a tiny little ficlet based on this lovely comment from @queer4cryptids on this post! (i accidentally made it angsty, i’m so sorry!! but there’s comfort and gay yearning in there, i swear!)
when the night falls low and settles against the side of the Earth; when the the dark begins to carry a certain weight, he shifts his stance. he lets himself breathe air he doesn't really need into lungs that exist simply by virtue of his inclination to breath.
it's the same pattern Crowley's watched unfold a hundred million times times over—the stretching of a thread until it frays, three women, a set of blades; a wicked inevitability carried in the lines of time-weathered hands.
and still it never changes, never lessens the welling of grief that builds and breaks in his chest, that stagnates and stratifies like layers of sand upon gravel upon so many eons since he first fell from the sky and lost the right to mourn a woman hungry only for bread and a little kindness.
he leans back against a headstone, swallowing down a familiar hollowness. the sparrows have all taken root in the knots of tree trunks. the moon blinks back at him, clouds swaying like an eyelid closing to sleep.
he turns his face away from the light, sucks in breath for which he still has no need. the rough-hewn granite is going to scuff his coat; he knows this with the certainty of having lived in a world full of serrated edges for so many years.
and yet he doesn't care.
Crowley can't find it in him to give a damn because finally, finally he's there. he's there and he's real and tangible and it's been eleven months, two weeks, and four days since he's last felt the warmth of angelic skin so close to his own.
not that he's been keeping count, of course.
and Aziraphale's got that faraway look again. the one pressed into the lines of his face in the aftermath of a flood that tilted against the sky; the same one Crowley saw in the stark daylight of a death warrant unfurled and stamped with the name of the holy Mother herself. it's the same, hollow, teeth-gritted look Crowley himself wore as he stood on a hillside reeking of freshly-cut wood, bearing witness to yet another child of the Almighty thrown to the wolves.
Aziraphale turns, then, and blue eyes meet black lenses meet amber-gold.
"Crowley—" Aziraphale manages, choking it out in a half-whisper, like it hurts—like it scrapes his throat with bits of barbed wire. and, just like that, something in him is breaking and the oak trees are all whispering dangerous things and still, still he can't find a version of this story in which he doesn't lean closer, doesn't press himself forward into air that smells of earl grey tea and old books and something celestial and hallowed and holy underneath it all.
and as though he's drowning—as though the moon doesn't watch them with a flickering gaze and the trees can't hear the brush of skin meeting skin—Aziraphale presses his fingertips to the side of Crowley's wrist.
he moves no further. the air holds still, time seeming to freeze around them. it's intentional, he realizes; it's fire and it's heat and it's utterly fucking terrifying. even now, so far above ground, Crowley can nearly feel the weight of hellish eyes on his back. a shudder runs the length of his body.
and yet. in the atomic space of that hungry, desperate, throat-baring yet, he turns his hand, trembling, to the side. he finds the angel's touch like a bird bearing North—like a compass forever calibrated to a single, fixed point.
"I know—" he rasps. “Angel, I know.” he twines his fingers with Aziraphale's, and it's positively electric. every cell in his tragically, wonderfully human body has turned pure gold, conducted and galvanized and sparking.
a sharp, stilted inhale; a quiet anticipation carved out in the space between their pressed hands (and palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss...).
the graveyard is still. the grief is there, still. the grief might always be there. but the sharp edges dull, the welling in his chest grows steady and slow and gentle.
and the world becomes a little less difficult to bear with the two of them holding it up.
38 notes
·
View notes
For the ship ask game: Sisko/Garak, Kira/Dax, O'Brien/Bashir
Sisko/Garak: ship it!
What made you ship it? I Do Not Remember. It may have been @ectogeo-rebubbles ITPM fic and it gradually grew on me but I don't know what to do with I now.
What are your favorite things about the ship? 1. Potential analysis for a very different way of being intimate with Garak, for one. With Julian he's always performing a bit, and his intimacy with Julian is cloaked in layers of complications and subterfuge- they're both very used to performing, performance is how that communicate. I find their dialogue often very easy to write because they're both very witty and vaudevillian (it's a dynamic some of the guys from my attempt at an audio drama have lol). But with Sisko I've noticed that Garak has points where he drops the jovial attitude and is very straightforward with him, kind of like he's dropping a ruse. It's not that Sisko doesn't enjoy those mannerisms of Garak's- as I think @wanderingwriter87 pointed out, Sisko appreciates Garak's bits- or that that's false behavior from Garak, but it's a kind of unmasking Garak is not prone to allow. 2. There's a very different power dynamic between them- perhaps controversial but during the run of the show I think Garak is put in a weak position, powerwise, compared to the vast majority of other characters as an exile who does not seem to have his citizenship sorted out. Socially, however, there are ways he wields power with Julian or even like, Quark where he's clearly got an upper hand that he doesn't with Sisko, who is of the same generation as Garak. Like, Garak does very notably manipulate him, but not the way he does with other people. And 3. Comparing and contrasting the social contexts they come from. Obviously Hebitians are like, my blorbo culture, but they're both middle aged men who adore children, and are pretty family oriented! However Sisko has a pretty healthy relationship to his family and Garak's family is an... on fire dumpster. Garak is very loyal to his father and craves his love and needs his approval for survival, while also calling him a monster and wishing him dead. Sisko seems to have trouble understanding that other people have severely negative relationships to their parents that may not be able to get resolved (it happens at least twice) because his father has been a good man to him. And to top all that off, Sisko has a son who's coming into adulthood! Children are their own whole people! Family is not a physically distant concept for him!
Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship? I don't think there are popular opinions... maybe that I don't think Garak actually caught Sisko as off guard as people act like he did during IPTM. Like, Sisko’s anger is less about what Garak did and more about the fact that he knows what he did. Sisko knows who garak is, what he's capable of, and if not specifics of what he used to do, the kind of things he used to do. Hell, this is after Garak went to jail for trying to do mass murder. Sisko was planet side during that!
Kira/Dax: I have no hard feelings on it, but I think saying I ship it is lesbian-pair the spares type cheating. I find Kira interesting and have been trying to read more stuff about Jadzia to understand more about her, but I don't rotate them in my head as much separately or together to feel like it counts. I think I've written more like- character analysis? On Kai Winn than on Kira through my perspective of her as a martyr-that-wasn't and how I think DS9 fails to accurately understand and critique the religious context Bajor exists within. Which is funny, because I like Kira and think Winn is a super shitty person- I've mostly ended up thinking about her more because people have such bad takes about her.
O'Brien/Bashir- I don't ship it
Why don't you ship it? Honestly I genuinely think Miles is straight, I don't think his and Julian's relationship has that kind of intimacy and I struggle to understand the intimacy they do have as friends (Miles being an "everyman" means he's a bit of a "shittyman" and we'd be fine co-workers- he's a lot better than some of the people I worked with in welding, which is like winning and award for tallest dwarf- but I would not voluntarily talk to him on off hours). And frankly any openness I've had to it has been killed by the shitty and annoying behavior I've seen from Jiles fans towards their "competition". I'm sure some of it isn't like- sincere? But it's a style of humor and behavior I find rude and off-putting. Also like- I don't like how most people talking about it regard Keiko.
What would have made you like it? You could maybe analyze how Julian thinks he knows what's best for people and that makes him more inclined towards decisions in intrapersonal relationships that really are bad for everyone, I did read a ficlet like that once with it that I found compelling
Despite not shipping it, do you have anything positive to say about it? I do think it can be an interesting analysis of repression on Miles's part and I hope people have fun with it
17 notes
·
View notes