#crowley believing that all this time aziraphale has been turning rocks over trying to find an angel hiding under them | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

justkeeptrekkin · 4 years

Text

Brief Omens

An ineffable wives drabble- Brief Encounters inspired- that I wrote in collaboration with the amazing artist @selene-yoshi-chan , her pictures posted here with her agreement! This was fun to write, and I can’t believe how beautiful the illustrations are- thank you friend.

You can read it on AO3 here, or read under the cut! MORE ILLUSTRATIONS BELOW!

***

The weather is grey today. A strong breeze rolls over from the hills, tumbling into the valley of Devil’s Dyke. Aziraphale chose the meeting place herself. She thought that Crowley might find it amusing.

This isn’t really a breeze, so much as a strong wind- it’s displacing her styled hair. Fashion has never interested Aziraphale in the same was as it fascinates Crowley, but the 40s really do have some smashing hairstyles and clothes. Now that the War is over, high-street shops are beginning to pop back up again, putting on their lights once more and dressing their mannequins with all manner of hats and a-line skirts. Of course, much of London remains destroyed from the Blitz. West Sussex, at least, has survived.

Aziraphale lays her manicured hands on the wooden bridge, peers down at the burbling stream below. The water is clear, enough that she can see the smoothe rocks at the bottom. She can’t see her reflection, only the vague shape of her cream suit, orange and brown leaves floating along the surface.

She breathes in. She breathes out. She is nervous.

“Morning, angel.”

She spins around- she doesn’t know why she’s surprised to see her here, she invited her. And yet Crowley has a habit of slinking up to her without warning, especially with this noisy wind covering the sound of her footfalls.

“Hello, my dear,” Aziraphale says too quietly. She clears her throat. “You got here quickly.”

“Yeah. I drove up last night and stayed the night a little further into the South Downs. Beautiful part of the world, this, isn’t it?”

Aziraphale simply nods. She continues to rest her hands along the rough, mossy wood of the bridge, but her gaze is on Crowley; her red hair spilling out of a silver snake hair-pin, curls tickling the sides of her neck. Red lipstick. Aziraphale wouldn’t dare to try a lipstick that shade, but she’s always wondered how it would look on her. How it would look if Crowley kissed her and left a taste of it on her lips.

Yellow irises dart over to Aziraphale. She stops staring and looks away promptly, watching the rolling green hills. With the lack of rain recently, the grass is turning a greyish green and blending into the sky. The clouds beyond make the horizon hazy, like a weak watercolour painting.

“What was it you wanted to discuss,” Crowley asks, all business. Her sunglasses don’t conceal peripheral gaze- Aziraphale can see her staring out at the view beyond. She’s avoiding eye contact, Aziraphale realises. And it’s not just the square shoulders of her jacket that make her look tense.

“Um,” Aziraphale says. She feels herself panic. She feels her eyes widen and her chest rise with a too-deep breath. “It’s- not all that important really.”

That gets Crowley to turn and look at her, brows furrowed. “What? Why are we meeting here then? We could have gone to any of our normal meeting places.”

“I know, but I rather thought that we might like to try somewhere new,” Aziraphale says.

What she doesn’t say is that she had an inkling that Crowley would like the South Downs- Devil’s Dyke and all. She felt that it might be nice to try somewhere different with expansive views, rolling hills, little tearooms. And none of the World War II rubble. Something a little more- romantic.

Crowley pokes out her bottom lip. Then, nods in concession. “Alright. Devil’s Dyke, though?”

“Yes.”

“A bit tongue-in-cheek for you,” Crowley says, sounding impressed. Then a smile grows on her lips. Firey red hair dancing in front of her face. “I like it.”

They stand side by side on the little bridge. They’re the only people (beings) here for miles. The wind pours down, and it makes Aziraphale’s ears ache. She looks down at her shoes- totally inappropriate for a country walk, but pretty. Crowley has been more sensible and put on some leather boots.

“Crowley.”

“Angel.” She says it like she’s been waiting for them to get down to business. Waiting for them to discuss something serious, perhaps The Arrangement.

“Back at the church, during the Blitz,” Aziraphale starts. She swallows, her throat raw from the cold air. The stream trickles happily, singing a gurgling song below. “At the church, you saved my books for me.”

Crowley looks dead ahead and doesn’t move. Aziraphale doesn’t miss the way her fingers clench on the wooden fence of the bridge.

“Yes,” she replies slowly, quite primly.

She has been dreading this moment. She has fought with herself over this decision for months. But after what Crowley did-

Inside her handbag, Aziraphale finds a tartan flask. It looks so innocent, nestled amongst the packets of tissues and lipsticks. She removes it carefully, placing it on the fence. And if Crowley wasn’t tense before, she certainly is now; she straightens beside Aziraphale, red lips parting in silent surprise. Brows pulled together, raised above her sunglasses.

Aziraphale keeps a hand on the flask, holds it there between them, waits for it to sink it.

“Angel…”

“Holy water won’t just kill your body,” Aziraphale interrupts. She has to say this, before Crowley thinks she’s doing something nice for her. “It will destroy you completely. But I can’t have you risking your life, not even for something dangerous.”

Crowley is staring at her- Aziraphale can sense it. She can see her floundering. She’s speechless in a way that Aziraphale’s never really known before. There isn’t even the usual garbled stream of noises coming out of her mouth when she loses her words; it’s just silence. Aziraphale has stunned Crowley to silence.

She clears her throat, feeling her wind-bitten cheeks heat up. “Don’t go unscrewing the cap.”

“You did this for me,” Crowley says, almost too quietly over the wind.

And then Aziraphale turns to look back at her. Her hair is caught in the breeze. Crowley is so beautiful. Aziraphale always knew, always found her beautiful, even when she pretended she didn’t. But now- now, it’s impossible to ignore. How had she managed to ignore it for so long? How deluded has Heaven made her, that it took this long? Aziraphale is a being of love; it’s absurd that she hadn’t been able to see the wood for the trees until that bomb destroyed that church, Crowley handing over a briefcase, hands touching. Just for a moment.

“Anything,” Aziraphale whispers.

She isn’t sure whether Crowley hears. If she didn’t, then that would be OK. Some things aren’t meant to be.

They look over at the view again. Crowley takes a moment to pick up the flask and put it in her own purse.

“I haven’t been as far as Ditchling before,” Crowley says suddenly, voice too light. “‘S where I’m staying at the moment. I’ve- I’ve only been as far as Hastings.”

Aziraphale goes along with it. “I helped evacuate some children here, during the worst of the War.”

“Ah. Yes. I was mostly in Liverpool helping out with that.”

Aziraphale frowns, registering this. When she tries to find answers in Crowley’s expression, she only sees her own white-blonde hair in her face and Crowley’s turned away. “You helped with the evacuations?”

“Yes,” she says sharply.

“That’s awfully… good of you.”

There’s a twist to her lips as she fights back a retort. “They were very naughty children, I assure you. Wales was traumatised by their arrival.”

She is too much. Oh, she is just too much. Aziraphale smiles at her, even though she won’t look back. “You are quite… something, Crowley.”

Crowley sneers. Aziraphale ducks her head and hides her smile.

A single seagull flies overhead. The aren’t that close to the sea- it must have flown over from Brighton. It coasts on the wind. The air is fresh here, unlike London. Aziraphale breathes it in deeply, and tries to save it there. Save it for when she needs it in the coming days.

“Are you happy?”

She doesn’t expect the question. She doesn’t even really understand it. “I’m sorry?”

Crowley hesitates, bites her lip. Then, “Do you ever ask yourself whether you’re happy? With the way things are?”

Constantly, Aziraphale thinks, but she never admits it to herself. No, she sees those kinds of questions float through her head and she banishes them to some bottomless pit in her mind. A pit that doesn’t feel so bottomless these days; all the doubt and confusion and questions she’s wanted to ask Heaven and Hell and God are piling up and starting to overflow. It’s only a matter of time before she decides she won’t be able to hide it anymore.

Crowley is watching her, waiting for her answer as she thinks on this.

“I don’t know,” she says, eventually. “Am I happy? Oh, Crowley. I don’t know.”

“Don’t you hate not knowing?” She rushes. “Don’t you ever just…”

Crowley trails off. Her hand rests against the fence beside Aziraphale’s.

“I suppose you don’t ask questions, not being the snake of Eden,” Crowley eventually finishes.

Aziraphale doesn’t know what to say. She doesn’t know what she thinks. Any opinions she has are obscured under layers and layers of Heavenly instructions and Bible verses and ineffable plans.

For a moment, she finds a reply in a hand hold; not quite a hold, rather, her own hand gently placed on top of Crowley’s. Just to let her know that she’s there. And then she removes it again.

She has been friends with Cowardice far longer than she has known Crowley.

