable implosion. How many more people die before that happens?

Even the Andys will start asking questions at some point.

And just how crazy is Frank? Frank is pretty fucking crazy. He's had a hand in killing children, dogs, entire families, poor Sergeant Popwell. When he finds out Danny let me go... Would he kill his own son? Is he that crazy?

He's skulking around the castle in a cape, like a Batman villain. He's absolutely that crazy.

Danny won't even run from him.

Angel hates Frank quite a lot right now. It's a mistake to let emotion guide an investigation (except, of course, when you're meant to trust your gut instincts -- police work can be annoying that way), but Frank's quietly avuncular campaign of obfuscation pretty damn near drove Angel mad. Angel is angrier about that than he is the multiple attempts on his life. He's also rather in awe of Frank's subtlety, and feels foolish for having trusted him. That makes it worse -- anger at Frank's betrayal only makes him feel small, and reminds him of the past.

Danny saved him, really, just by being willing to listen, helping him assemble the facts into a reasonable and logical theory of the crime. It was a completely, utterly wrong reasonable and logical theory, but still.

Danny is another reason to really fucking hate Frank. Destroying whole families for trampling the flower beds rather than try to mend his own. Proud to think his own son would follow in his footsteps.

I can't believe they were wearing fucking black cloaks. Where do you even get black cloaks? Is there a shop somewhere? A web site -- blackcloakery.co.uk, "Serving Britain's Pagan Death Cults Since 1959?" How did they decide on black cloaks? Someone makes a motion: "I propose we wear black cloaks." And then there's a debate over whether black is the right color and what fabric should they be made of and is it washable and some bastard says wouldn't balaclavas be more practical and somebody else says no, they're itchy and fuck up your hair, and it ends up getting put off for a couple of meetings while a subcommittee looks into cloak styles and prices fabric and they have to put every little thing to a vote and there are hurt feelings and factions and for Christ's sake, Angel, will you just try to think?

(Much later, Angel will find out that the cloaks originally came from a 1986 Sandford Dramatic Society production of Julius Caesar -- later used in Macbeth, Murder in the Cathedral, and what must have been a very strange production of Half a Sixpence.)

And the chanting. Jesus.

They're already turning on each other. Just leave them alone. It won't long before it's Skinner or Frank or the hag propped up in the crypt next to the Living Statue. Or that loon Tom Weaver. Tom Weaver, who has it in for loitering schoolchildren. Jesus. One of the little bastards gets caught alone with a can of spray paint...

I had a knife to his throat. Anyone's guess as to whether I had the sharp bit actually pointing at him, but still. I should never have left him there. I should have made him come with me. Why weren't we thinking?

How do I even return his fucking car?

Hell, what happens if -- it's not even an if, it's a when -- when one of those lunatics notices his car is gone?

There is no version of this story that doesn't end in Danny Butterman's murder.

I hate this story. It's ludicrous and it ends badly.

There's a sign for Heston Services. He needs to start thinking about where exactly in London he's going to go. Maybe the best thing would be to double back to Heathrow, fuck off to Greece or Spain or Switzerland. Adopt a clock-and-chocolate lifestyle. Guard the Pope.

He needs a plan. More immediately, he needs petrol.

Inside, he's greeted by icons. Not saints or virgins -- much worse. Reeves, Swayze, Smith, the other one, Eastwood, Willis, and quite a few others he can't place. Danny would know them. Danny would natter on about them for ages, giving Angel enough background noise to let him tune the world out and think coherently.

Angel knows perfectly well that he isn't quite himself. Hasn't been for days. His mental moorings are, frankly, a bit on the loose side at the moment.

But he's nowhere near mad enough to think that God is sending him messages through bargain DVD racks -- though, for the first time in his life, he understands the appeal of that sort of madness. If God exists, his management style, in Nicholas' experience, is nothing like that obvious. (Unless God thinks he's being funny. You'd need a sense of humor to be in charge of the universe. And a lot of pens. Really good pens.)

The first thing he thinks is: movies are really cheap now. Raiders of the Lost Ark cost a fortune when it first came out on video. Now the damned things are on racks at service stations for a fiver. Didn't we have a Beta machine? I can't remember now.

Then he thinks: Idea. And realizes that he hasn't switched off at all. He's been thinking and planning all along.

A few minutes later, he's got petrol. He's got spray paint. He's got sunglasses. And he's done thinking.

He's going back home to Sandford, he's going to collect his partner, and he's going to show all those lunatics exactly how crazy is done.

Thanks to

crantz for the usual verbal abuse.

Current Mood: relaxed

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

redderz.livejournal.com

I really, really liked this. Really. I love the whole train of thought he goes through. I'm gonna have to read this again because I liked it so much and need to properly take it in. XD

From:

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags