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dennissima · 8 months

Text

It's like a ballet

Summary:

In 1650 London, in a territory divided by war between the English and the Scots, Aziraphale gets into trouble but finds a way to make Crowley forgive him again and again. Notes:

AVAUNT! If you are Neil Gaiman. Sorry Sir, we wan't risk any danger. For everyone: WELCOME! Fanfiction written by me, illustrated by Nica @the-curious-lady-blog (@nicachan91 on Twitter). We are Italian, English is not our first language. Feel free to send suggestions for improvements. Thank you for taking the time to read this attempt to spread joy.

Words:2,210

On AO3

LONDON 1650

OLD ST PAUL’S CATHEDRAL - August 31st.

Aziraphale never misses a chance to wander among the bookbinders' and booksellers' shops in the precincts of Saint Paul's Cathedral, looking for new publications or some rare volumes. He loves wandering through the crowds, and mingling among the people gives him a sense of security. That's why it seems the best place for him to meet Crowley. Just as he is turning a freshly printed volume over in his hands, admiring its fine binding, Crowley approaches him with a wary eye.

‘I’m back.’

‘How did it go? Were you... successful?’

‘Yes, let's say so. I brought some supplies with me. Would you…like?'

Aziraphale gazes at Crowley with a side eye, commenting with his best intrigued expression.

‘Oh Crowley, I'm still not clear if I'm allowed... I mean. The drink that the Supreme Archangel Gabriel serves to the prophets to replenish their energy for preaching...was probably stolen by...you...demons...to deconsecrate it! I shouldn’t...'

Crowley rolls his eyes upwards.

‘Angel, I came all the way to Venice to get this…’, and pats his hand on his hip, making a dull noise against the packet he was hiding under the fabric of his clothes. He continues, showing his teeth. ‘Don't you think that if it was sacrilege they wouldn't have allowed a coffee shop to open in one of the major capitals of the Mediterranean?’

Aziraphale mumbles unconvinced. Then he smiles and raises an arm to attract the dealer's attention and buy the book he was clutching tightly in his hands, fearing that someone else was interested in buying it. Crowley follows him as he makes his way through the throng of voices. He approaches his shoulder to discreetly continue his speech.

'I was wondering... if you could... well... keep... for me... on your property, my coffee.’

He ends quickly and with a cough.

Aziraphale turns away.

‘Me? Hold the sinful drink? Why can't you keep it yourself?’

Crowley wrinkles his nose and snorts: ‘Mala tempora current.’

Aziraphale sighs. ‘Yes, it's a bad time for everyone, with the civil war, the court in check... and that Cromwell…’. He shoots Crowley a sidelong glance ‘Wait, aren't you the one behind all this?’

Crowley looks at him indignantly ‘Of course not! Mala tempora current, is the last dispatch I received from Hell. You know how they are over there. They liked when human use to speak Latin, they find it easy, not like Babylonian. They adopted it as a kind of official language... if you want to make a communication to Hell and get attention you have to use Latin. Send dispatches? Latin. Summon a demon? Latin. Exorcise a demon? Latin. I try to tell them that things change quickly here but they don't want to know….'

Aziraphale was leading him out of the crowd. 'All right, my dear, but why do I have to hold your coffee?’

‘Mala tempora current, I said, is the dispatch requesting my presence in Scotland, I must return immediately to Dunbar…'

‘Ah, some mortally evil temptation…'

‘Nah! Humans, as usual, do everything themselves. I just have to attend and make believe downstairs that I've damned a few battling souls. But I'm not going to risk my precious loot. I've done the impossible to get it’. Crowley mutters something, shaking his head.

Aziraphale looks surprised and vaguely disappointed. 'Oh. Oh. So you're leaving London again. All right, all right. I was hoping you could be my godfather, but I'll ask Mr Perroy, my estate neighbour... You know I bought some land just outside London, right?’

‘Yes, of course I know it and... wait! Godfather? For what? - Crowley returned to attention, seeking Aziraphale's gaze. - Not for what I think! Angel! Don't tell me you challenged someone to a duel!’

His tone had become abrupt, almost aggressive.