***

The Bentley is parked somewhere over the nearest hill. They walk in contemplative quiet, Aziraphale trying not to trip in her silly shoes, Crowley sighing in frustration at her. And whilst Aziraphale has achieved what she meant to today, something sits uncomfortably in her.

The wind tries to push her back down the hill.

When they reach the car, Crowley gives her a lift to the nearest train station, just outside Ditchling. It’s not far from where she’s staying, she assures Aziraphale, and she can’t cope with the idea of Aziraphale wobbling all the way to the station in her heels. Crowley makes it sound like an accusation, but Aziraphale recognises the kind gesture in it. She looks out of the window and watches the hills fall away, watches their moment in Devil’s Dyke fall away as if she’s abandoning it.

The engine turns off and Aziraphale waits. Crowley says nothing. They both wait, although there’s no sign of there being anything to wait for.

“Are you sure you want to head back to London?” Crowley asks. She doesn’t say it like a question. She turns to look at Aziraphale suddenly, lips parted and brows raised, looking lost. And Aziraphale realises then that it’s her that she’s abandoning, not Devil’s Dyke. “I’ll give you a lift. Anywhere you want to go.”

And she sees it. Oh, Lord, Aziraphale sees it in her mind’s eye; the two of them in a cottage in The South Downs, walking through the neighbouring fields in wellies and Barbour coats. Trips to Brighton with ice-creams and sun hats, even if the weather is dreary. Trips to places they’ve never been before; days inside, drinking cocoa and reading and simply being together. Existing together, without any fear of the universe collapsing. Forgetting that this juxtaposition of theirs is a crime against nature. Aziraphale sees it, this daydream hanging between them in the Bentley, parked outside Ditchling station.

It would be cruel to even pretend that such a dream could exist.

“You go too fast for me, Crowley.”

She doesn’t stay to see the heartbreak in Crowley’s eyes, because she feels it herself- she can’t bear heartbreak for two. She gathers her handbag and steps out of the car, walking neatly towards the station. She has fifteen minutes until her train.

When she steps inside and turns around in the doorway, she sees the Bentley pull away.

Everything feels very sharp and clear. An awful lot like she has fallen into that little stream back in the valley, like she’s lying in the water and her senses are stinging with the cold. She feels too much until she feels nothing. And so Aziraphale stares at the receding Bentley, clutching her handbag like a liferaft and turns back around, onto the platform.

There are only two other people heading towards London from Ditchling. A middle-aged man with a case in his hand, and an older woman, who sits on the damp, dewy bench. She dabs at her nose with a handkerchief. Aziraphale finds herself drifting into the waiting room, where there is also a little cafe.

She orders a cup of Earl Grey from the waitress, finds a seat to perch on.

She holds the cup between her hands, but feels no less adrift.

Crowley keeps her tethered, she considers in that moment. That look of abandonment on Crowley’s face; the feeling that Aziraphale is floating away; the sky is grey and the world is grey and she is lost in it.

“I made the right decision,” she says quietly to herself.

“What’s that, sweetheart?”

Aziraphale takes a moment to realise that that waitress has spoken to her. “Oh- I’m sorry. I was merely talking to myself. A silly habit, I’m afraid,” she laughs emptily.

“Not to worry, not to worry, talk to meself constantly- sign of a sound mind, my nan always said.”

“Quite so,” Aziraphale breathes.

She doesn’t feel sound, she considers. She feels silent. A disorientating quiet, like those moments in the middle of the night, when one is awake when they shouldn’t be. When she has awoken and found herself alone, in a dark room. Echoing, claustrophobic. She feels it in her throat and she feels it prick her eyes with tears.

“I made the right decision,” she whispers.

The two of them walking down a muddy country road towards the nearest pub- talking loudly about anything and nothing, the usual silliness in all likelihood, arms swinging and cheeks rosy. The two of them side by side on a sofa, bowties undone and tights on the floor and wine bottles empty. The two of them at a dining table in the morning, reading the newspaper and buttering toast. The two of them at the Ritz, just as it has always been.

She made the correct decision. It is the decision that Heaven would choose for her. But is it the right one?

Aziraphale stands up abruptly, tea sloshing over the edge of the mug and into the saucer. She is going to catch up with Crowley- she can find her in Ditchling town somewhere, she could ask around and-

No. No, even if she has that dream, it doesn’t mean that Crowley shares it. Crowley might have offered to take her anywhere, but how far does Crowley mean? How could Aziraphale know whether this is the right thing for both of them? This would jeopardise Crowley’s life too.

She sits back down slowly, just as the whistle of the London train screams down the platform. A shaky hand picks up the teacup and she takes a small sip.

She steps onto the platform and waits for the train to stop. The steam billows; she can’t see anything. She hears the train conductor shouting out of the window. She sees a door materialise before her, opens it and steps into the compartment where three other people sit and read. She takes her own seat.

She looks through the window and she feels like she is drowning. She feels as if the train’s steam is inside her. She feels the walls around her in a way she has never experienced a room before, as if it is designed to trap her. She hears the scream of the conductor’s whistle in her ears, rattling in her brain.

She feels herself breath in. She feels the air rushing into her lungs, like water filling a glass.

The train begins to pull away from the platform.

She grabs her handbag, opens the door, and jumps onto the platform.

Aziraphale hangs her head back and closes her eyes. The steam surrounds her in clouds and the mechanical chug of the train recedes; she feels it rumble beneath her feet.

“Aziraphale!”

That voice- she opens her eyes and turns to meet it, but she sees no one for all the smoke and steam.

“Crowley?”

And then again- desperation, relief- “Aziraphale.”

She turns on the spot and searches for her, but she can’t see anyone- she’s lost, alone in the mist, until she sees the silhouette approaching. The clouds part and there she is, Crowley, holding onto a handbag with both hands. An expression so soft it could have been painted.

“Crowley.”

Right or wrong, correct or incorrect- Aziraphale sees none of that, now. She walks towards her. Crowley walks towards her. And they meet each other, standing so close that Aziraphale can see through the lenses of her sunglasses.

“You got off the train,” Crowley says.

“You came back,” Aziraphale says.

When they kiss, it isn’t like it is in the movies. It isn’t desperate hands on each other’s arms, desperate lips pressed together as if they don’t care about breathing. When they kiss, it’s hesitant, careful not to break everything that came before. It’s unsure, but it’s also a promise.

Next time we kiss, Aziraphale thinks, I won’t be so afraid.

#Good omens #ineffable wives #ineffable partners #ineffable husbands #crowley #aziraphale #my writing #selene-yoshi-chan #THANK YOU SELENE

2K notes · View notes

29-pieces · 4 years

Text

Whumptober day 27 - Good Omens

Day 27: Extreme Weather Fandom/setting: Good Omens, Pompeii ca 79 AD Read on AO3 Read on FF.net

~*~

Crowley hacked and coughed, face covered with his arm in a pointless attempt to protect himself from the ash. Stones rained down all around him; it was the only sound now that most of the screams had gone silent. Tears dripped down Crowley's face, carving lines through the ash that had already settled on him. What was he even doing here? It was useless... any human still in Pompeii was dead by now, or long past his ability to heal. And he wasn't supposed to be healing anyone, anyway. In fact, Crowley didn't know what his assignment here even was, but the crippling horror he felt at the scene around him wouldn't have allowed for him to function anyway.

"Anybody!" Crowley croaked out, desperation driving his sandaled feet a little further into the city. "Hello! Is- is anyone left...?"

One person. One wretched person to save, that was all he asked, but he couldn't stay here much longer himself, not without succumbing to the volcano and discorporating. At this point, it didn't seem like a terrible idea. A huge rock glanced off his shoulder, knocking Crowley off balance so that he tripped into the rapidly growing layer of hot ash coating the streets. Even if fire wasn't likely to do much damage to a demon (did lava count? He'd never tested this and wasn't eager to) it still hurt. Another stone crashed down beside him, so Crowley growled and drew his wings out into the physical plane, hoping to shield his head.

It wasn't the best idea he'd ever had, the hot, cloying ash immediately starting to stick to his feathers. It weighed him down, cumbersome and unwieldy. Crowley tried to stand back up but this time a falling rock did knock him over the head. The demon toppled the rest of the way to the ground, almost totally immersing himself in a hot casing of the volcanic brume.

With a strangled cry, Crowley forced himself up onto one trembling arm and called again,

"H-hello! Anyone, is anyone left alive?"

Shouting made him cough and choke and there was no reply. It was time to go; he was doing no good- er, well, he never did good, but he wasn't any use here. Shuffling around in the ash, Crowley staggered to his feet and tried to point himself out of the city, away from the cruel fires of Vesuvius. He blinked, shielding his eyes, and glanced around. His heart pounded faster; which way was out? Everything was covered in a thick, dark cloud and he had no idea which direction he was pointed now...

Maybe he should just lay down and discorporate there after all, but it was a terrifying prospect to die there alone in the volcano's wrath.

Panic overcame him, making the demon start to hyperventilate, which—given the debris in the air—only made things worse. Crowley sat heavily back down, about to go into a full-blown panic attack when a sudden light permeated the gaseous cloud around him.

"Hello!" a voice shouted. "Is someone there?"

"Over here!" Crowley immediately choked back, forgetting for a second the point had been for him to find someone else to save, not to require rescuing himself. At the moment, he didn't even care, nor did it occur to him that his wings—which he couldn't put away now even if he wanted, thanks to the layer of ash and dust bogging them down—might be a bit of a shock to whoever it was.

But when the light got closer, Crowley nearly sagged with relief to see the someone was the angel Aziraphale. They hadn't crossed paths since that day at Golgotha, but so far all of their meetings had been more or less on friendly terms, or at least neutral ones. So even though now would be the ideal time for Aziraphale to finish him off if he wanted, Crowley didn't think twice before reaching out desperately for the angel.

He saw Aziraphale's eyes widen before he hurried forward to take Crowley's hand and haul him back up to his feet.

"Can you fly?" Aziraphale asked urgently.

Crowley, who could barely move his wings now, shook his head.

Without another word, Aziraphale turned them both in the direction he'd come from, starting to run, still gripping Crowley's hand tightly. As bogged down as Crowley was, he couldn't go quite as fast, gasping raggedly for breath.

"Hurry!" Aziraphale urged over his shoulder. "The flow is about to hit the city!"

Crowley didn't answer, saving his breath for running. He didn't know how long or far they ran, but finally they broke free of the heavy cloud. Ash still drifted down like snowflakes, but Aziraphale didn't stop or let go of his hand until they had outrun even that. Not until they had splashed across a stream and Pompeii was far behind them did the angel slow to a stop, leaning over and panting hard.

Crowley fell to his knees at the stream to greedily gulp the cool water. It mixed with the ash coating his mouth, making him hack and spit out gobs of gunk. Crowley had never felt so miserable.

"Took too long gloating, did you?" Aziraphale wheezed, shooting a glower at the demon.

The implication froze Crowley in his tracks. He stared at Aziraphale, the accusation burning into his heart. "You think- that wasn't me," he gasped. Crowley's frame shuddered as he slowly shook his head and looked back towards the volcano—hidden in the cloud of its own eruption—with pain filled eyes. "There- there were kids in there," he whispered, voice breaking. "I thought I could get them out, but... They're all dead. All of 'em. I- Just get out of here and leave me then, if that's what you think! Stupid angel! I didn't do this!" He crumpled again. "There were kids..."

Aziraphale didn't leave, kneeling down next to him with an expression of sorrow. "I'm sorry, Crowley," he said contritely. "That was foolish of me to assume- I'm sorry, dear boy, please forgive me."

Crowley hung his head and nodded wordlessly. The angel had saved his life, after all, even while assuming the whole thing had been Crowley's doing.

"Oh, your wings are in such a state," Aziraphale fussed then, looking over the normally black feathers that were now streaked grey and white from the ash. "Let me get you cleaned up a bit, alright? Penance for my ugly assumption. And because I don't believe you'd have much luck on your own."

Well, he was right about that. Too exhausted to refuse and wanting nothing more than to be clean, Crowley nodded again.

Permission given, Aziraphale miracled a clean cloth out of nowhere and wet it in the stream. Then he sat behind Crowley and started to gently wipe away the layer of grime. While he did that, Crowley tiredly splashed water over his face and neck, rinsing so much ash away between the two of them that the stream ran cloudy where they were sitting. He finished before Aziraphale did; Crowley closed his eyes and sank into the comfort of having his feathers carefully cleaned, all the way from the tip of his primaries to the joint where the wings met his back and then back down over the other one.

His hurt at Aziraphale's accusation melted away along with the debris on his wings. To Crowley's surprise, the angel didn't stop even once he'd gone through several rags and the feathers were pristine again.

"Close your eyes," Aziraphale warned him, miracling a bucket now and trickling the water over Crowley's head to rinse out his long hair. Somehow the water was soapy and warm as the angel massaged it diligently into Crowley's scalp. It nearly put the demon to sleep, his throat closing up a bit at the gentle touch. He couldn't remember the last time someone had washed his hair. Had anyone ever? He didn't say a word, not trusting himself to speak, as the angel continued his careful ministrations.

"There we are," Aziraphale murmured, tipping one last bucket of warm water through his hair to wash everything away. "Now one last miracle—I doubt anyone on my side will notice, after all there's plenty that needs doing here—and you should feel like a new demon."

With a snap of his fingers, Crowley's ashy, dirty tunic was suddenly clean and shining white. Apparently the angel forgot that Crowley wore black, but it had been nearly white from the ash so he could be forgiven the mistake. Crowley would fix it later. Maybe. At any rate, it left him fully clean and fresh at last. Aziraphale crouched down beside him, a warm hand on Crowley's shoulder and a worried light in his eyes.

"Are you alright?" the angel asked softly. "I imagine this has... not been a good day."

"To say the least," Crowley replied, trying for flippant but sounding more downtrodden than anything. He cleared his throat. "But, uh, I guess I should thank you."

"Nonsense, you would have done the same-" Aziraphale cut off, turning an interesting shade of pink as though he'd said something he shouldn't have and wanted to have not said it.

Crowley wanted to tease him for it, but honestly he was too tired, so he nodded instead with all seriousness. "Yeah. Still," he said, shrugging. "Thanks." It was true, of course, he would have saved the angel if necessary. Crowley hated to be in anyone's debt, so maybe they should just make some sort of standing Arrangement, when the other needed help, they'd give it. Then it wasn't a favor, it was just... what they did. He'd mention it to Aziraphale sometime, see what the angel made of it. An Arrangement could come in really handy, the more he thought about it.

But that, he decided, soaking in the feeling of being clean and safe at last, was a thought for another day.

#whumptober2020 #no.27 #extreme weather #good omens #crowley whump #fanfiction #volcano #pompeii #pre-arrangement #wing grooming #hair washing #basically i'm a sucker for soft boys ^_^#Aziraphale to the rescue

61 notes · View notes

thefatedthoughtofyou · 4 years

Note

Another possible chubby Az prompt for you my dear 😊 Crowley sees him in a form-fitting robe for the first time, all white and curve-hugging and pretty. In the sun it’s almost translucent, and every plump part of Az is on display. He looks like a painting come to life. Crowley genuinely has a nosebleed over it. Like, a real one. It’s really embarrassing. He needs a tissue. Maybe he snakes out a bit, gets scaly and can’t say his S’s right for a while lol

( Thank you so much nonny!!!! i loved both the prompts you sent!!!! so much!!! this one ended up shorter than i intended but i am so very tired! it turned out super cute though i think so it’s still a win!!! thanks again i hope you enjoy it!!! )

Ao3

The Garden In Between

It had been… days. Since the ark. Maybe weeks… Possibly months. Crowley squinted up at the sun, looked at the smooth stone buildings around him, let his fingers drift over the cool surface. It may have been years. But not many years. Not enough years for the buildings around him to look like ruins. So not many years at all. He wandered through the streets, moving nimbly around some giggling children as they ran past, chasing each other, smiles on their faces. Crowley smiled as he watched then stumble around the nearest corner. And then he smelled it.

An Angel.

He sniffed, his tongue running along his lip to get a better scent. He closed his eyes and focused. He’d been thinking about the Angel just yesterday. He’d seen some children eating something that looked sickeningly sweet and he knew, the Angel would love it. He sniffed again, deeply, and opened his eyes. It was his Angel alright. Now he just needed to find him.

He checked the market first, eyes moving over the food stalls quickly. He didn’t have to focus hard, Aziraphale was easy to spot. He nearly always stuck out like a sore thumb. Crowley supposed he must stick out as well, he only ever used the bare minimum of his magics to hide himself. And these days it was really just his eyes he needed to hide. People tended not to notice, or if they noticed, they didn’t say much. Either way, he couldn’t be bothered with that now, there were more pressing matters at hand. Matters like where an Angel might go in the city. An Angel who loved food and wasn’t anywhere near the food.

The garden.

The words had barely crossed Crowley’s mind before his feet were carrying him away. Down two side streets, three alleys, and a short cut through a rather grim looking building. He reached the garden gates and peeked inside. The garden was enormous, and beautiful, full of flowers and trees and life. He couldn’t see the Angel, but he could feel him. He stepped inside, wiggling his toes in the soft grass beneath his feet, as he walked.