Aziraphale's face lights up and he replies all happy. ‘No no! ...It was he who challenged me! Isn't it exciting?’. He would have clapped his hands if he hadn’t occupied them with the books he had bought.

Crowley grunts, bringing a hand to his forehead. ‘You don't realise, Angel.’

‘But Crowley, why? This is so exciting! Like the old days, a matter of honour…’. Aziraphale gloats. Crowley becomes exasperatedly irritated.

‘You do not understand! You risk being discorporated. Duels nowadays can be deadly! There is no more chivalry and they are not regulated by law. Who challenged you? Why? What are you accused of?’

Aziraphale is embarrassed and starts telling the story from the beginning, babbling, talking about angels, demons, miracles, temptations. ‘Oh, damn, keep it short!’

Aziraphale tells all in one breath, doe-eyed: ‘As it happens, I performed a few miracles here and there, at court and in Parliament, to convince a few people not to fight and they deserted. Let's just say that the two factions didn't take it very well and since they managed to trace me as a common acquaintance, Lord Romford accused me of espionage and of being a double agent. He demanded satisfaction…'

Crowley grunts, trying to contain his anger.

‘I. Had. Told. You. To stay out of it! I know this sort of thing. When humans are intent on making war on each other there is no miracle that saves them or temptation that makes things worse.’

He snorts, trying to regain control of his tone of voice.

‘I'm trying to find out about this Romford. You do what you can to avoid the duel and…'

‘I have already accepted!’, Aziraphale interrupts him. Crowley grunts.

‘Well, you don't need me, you can easily defend your honor, just a little miracle and you'll be safe…’, he said trying to calm himself, first.

‘Oh, not at all! I don't want to cheat! It would not be honorable at all!’

The demon roars unnerved.

‘Come on, Crowley, it's like a ballet! Only with a rapier in hand. And it just so happens that I have right under my arm the latest and greatest fencing manuals from which I will undoubtedly learn all the secrets necessary to... Crowley?’. Out of it, the demon pulls out the packet containing the coffee, pushes it against Aziraphale's chest. 'I’d better go to Edinburgh.’

‘Crowley? Crowley! I'm talking to you, get back here!’, try to insist Aziraphale.

‘Take care…’, and with a fluttering gesture of his hand Crowley points to nothing specific and turns his back on him, leaving Aziraphale in doubt as to whether he was talking about the coffee or him.

DUNBAR - September 2nd - two days later.

Crowley wanders around the camp of the army led by Cromwell, not even bothering to pretend to be a footman or a groom. He is waiting for a demonic messenger and wants to be found concentrating on inspecting the troops, even though his thoughts are elsewhere. The moon is high in the sky when Mammon emerges from the bowels of the earth and awaits him among the roots of an ancient tree. ‘Ave Crowley!’, he calls to him as he approaches, repeating ‘Hello! Hello! Hello!’

Crowley does not wait for the messenger to take the initiative and buries him with unsolicited information.

‘Hello Mammon, it's business as usual here, the troops are ready, tomorrow the battle will rage, and if you're already wondering, I've already inspected the ranks of the Scottish royalists as well... tomorrow there will be more bloodshed than you've seen in a long time! - He sniggers, trying to disguise how much he cared more about what he was about to ask than what he was telling. ‘Instead in London, I am interested in the soul of a certain Lord….'

Mammon seemed satisfied with Crowley's account and, as ambassador of England, easily loosened his tongue. ‘Do ut des, Crowley. Your news pleases the Underworld, tomorrow we will hoard souls. But the Lord you're interested in is already damned. Romford is an arrogant blowhard, travelled the world in search of fortune and learned the art of sword fighting in Italy, before returning to England and serving in Parliament. A well-built man with a well-trained physique...a fine piece of craftsmanship damning his soul coin after coin, wouldn't you say?’

Crowley was no longer listening. Aziraphale would not stand a chance.

He feigns disappointment at having been preceded in order to quickly dismiss the host and once alone, exasperated, quickly takes his leave of the demonic envoy.