He moved slowly, his fingers dragging over tree bark, and thick leaves, a gentle smile on his lips as sweet smells rushed through his nose. The sun shone through the trees at their thickest, shining rays of light illuminating the greenery beneath them. Crowley’s chest felt lighter and lighter the deeper into the garden he walked.

He could hear a stream now, the water gurgling in a far-off whisper. He followed the soft sounds, eventually meeting with the small path of water. He dipped his toe in, shivering at the chill. He followed the stream, this garden reminding him so much of the last one he’d been in. The day he’d met the Angel. He squinted into the sunlight passing through the trees, he could see something now. Something bright. He thought it might be sunlight reflecting off of water. He stepped through the trees, onto the banks of a small lake. And it was there that he found his Angel.

Crowley gasped, a strangled sort of sound, at the sight of the Angel. He was standing on a dark flat rock that reached out into the lake, the water just covering his ankles. But it wasn’t the rock that had Crowley gasping, nor was it the water lapping at the Angel’s pale skin. No. It was the sunlight. And the way it shone just behind the Angel, lighting him up. Crowley could see everything. Every curve, every dimple and roll. He tried to swallow, his throat closing around a strange clicking noise. The Angel turned then, toward the sound, and oh, this was so much worse.

The light was hitting him from behind now, his hips now outlined a beautiful shadow against his robes. Crowley could see him smiling, smiling at him, as he walked closer. His brain began to boil, his knees shaking and bumping together as the Angel moved closer.

“Crowley? Is that you?” his voice sounded far away, but he could hear in that voice that Aziraphale knew it was him, of course it was him, who else would it be? Crowley tried to answer, tried speak, to say anything, anything at all. His hands were shaking now as his eyes fell to the Angel’s thighs, the light behind him illuminating the way they moved when he walked, so perfect, so soft. Crowley longed to touch them, to feel them move that way beneath his palms. To know what it felt like to sink his fingers into the meat of the Angel’s thighs, and hear what heavenly noises he might make.

“Crowley?” there’s concern in that voice now. And Crowley knows his eyes have changed, he can feel them. And he can feel other things as well, scales. Along his arms, and his neck, and maybe a few along his face, he can feel them, pressing up out of his skin the closer the Angel gets to him. And then he’s there, right in front of him, looking like Heaven and making Crowley burn.

“Dear me, you’re bleeding.” His voice is much higher now. And it’s now that Crowley’s throat begins to work, how well it’s working remains to be seen.

“Ngk.” Is all that come out. And then the Angel’s fingers wrap around his wrist gently. He leads him to the water and makes him sit. He miracles a cloth and begins wiping at Crowley’s face, just under his nose. His nose was bleeding. How embarrassing. He blinks, slowly, his brain so very fuzzy. The Angel being so close not helping that. He shakes his head and comes back to himself, a little. He swats at Aziraphale weakly, trying to push his tending hands away.

“Now please. Let me help you. What happened to you?” the Angel sounds almost mad now. And it clicks, after a second, that he thinks someone has done this to Crowley. He nearly chokes on the irony. He moves his hand to Aziraphale’s wrist. Halting his ministrations.

“Sss’okay Angel, it jussst happens ssssometimes.” He takes the cloth from the Angel slowly, and he lets him, but only just. He doesn’t move away but he let’s Crowley tend to himself. He wipes at his face until the rag comes away clean.

“What on earth happened? I haven’t seen you this… snake like, since… well, since the beginning.” He says, sitting a little straighter and looking out over the water.

“Right. Yeah. It’ssss gardensss.” He says, internally flinching at the drawn out S’s, his tongue was in shambles in mouth, he could feel it, forked, flicking over his teeth restlessly. The flinch may also have been due to the completely, and badly, made up excuse, but Crowley was going to aim it at the tongue situation and not think about it any further.

“Gardens?” the Angel asks, looking at him, brows furrowed. Crowley swallows.

“Yeah, gardens… they…” he has no idea where he was going with this.

“Bring back memories?” the Angle supplied.

Sure. Let’s go with that. Crowley nods, not trusting his mouth.

“Oh course. I’m so sorry, I didn’t think. I didn’t realize.” He said, sounding so very sincere.

“Ssss’nothing.” Crowley said, waving his worries away.

“Your scales seem to be fading.” He says, an offering, an attempt to make him feel better. Of course they were fading. Crowley was all but forcing them out, he hadn’t looked at the Angel since they’d sat down. He was so close now. It wasn’t safe to look directly at him this close up. Crowley was genuinely afraid he may just turn fully back into a snake. He glanced toward the Angel, he could see his robes bunched and resting on the soft curves of his thighs, his round stomach nestled perfectly above them.

“Oh, there they go again.” Aziraphale sighed. Crowley looked away again, feeling scales pressing forward, across his cheeks and down his neck, and thought maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to be a snake right now. He could just… slither away.

“Are you certain you’re alright?” the Angel sounded worried now. Crowley did his best to meet his eyes.

“Sss’fine. Nothing to worry about.” he shook his head, not sure if he was shaking it to go with his words, or if he was trying to shake his tongue into submission. He was sure it didn’t matter. Aziraphale was still giving him that look.

“It’ll fade Angel. I’m fine.” The look in the Angels’ eyes didn’t fade.

“Thank you.” Crowley said, and watched the worry dissipate as the Angel looked away, finally.

“Well if you insist you’re fine I suppose I’m inclined to believe you.” The Angel said, his body moving in one of its little wiggles as he sat up straighter, Crowley felt scales run down his back like a chill in the night.

“I do.” Crowley looked away, his eyes falling back to his lap.

“You do what?” The Angel asked, not looking away from whatever his eyes had seen across the water.

“I inssissssss- oh really?!” Crowley growled, catching the Angel looking at him from the corner of his eyes. Crowley glared and the Angel laughed. He laughed. He tossed his head back, and laughed. Crowley sat there, scales breaking out across his skin like the plague, tongue twisting and turning in his mouth, begging to be free, eyes, locked on the Angel. The light was still shining on him, the sun had fallen a bit as they’d been sitting, turning a wonderful soft golden color, bathing Aziraphale in a warm glow. Crowley’s eyes tracked the way his hands fell to his stomach as he laughed, and watched the beautiful curve of it shake with laughter.

He watched the way his legs pulled up a bit, as he rocked backwards, and begged whoever might be listing these days to let him touch, just once, some day. Not today. Not tomorrow. Maybe not for hundreds of years. Maybe not thousands. But someday.

He sat, and he watched the Angel laugh, and told himself that this was enough. For now. If this was all he could have of the Angel, just moments like this, just the two of them.

It was enough.

#good omens #good omens fic #good omens ficlet #ficlet #ineffable husbands #crowley x aziraphale #chubby aziraphale #my writing #prompt #request #prompt fill #requests #anon #Anonymous

67 notes · View notes

goodomensblog · 5 years

Text

A Love Like Moonlight

The Sequel to A Touch Like Sunlight. Though you don’t need to have read A Touch Like Sunlight to understand everything that’s happening here.

Warnings: violence, blood and injuries

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Faced with Gabriel, and Michael, and the inconceivable notion - the thought of his angel’s destruction at their cruel, merciless hands, the Hellfire coursing through his veins ceases it’s singing.

Instead, it screams.

The flame is stirring, climbing, filling him. Burning - it roars, demanding air, freedom, destruction.

Crowley gives it what it desires.

His dark wings unfurl. Beneath black feathers, hellfire crackles and glows. His wings arc back, and molten sparks erupt from the dark plumage. In the dark desert, they fall like rain.

Crowley can feel the glorious bite of fire - in his fingers, his arms, his mouth and throat. And when he turns to look upon Gabriel, Hellfire’s liquid heat flickers and pours like molten gold from his yellow eyes.

“You wanted justice, archangel?” Crowley spits, flames licking at his throat. When he smiles, they flicker, dancing between sharp, white teeth. “Shall we see if the fires of Hell can wipe the sins from your immortal soul?”

Or - the fic where Crowley fights a couple of Archangels

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

A Love Like Moonlight

After the apoca-wasn’t, time carries on - as time does. Days bleed into months, and months into years.

And through it all, Heaven and Hell remain unnervingly silent.

Crowley and Aziraphale sometimes catch sight of them - angels more often than demons. Not because the demons are any better at sneaking about; there are simply less of them sneaking (between the two, Heaven’s always been the more vengeful). But their watchers - whether angel or demon - don’t go so far as to speak. Rather, they observe - usually from some distance, dark gazes following. Watching.

Crowley and Aziraphale try not to think about them overmuch. After all, the body-swap should have convinced their respective sides of the angel and demon’s invulnerability to the two most deadly weapons in Heaven and Hell’s arsenals.

“Maybe we’re forgiven,” Aziraphale muses as he lifts a spoonful of fudge drenched sundae to his lips. He doesn’t sound as though he believes it.

Crowley definitely doesn’t believe it.

For a start, he’s a demon; Aziraphale’s about the only celestial being who seems interested in forgiving him that deficiency.

And as for Aziraphale - well, the archangels hadn’t seemed all that keen on forgiving or forgetting Aziraphale’s indiscretions when they’d, with tight lips and dark looks, released a disguised Crowley after Hellfire had failed to burn him.

“I certainly don’t relish the thought of real confrontation with them,” Aziraphale says, shifting in the restaurant’s cushioned seat.

“Who’s them?”

“Oh, I meant Heaven. Though I suppose-”

Taking a sip of dark, steaming coffee, Crowley waves. “Nah. I’m not worried about Hell. It’ll take them a few centuries at least to get that ball rolling. Took ‘em so long to kick off the whole Antichrist shindig, I’d begun to think it they’d changed their minds.”

“I suppose,” Aziraphale muses, and a spoonful of sundae disappears.

“And as for Heaven - well, maybe it won’t come to that. You never know.”

“...perhaps,” Aziraphale says, and Crowley can almost see the angel’s willful optimism warring with his intimate knowledge of archangels’ particular breed of wrath.

Sighing, Aziraphale taps a finger along the spoon’s edge before setting it and the half-eaten sundae aside.

Crowley’s sharp gaze follows the abandoned sundae as it’s pushed across the table. Aziraphale has laced his fingers together, and is staring ponderously down at the bleached white tablecloth.

“I don’t…” Aziraphale starts, and Crowley leans in.

“...enjoy confrontation,” the angel finishes with a twist of his lips.

“Well that’s fine,” Crowley says, and shifts his hand so that their fingers are touching.

Aziraphale’s fingers twitch and his gaze flicks appreciatively up.

“But I’d fight,” Aziraphale says, and his hands slide across the table, knuckles bumping Crowley’s as he twists their fingers together. “If I had to. To protect us. The life we’ve made here.”

This, Crowley knows. It makes something in the depths of his very being burn; and it’s warm, flickering, and fragile.

The angel had, in the end, been willing to kill a child to rid the world of the Antichrist after all. He’d been ready to accept that black mark on his soul - being - whatever, to save Crowley, humanity, the world.

It was only Madame Tracy’s last second intervention which had spared him that.

Crowley regrets not taking up the gun on that rain soaked runway. Six thousand years spent rescuing Aziraphale from difficult choices - from sending a French executioner to his own beheading to bloodying his hands with the deaths of Nazi scum - and after all that he’d gone and asked Aziraphale to complete the darkest task of them all.

His angel won’t be put in that position again. Not if Crowley can help it.

“Don’t worry about all that, angel.”

“Well of course I worry,” Aziraphale says, giving him an affronted look.

“You’ve got me,” Crowley says, because he does, and Crowley likes to remind him of it.

His stiff posture softens. Squeezing Crowley’s hands, Aziraphale glances up. “I do. And you’ve got me. Always.”

Overcome, Crowley lifts Aziraphale’s hands, pressing his lips to soft knuckles. When Aziraphale sighs and smiles, Crowley feels alight, effervescent, and disentangles a single hand to press the sundae back toward the angel.

“Go on then. Finish your ice cream.”

“Well. If you insist,” Aziraphale says, eyes flashing in quiet mirth, and picks up the spoon with a little twirl. Scooping a melting spoonful, he swallows it with a contented hum.

Chin perched on a fist, Crowley watches him, taking easy joy in the angel’s delight.

Nightingales stretch their wings and ready to fly south as soon as leaves fade from green to yellow - not knowing, nor particularly caring to understand the interminable feeling in their tiny fluttering hearts which commands them. In much the same way, Crowley doesn’t think overmuch about protecting Aziraphale from facing a choice like the one at Tadfield again. Nightingales fly south in the autumn, and Crowley will do near anything to keep Aziraphale from anguish.

If Gabriel - or any of the other archangels make a move against them, Aziraphale will not be forced to bear the burden of taking up arms against a fellow angel. Not if Crowley has anything to say about it.

Because he’s got a plan. A decently good one too, he likes to think.

They’re on their own now - isolated from both Heaven and Hell, but that doesn’t mean Crowley doesn’t occasionally keep in touch. He has a contact or two, under-the-table type connections, of course. But it’s enough for him to keep an ear to the ground with regard to what Hell is up to, and sometimes, by association - Heaven.

It’s how he hears, three days after his and Aziraphale’s lunch date, about the knife.

The London Natural History Museum is busy this time of year.

Crowley slips through the crowd, shoes squeaking on polished marble.

The lesser demon is nearby - Crowley can sense him. When Crowley finds him, it’s in the Rocks and Minerals wing, and he’s hunched, squinting down at a display.

“What have you got for me?” Crowley says, glancing around at the milling crowd.

“Did you know there’s islands of rocks that float?” Daeval says, pressing his spindly fingers over a black and white picture.

Sparing the demon a single, withering look, Crowley pulls him away from the display.

“You called me. What information do you have?”

The demon, a scrawny thing with bony shoulders and a head just slightly too large for its body, looks somewhat like a human child - at least on this plane. And as Crowley drags him away from the display, he whines.

“Oh for - you’re not actually a child!” Crowley hisses, dragging the demon outside.

Outside, Daeval recoils, squinting at the light.

“Spill. Now,” He says, stepping in, crowding the little bastard.

Spindly hands lift and the demon is snarling. “Give me a chance to get a word out!”

“I’m waiting.”

Flicking a rude gesture, the demon begins. “I hear that the angels are looking for something.”

“For what?”

“From what I hear, it’s a knife.”

“A knife?”

What would an angel want with a knife?

“Not just any knife. An ancient one. Way, way back, an angel gave it to some poor sod. Apparently, the knife got a bit tainted, you see, with a touch of murderous intent. Then it slipped down to our end for a while, and was eventually lost.”

“And?”

“See, it’s an angelic blade that went a bit dark. It’s, uh, well they say it can kill both demons and angels.”

Crowley stills. He doesn’t breathe. He doesn’t blink. His heartbeat silences so that he might better think.

“It can do what.”

“Kill angels. Kill demons. Stab ‘em and-” he flings out his hands, making a dramatic whooshing noise. “Gone. Permanent like.”

Crowley braces a hand against the closest wall. When his fingers tremble, he grinds them into the stucco until they still.

“This knife. Where is it?”

“Dunno. Just heard that some angels were looking for it. Asking around. Probably don’t want us demons getting our hands on it again, is my guess.”

“I don’t pay you to guess.”

“Don’t pay me much at all actually…”

“Yeah, just shh-” Crowley waves the demon silent. Pressing a fist to his lips, he paces in a tight circle.

It could be nothing, he thinks. Maybe the angel’s are simply interested in keeping it out of Hell’s grasp. But he knows Heaven, and he knows the kind of angels which preside there. And they’re the type that won’t stand to leave things unfinished. Not after Aziraphale’s slight.

Divine justice is swift. And it is unyielding.

And there apparently exists a knife to do it’s bidding.

The angels believe Aziraphale is immune to Hellfire.

This knife would be the perfect solution.

“Have they found it?”

“Don’t know.”

The sky is cloudless, the sun is bright, and powerful archangels might have a knife capable of killing one of their own. Spitting a swear, Crowley closes his eyes. Fingers curling, he presses his hand over his face; his bruised knuckles press into the skin around his glasses.

Either they’ve found it - or they will soon.

Heaven is relentless in that way.

“Daeval. It’s time,” Crowley finally says. “See to the preparations. You have three days.”

“First of all, that’s a rush job. Are you gonna pay me-”

Snatching up the demon’s hand, Crowley squeezes. Power flows down his arm, tingling through his fingers and into the demon’s small hand.

“There,” Crowley mutters, “Enough for a few powerful miracles. Happy?”

The demon, drawing his hand back, flexes his fingers. He grins, sharp teeth gleaming. “Feels good.”

“Yeah, great. Awesome. Can you do it or not?”

“Oh I can do it. Might need to use up a couple of these demonic miracles to make it happen though.”

“Do the job and there’ll be more where that came from.”

“...probably don’t want to be giving too many of those away. Seeing as it sounds like you’re going to be squaring up with an angel.”

“I don’t pay you to speculate about my business either. Besides, you get me what I need and there won’t be any fighting.”

“Oh there’s always fighting.”

“We’ll see about that,” Crowley says and flicks a hand, “Get going.”

With a wink and a mocking salute, the lesser demon disappears.

Crowley sinks back, collapsing against the wall. Heaving a breath, he drags his fingers through his hair.

It’s a decent plan. Maybe even a good one.

It will work.

It has to.