He wanders off as if to take up position with the armies and stir up the fighting, in case anyone is watching. Instead, he scurries off at a brisk pace back to London.

LONDON - September 3rd - one hour before sunrise

In the mist of a wasteland just outside London, a short distance from the banks of the Thames, the silhouettes of three men, with elegant bearing, faintly emerge. Two of them with a stiff, martial posture. The third, the less physically fit one, looks around hesitantly.

‘Well, it looks like my godfather is not coming, he must have had an impediment’

Aziraphale had not even asked Mr Perroy to be his godfather, in the vain hope that the absence of a witness might lead to the duel being cancelled. He tries his strategy but the pleading look only works with Crowley, apparently.

‘I think it is necessary to postpone, Lord Romford.’

The nobleman appears annoyed and further offended. ‘Lord Fell, this disrespect is intolerable. I consider it further proof of your cowardice and culpability. Only a spy does not even have a comrade to rely on and turn to as a witness during a duel of honour. You will meet the fate that befalls spies here and now!’

Aziraphale was about to retort something when a voice came from the fog, and slowly from the silhouettes of the trees came the slender, dark figure of a man advancing towards them.

‘Sorry, sorry, this fog makes orientation impossible.’

‘Crowley???’. Aziraphale looks displeased. Through clenched teeth he turns to his friend: ‘I was on the verge of cancelling the duel, to the detriment of my honour certainly, because of... your... absence!’

The demon looked at him bewildered, wondering there and then if he had not done better not to turn up at all, but quickly realising that, even without a witness, Aziraphale would meet his fate. And he did not even realise the danger he was facing.

Lord Romford, unscrupulous, presses to fight. His godfather thrusts a rapier into Aziraphale's hand and begins to explain the rules of the fight. Aziraphale obviously does not listen but looks at his friend, still in disbelief at his unexpected appearance, now beginning to be terrified by what awaited him.

The tension slices through. The breaking of dawn causes the fog to slowly descend on the grass.

The indomitable lord strides forward aggressively, Aziraphale stumbles, fumbles with the hilt, trying to remember what he learned in the manuals.

Exasperated Crowley makes a gesture with his hand, from the bottom upwards, invoking a small demonic miracle of succour. The bloody lord's blade becomes heavy and unmanageable. Aziraphale's blade flashes with a distracting light and becomes razor-sharp. It is Romford who spills the first blood and walks away wounded, not badly but enough to consider himself defeated and unable to continue. The angel's honour is saved.

Romford is furious. He gathers his things and vanishes with the first light of dawn, like a nightmare, followed closely by his best man.

Furious Crowley precedes Aziraphale on the road to his abode to retrieve his coffee packet. Aziraphale seems on the verge of bursting into tears, such was the tension he had to relieve. He continues to apologise but Crowley wants his coffee back so he never has to see him again. - I don't want anything more to do with you, Angel! We're done. The battle rages in Dunbar and I'm here sharpening the wrong swords! I told you to stay out of it, that it's not a game. But you, stubborn angel...

Aziraphale's languid stare is not enough this time to end the quarrel. He is more frightened now at the thought of Crowley leaving angry with him than when he was about to face the colonel's blade shortly before. He invokes the demon's forgiveness, to no avail. He must resource himself and find an expedient to dampen his anger. They walk along a dirt road and Aziraphale starts prancing around Crowley humming "You're right, you're right, I'm wrong, you're right!". He concludes with a bow, which bars Crowley's way forcing him to stop and laugh.

‘What was that?’

‘A dance, I believe.’

‘You don’t dance.’

‘I do it if necessary. It worked?’

Aziraphale steps to Crowley's side, trying to catch his facial expression in the hope of catching a hint of a smile.

‘All right, Angel. Apology accepted. But now let's go for coffee, and you… you'll drink it with me. That stuff has to work, I need the strength of forty prophets to recover and return to battle.’

From that moment on, Crowley was crazy for coffee. And for the angel's apology dances.

Aziraphale, on the other hand, did not really appreciate the strong taste of the drink stolen from the Supreme Archangel, perhaps it reminded him that he was at fault with a demon. But he said he simply preferred a good English tea.

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