The alternative is-

Well, the angels will likely have an angel and demon slaying weapon soon - if they don’t already.

The alternative doesn’t really bear thinking about.

Crowley goes home - and if he holds Aziraphale a little tighter when they curl together on Aziraphale’s old mattress, the angel doesn’t mention it.

- - -

Three days later, there is a soft rap upon Crowley’s apartment door.

He’d long ago moved his plants to Aziraphale’s shop. These days the apartment is mostly used for extra storage (not that they really need it) and an extra hide-out in case of emergencies. Recently however, Crowley has been using it as a private space to ready materials for the plan.

Strolling through the bleak, empty halls he closes his eyes, focusing on the presence outside the door.

A minor demon.

When he yanks it open, the Daeval looks up, his grimy boots shifting nervously over the floor. A dark sack dangles over his bony shoulder.

“You got it?”

The demon nods, and licking his lips, passes Crowley the bag.

It’s not heavy.

Pulling it open, he spares a glance inside.

“That’s it,” he breathes.

Looking up, he holds out a hand.

The demon, flexing his fingers, shifts on his feet. “...Crowley-”

Crowley’s hand curls closed. “What?”

The demon rubs a grimy hand over his face. Shaking his head, he says, “I think - I think Lord Beelzebub is supporting the angels? Somehow? It’s how I know, I mean - I heard talk. It was - um, I think it’s happening. Today.”

With a snap, Crowley is gone.

The bookshop materializes around him. Closing his eyes, Crowley spreads his awareness.

He feels Aziraphale - there, in the back.

No one else.

Crowley opens his eyes with a shaky breath.

He’s turning a cursory glance around the shop when he sees it.

The card, gold embossed and glittering, is on the floor below the mail slot.

Crowley bends.

A Heavenly summons; on it, is Aziraphale’s name, written in demanding, golden letters.

He thought they might try something like this. Aziraphale would be loathe to ignore a formal summons, Crowley knows. Even after all that’s happened.

Too forgiving for his own good.

Taking the summons, Crowley tucks it into his blazer.

“Crowley? Is that you?” Aziraphale calls from the back.

“Yeah,” Crowley says “Just had to stop back and grab something. Going now though.”

And then Aziraphale’s head is peering around the corner. “Where did you say you were going, dear?”

When the angel steps into the shop proper, he’s holding an open book in one hand and a mug of tea in the other. His round reading glasses have slipped down his nose.

“Just some errands,” Crowley shrugs, smiling through the bitter taste of the lie. “A few little temptations to keep the world out there properly interesting. Be back before you know it.”

“Please do keep them little. I know it’s not, technically speaking, my job any longer - but I still feel like I ought to bestow a blessing or two to balance it out.”

“Do my best, angel,” Crowley says, and turns, lifting the bag.

“What’s that?”

Crowley shrugs, every muscle in his body straining for nonchalance. “Just some goodies to, you know, help with the tempting. Harmless stuff.”

There is a soft click as the mug is set on Aziraphale’s desk. Crowley hears the book slide beside it.

“...Crowley,” Aziraphale’s voice is careful, “What’s wrong?”

Crowley shakes his head, not daring to look over his shoulder.

“Nothing’s wrong, angel”

“You once told me that you’ve never lied - not to me,” Aziraphale halts and takes a breath. “Tell me that’s still true”

Crowley closes his eyes.

“What’s happened Crowley?”

Turning, Crowley sets the bag aside. He’s across the shop in three long strides. When he cups Aziraphale’s face, he feels Aziraphale’s hands sliding up his sides. And when he leans in, pressing their foreheads together, Aziraphale’s hands press over his chest, fingers twisting in the lapels of his blazer.

“Dear, your behavior is doing nothing to assuage my fears.”

“I know,” Crowley says, and bends, dragging an achingly slow kiss over the angel’s lips.

Aziraphale’s grip tightens, and Crowley presses him back.

When Aziraphale bumps against his desk, Crowley stops.

Stroking his thumbs over the angel’s cheeks, Crowley heaves a shuddering breath. And when he says, “Angel, you know I’d do anything for you; extinguish every star in the universe if you asked it of me,” it’s an attempt to convey to Aziraphale, some fraction of his feelings.

Aziraphale’s grip tightens on his coat.

“I’d never ask such a thing of you. I know how you love the stars.”

“I know.”

Crowley presses another slow, careful kiss against the angel’s lips, and as soon as the grip slackens on his blazer - steps back.

Aziraphale reaches out, stepping to follow - and jerks to a halt.

A preternatural stillness settles over the angel as, palm flat, he presses his hand to the invisible barrier between them.

“What is...Crowley-,” Aziraphale says, gaze flicking from Crowley, to the barrier - and then to the rug beneath his feet.

He kicks it back.

The circle had been neatly concealed. Now, the runes glow a deep, blackened red, and undulate, slithering round one another on the wood floor.

Aziraphale kneels, reaching a hand toward the runes. His knuckles bump against the barrier.

“These are...these are in blood,” Aziraphale looks up. He’s pale. “Demon blood. Crowley-”

“Yeah. It’s mine,” he says, and somehow, he didn’t quite imagine this part would hurt so much.

Aziraphale presses a bracing hand against the invisible wall between them, and Crowley can tell he’s realized. Aziraphale is smart. It won’t have taken him long to connect the dots.

“Crowley. Dear,” his voice is soft, forced calm. “Come now. Let me out. Whatever’s come up, we’ll deal with it. Together.”

“They mean to kill you angel.”

Aziraphale’s other hand is pressing against the barrier. “Yes, and if they mean to do that to me, what do you think they intend for you?”

“I’ve got a plan.”

“If it’s a plan that involves leaving me here, it cannot be any good!” Aziraphale says, voice lifting. His eyes are flickering a bright, painful blue. “Let me out, Crowley. Let me out right now.”

“Can’t do that,” Crowley says, his throat dry.

The air within the circle has begun to whine. Aziraphale’s hands are pressed against the barrier, pale fingers splayed. He closes his eyes.

Licking his lips, Crowley spares a short glance at the glowing ruins.

Should hold.

The room trembles. Books topple from shelves and somewhere in the back, a painting slips off the wall.

Through it all, the circle remains.

Spent, Aziraphale sags against the invisible wall. His voice has gone ragged, and he looks up, eyes bright with unshed tears. “Crowley, don’t you dare do this.”

Swallowing around the ache in his throat, Crowley grimaces and turns, reaching for the bag.

“Crowley - Crowley, come now. Darling, please.”

Crowley picks up the bag, and says, quiet. “Angels can’t leave the circle. And angels can’t enter. You’ll be safe inside.”

“Crowley-”

“The circle will fade in ten hours - just in case, uh - you know, I’m not back to let you out.”

“Crowley.”

And here the angel’s voice cracks, and it’s desperate, sharp as shattered glass.

This is a betrayal. That it’s done for the right reasons, doesn’t change the nature of the act. And Crowley can’t bring himself to look at the results of it. The sounds alone have nearly broken him.

Bracing the bag against his shoulder, Crowley stares - like the worst kind of coward - at the floor. “I do plan on surviving this and returning to you, angel,” he says, and swallows. “If you’ll still have me.”

“Crowley. Crowley,” the angel’s voice is a sharp, painful caress. “Look at me. Please, just stop this nonsense and look at me.”

“Sorry Aziraphale,” Crowley’s voice is a rasp.

Fingers clenching around the bag, he wrenches open the door.

He steps into the sunlight.

“Crowley-”

Window panes shudder as the door slams at his back.

He hardly needs to think of the place he needs. He thoroughly investigated it over a year ago and has been back several times since. A single blink and his shoes are crunching over arid dirt and sand.

Crowley turns, surveying the shrub dusted desert.

Transporting himself here is a costly miracle, but if Daeval is correct, then there is little time to spare.

The sun sinks low on the horizon, painting the sky in watercolor pastels as Crowley inspects the area.

Satisfied, he nods and opens the black bag. From it, he draws out a small, onyx vase. Dropping the bag, he lifts the vase - and with a twist, removes the stopper.

When the stream of orange, crackling flames burst from the top, Crowley flicks a hand, drawing them round his finger. The fire wraps, slithering like a snake around the skin of his wrist, then up his sleeve. It climbs, flames caressing his skin, over his shoulder and then up his neck. Closing his eyes, Crowley breathes them in.

Just as suddenly as they appeared, they are gone. Or - not gone, exactly. Crowley can feel the Hellfire, a delightful burn in his veins.

The thing about Hellfire is: much in the same way that angels can create holy water, demons can create Hellfire from your average everyday flames. But the act takes nothing short of a Herculean effort. And it’s much harder to do outside of Hell.

So if you happen to be stuck on the earthly plan, the best option by far is to have someone retrieve it for you.

Besides, even a little bit of Hellfire - so long as it’s in the hands of a talented demon, can go a very long way.

Rolling his shoulders, Crowley draws the gold embellished summons from his blazer. He’s begun drawing a roughly circular design in the sand when he remembers.

Right. Wouldn’t want to forget that.

With a snap and a wave, his form shifts. Black clothes give way to tans and whites. Crowley doesn’t need a mirror to know that his red hair his fading, and white curls are taking its place.

Another costly miracle.

But a crucial one.

Straightening Aziraphale’s jacket, Crowley nods.

“Right then.”

It’s not like he hasn’t performed this bit before.

Brandishing the summons with a flourish, he drops it at the center of the design he’s carved into the sand.

Sometimes these things can work in reverse. If you just -

He snaps and points.

And - nothing happens.

Grumbling, he toes the dirt, amending the designs. Then, bending, adjusts the summons.

Blowing a breath, he snaps again.

Bright light floods the earthen runes. And then, from the pastel sky, white light filters down to dry desert earth.

Folding his arms behind him, Crowley assumes Aziraphale’s straight-backed posture.

“Hello?” he calls, Aziraphale’s voice loud in the silent desert. “Anyone there?”

He waits a moment before circling the summons. Frowning, he studies the design.

All good there.

Completing the circle, he stops, hands on his hips.

“Excuse me-”

The circle ignites with a fwhoomp!

The Archangel Gabriel steps out from the light.

He’s wearing the same suit jacket, gray and pressed, that he was wearing when Crowley last had the displeasure of encountering him.

“Aziraphale,” Gabriel says, lips curving in a thin, bitter smile. “It’s been a while.”

“Not long enough, I think,” Crowley answers, folding his hands in front of him as he’s seen Aziraphale do thousands of times before.

Gabriel huffs a breath. “No. I suppose not,” and lifting a brow, glances around. “Anyway, why are you here? We were expecting you to come to us.”

“Last time I visited Heaven, you forced me to walk into Hellfire,” Crowley replies, voice clipped.

Gabriel shrugs, tilting his head. “Fair.”

Adjusting his coat, the archangel steps out of the portal. “I thought you’d have your demon buddy with you. As backup, or something.” He glances around as he says it, as if he half expects Crowley to materialize from behind a shrub.

“I left him behind. In a safe place.” Licking his lips, Crowley purposefully hesitates, as if he’s reluctant to add, “I don’t trust you, Gabriel.”

He completes the act by shifting nervously, Aziraphale’s oxfords crunching over dry sand.

“Don’t trust me?” Gabriel says, tilting his head.

“Be honest. Please. Why are you here?”

“To enact divine justice.”

Stomach sick and sinking, Crowley closes his eyes. When he opens them, he holds Gabriel with a long, hard look.

“In this particular case, what does divine justice require?”

“Death,” is Gabriel’s quiet answer.

“Mine?”

“Yours, Aziraphale.”

Crowley shifts. Hellfire sings in his veins.

Not yet. Not yet, he commands it.

“Is this by God’s order? Or yours?”

Gabriel shrugs. “Does it matter? I’m an angel. I work for God. My justice is inherently divine.”

“You can’t kill me,” Crowley says, shaking his head.

And then Gabriel is chuckling. “We couldn’t. For quite a while. But things have changed.” Gabriel pulls a long, dark dagger from within his jacket.

The hilt looks to have been originally made of wood, though now it’s blackened and charred. The blade itself is a bright silver, but dark lines of corruption climb up the metal, like infection spreading from a wound.

Crowley watches the dagger as Gabriel passes it into his dominant hand.

“What do you hope to gain from this murder?”

“Not murder. My God!” He gapes, openly horrified. “Justice, Aziraphale. Come on, we’re not animals.”

“Right. Forgot.” Crowley can’t help the sneer.

“Now, how should we do this?”

“Please don’t,” Crowley says, pitching Aziraphale’s voice low.

“You made your choice, Aziraphale,” Gabriel says, frowning. “These are the consequences.”

“Mercy,” Crowley whispers, and he hates how it sounds in Aziraphale’s voice. Swallowing, he forces out, “Gabriel, please.”

Gabriel stares, his purple gaze glowing bright enough to match the sky alight in dusk.

And then he’s blinking, grimacing as he shakes his head. “Ugh. Aziraphale. Don’t make me feel guilty about this. You betrayed Heaven. These are the rules.”

He flips the dagger in his hand.

It’s Crowley’s only warning.

White, radiant wings erupt from his back, and Gabriel pivots, his polished shoes sending sand flying as he surges forward, dagger lifted, poised to strike and -

He jerks to a stop.

He’s frozen, mid leap. He struggles to move, tendons bulging in his neck. His wide eyes turn on Crowley, and he bares his white, perfect teeth in an infuriated grimace.

“What is this?”

Crowley strolls toward him, Aziraphale’s features and clothes melting away.

“You failed the test, archangel,” Crowley says, taking no satisfaction in the sentence. Stepping around the demon, Crowley shifts a foot, dislodging sand. Dark designs catch the fading light.

They’d activated the second Gabriel stepped over them. When he’d chosen to kill Aziraphale.

“Release me, demon.”

Crowley is shaking his head, “If you’d forgiven him. If you’d just stopped this, I would have let you go.”

Solemn, Crowley unculrs his fingers. Hellfire ignites in his palm.

“Demon. Crowley - Crowley. Stay back!” Gabriel’s voice has turned high and panicked.

Crowley doesn’t like this. But he likes the idea of Aziraphale being harmed by Gabriel infinitely less.

He lifts his hand, Hellfire reflecting in his dark gaze. “You have your justice, archangel. I have mine.”

And then Gabriel is stuttering, “Michael! Michael!”

A flash of blindingly white light illuminates the desert; it’s immediately followed by the cacophonous crash of thunder.

The Archangel Michael stands at Crowley’s back, the ground smoking at her feet. Her hand is half lifted, poised to strike, and -

Frozen.

Her eyes flicker, looking desperately from Gabriel to Crowley as she strains to move.

Crowley tsks.

“Oh come on, you really thought I’d only lay one trap? I’ve had years Gabriel. This bloody desert is full of ‘em.”

Gabriel and Michael share a wide-eyed look.

“So you’re welcome to call as many angels as you want. They’ll all get stuck like flies on-”

Wait, what is it that flies get stuck on?

Crowley frowns, thinking. Hellfire flickers in his palm.

Gabriel grunts, straining in vain against the trap’s hold. When that doesn’t work, he starts to mutter.

“Hey. Hey. I could use some help here.”

Crowley turns toward the archangel, and when the Hellfire dances, eager, he soothes it with a breath.

Gabriel is groaning. “Don’t make me beg. Come on, you dick.” And then he’s deflating, closing his eyes. “Fine. Fine! Please help me!”

Michael is watching him with a sharp frown.

Crowley stares, “Who are you talking-”

A cold rumbling breaks the quiet night as dark mist gathers, pouring from beneath the earth.

“Oh fuck me,” Crowley manages, dragging his dark glasses off as the dry sand parts, and a dark-haired demon rises.

Lord Beelzebub sneers, turning a flat, disinterested look over the scene.

When their black gaze falls on Gabriel, they snap, “What.”

Gabriel’s eyes flick down. He meaningfully lifts his brows.

Beelzebub watches him with a blank stare.

“Break the damn trap!”

Crowley snaps a hand around his Hellfire, drawing it back as he rounds on Beelzebub. “Hey. Wait. No. No.”

Baring their teeth, Beelzebub snarls when Crowley takes a step too close. He instinctively hops back.

“We are not on the same side, Crowley. Not after what you did,” they hiss, and if eyes were capable of murder (There is actually a demon with that ability. Thankfully, it is not Beelzebub.), Crowley would surely be dead.

“Oh and you’re on what, the angel’s side now?”

“I’m on Hell’s side, you miserable excuse for a demon!”

“Alright. Good. Great,” Crowley says, “Then maybe you can, I don’t know, leave?”

Beelzebub frowns, looking from Crowley, to Michael, and then finally, Gabriel.

“I’ll owe you one?” Gabriel bares his teeth in a weak smile.

Pinching the bridge of their nose, Beelzebub heaves a deep sigh.

Crowley is shaking his head, the sharp burn of adrenaline already flooding his Earthly body. “Shit.”

Beelzebub spares Crowley a long, hard look. “There was a time when I would have mourned you, Crowley,” and then they’re turning, glaring at Gabriel. “You’ll owe me five. Asshole.” With a lazy flick, the traps surrounding them go up in smoke.

“Goodbye Crowley,” Beelzebub says without meeting his eyes.

Crowley watches, hands dangling at his sides, as the demon sinks smoothly back into the earth.

Polished leather shoes shift, crunching over dirt.

Crowley stills, tilting his head to observe Gabriel straightening up. The archangel rolls his neck as he adjusts his grip on the dagger.

At Crowley’s back, Michael roughly yanks her jacket into place. When she lifts a hand, a gleaming sword materializes in her open palm.

Crowley shifts so that he can watch them both as his mind furiously works to come up with something - anything to get him out of this mess.

Damn Beelzebub - again.

“Well,” Gabriel says, his voice flat. “That was a fun diversion, but I think it’s time we got on with our regularly scheduled programming. Don’t you think, Michael?”

“Yes. I want to leave.”

Gabriel nods, and turns to Crowley, gesturing with the dagger. “After we kill you - and make no mistake, we will kill you for this - we’re going to find Aziraphale and finish him. It’s important to me,” Gabriel says holding his gaze, “that you know this. I want you to die with the excruciating awareness of exactly how much you fucked up.”

The book shop is warded. And Aziraphale is still safe within the blood runes. He should be able to escape, even if the archangels are waiting for him. When the seal breaks, Aziraphale will have time enough for a quick miracle to get him far enough away to run.

But the image that follows, of Aziraphale fleeing - with no one and nothing in the wide globe willing - or powerful to help him (not nearly enough remains of Adam’s power to take on an archangel), is almost too painful to consider. And yet it’s impossible for Crowley not to picture those inevitable final moments, in which Aziraphale is eventually tracked down, surrounded by more angels than he can handle. When a dark, corrupted dagger of heaven’s own make is mercilessly driven into his kind, good heart.

Thinking about it makes Crowley burn.

Instead, it screams.

The flame is stirring, climbing, filling him. Burning - it roars, demanding air, freedom, destruction.

Crowley gives it what it desires.

His dark wings unfurl. Beneath black feathers, hellfire crackles and glows. His wings arc back, and molten sparks erupt from the dark plumage. In the dark desert, they fall like rain.

And just like that - the archangels attack.

The bursts of Hellish flame can be seen for miles. And the air on the flat desert screams, rent by the merciless cut of archangels’ wings.

Dagger and sword flash, cruel steel catching and reflecting Hellfire’s impossibly bright flame. Forged in Heavenly flame and cooled in holy water, the weapons were made for carving demon flesh from bone.

Crowley fights. He fights for his life; for Aziraphale’s.

Flanked by archangel’s, he uses every demonic trick he’s ever known.

When he is shoved to the ground, pinned beneath Gabriel’s hard hand and Michael’s boot, both Archangel’s are blackened, and in places, fire has singed through skin. Michael wobbles, the sword dangling loose in her grasp. Her free hand presses against her side. Between her fingers, golden blood spills.

A long score of singed flesh mars Gabriel’s cheek, and he’s lost the use of his scorched right leg.

The archangel’s hand trembles as he shoves Crowley down. And the earth cracks and splinters beneath the demon’s still smoldering wings.

Crowley gasps, and he can feel his ribs cracking beneath the angel’s hand. Hellfire churns within - he can feel it in his mouth and throat, but he can’t draw a breath; his head is spinning. From a wound at the back of his skull, dark blood streams, feeding dry earth. There are cuts along his arms as well, and a particularly deep one in his side that Crowley has decided he’d better not think about for long.

When Gabriel draws the dagger, pressing it’s silver tip to Crowley’s heaving chest, Crowley draws an agonized breath. Fire flickers behind his teeth, licking at his bleeding lips, but he’s spent - can no longer command it.

“Just do it Gabriel,” Michael says, shuddering as she redoubles the pressure on her wound. “I’m fading.”

Crowley stares up at Gabriel - into those unblinking purple eyes. There is a flicker of emotion there. Guilt, maybe. Or perhaps it’s mere annoyance, because Crowley watches Gabriel steel himself; and then the tip of the dagger is piercing skin.

Agony.

His guttural shout pierces the arid desert air.

The dagger is corrupted, but there’s more than enough holiness left to sear as it digs into Crowley’s flesh.

The Hellfire is burning, wild. Crowley feels it expanding, consuming as Gabriel readies to shove the dagger between his ribs.

And as Crowley stares up, flames caressing his lips, he suddenly knows what he must do.

The Hellfire is raging, eager, hungry. It’s a task to control it. Even for a demon.

It’s easy, however, to give in.

The fire expands, growing - consuming. Crowley tilts his head back as flames spill from his lips, his nose, his eyes. Hacking a weak laugh, he bares his teeth at the angels above him.

“Together then,” he says as Hellfire crawls out of his mouth, down the skin of his throat.

He’s completely let go. No longer Crowley. No longer demon. But a molten, hungry bomb.

“Gabriel!” Michael commands, “Do it! Now!”

Gabriel twists the dagger and -

Lighting cracks through the sky. When the screaming bolt strikes earth, white electricity splinters out, carving sizzling pathways through sand.

White, crackling electricity lights the figure in a pale glow.

There, Aziraphale stands, his jacket billowing and hair windblown.

No.

Crowley looks upon his angel, dread sinking into his battered bones.

Not here. Let him be anywhere but here.

Especially now, when Hellfire is seconds from razing desert, brush, stone.

Chest heaving, he focuses, straining to draw the Hellfire back. It’s like trying to catch air in his fist. With a ragged gasp he manages to get a hold on it, barely; and the fire is nowhere near subdued.

The noise has Aziraphale turning.

Gabriel’s attention is on Aziraphale. His white knuckles wrap around the ancient blade, it’s holy edge digging half an inch into demon flesh. All he has to do is press.

And Crowley is burning - fading. Nearly overcome.

As Aziraphale twists around, his eyes desperately searching the dark desert, Crowley watches his wide blue gaze look from Gabriel, to the dagger and Crowley’s broken figure beneath, and finally, finally to Crowley’s inflamed eyes. Aziraphale’s chest heaves - and then Crowley is gasping, fire leaking from his battered lips,

“Angel, fly.”

But Aziraphale isn’t flying, or running, or anything of the like.

Aziraphale’s hands have closed into fists; they tremble as he stares, brows lifting, skin creasing between them, as though he can’t quite believe what he is seeing.

Crowley shudders, chest heaving. Dark blood pools around the dagger, trickling down his skin.

“Angel,” Crowley begs.

Run.

Fly.

Anything - so long as you go far away from here.

“Oh,” Aziraphale’s voice trembles, and the silence that follows is the hollow rush before a wave folds, crashing over sand; it is the cringing anticipation the millisecond before a dropped glass shatters; the heavy eternity after lighting flashes through the heavens, when one holds their breath and waits for thunder.

The angel blinks and looks down at his hand. The flaming sword is there, settled in his open palm.

“Now, Gabriel,” Michael hisses, shaking. “Do it or I will.”

Crowley can feel Gabriel turn back to him, but Crowley has eyes for Aziraphale only. His angel has begun to glow.

Wind picks up, stirring sand and tearing through shrubs. Aziraphale stands at its center, untouched, as his eyes flicker with terrible brightness.

“You will not.”

The voice is Aziraphale’s - and it’s not. It is simultaneously close and distant, and it resonates, expanding to fill the space around them.

Gabriel’s shoulders lift and he stills. He and Michael share a glance.

“We were warned of this,” Michael whispers, wincing as she sinks to a knee. “We were supposed to kill him right away, Gabriel.”

“Principality Aziraphale,” Gabriel calls, his voice low and commanding. “Remember yourself, angel!”

Aziraphale tilts his head. His wings slowly open, but there are more of them than there were before. And from the feathers, eyes blink. They are wide, and terrible, and stare out from infinite depths.

“Stand down, Aziraphale,” Gabriel calls. “Stand down and we will spare your demon.”

From Aziraphale’s eyes, blue light pours. And it’s expanding - filling his mouth, and rising - crackling and bright, it arcs through the air around him.

“You will spare him because it is right.”

Gabriel is shaking his head. “You don’t know that!”

“I know it,” Aziraphale says in that impossible voice.

He’s marvelous, and Crowley can’t look away.

The wind is howling and Aziraphale stands at its center, unmoved.

“We have to snap him out of this,” Michael says, and summoning strength, lifts her holy sword.

Crowley doesn’t realize she means to cleave his head from body until the flash of metal catches his eye.

The air screams, snapping as it is cut by too many angel wings.

A hand wraps around the blade, catching it before it can fall. From where Aziraphale’s fingers grip the gleaming metal, golden blood collects and drips. Crowley watches it stream down the angel’s arm. Aziraphale doesn’t seem to notice. His eyes - all of them - are focused on Michael, where she stands, straight backed and trembling, before him. His flaming sword is pointed at her chest.

“Go home Michael,” Aziraphale commands, terrible and impossible. Reality seems to bend, warping around him. “Go home, else I be forced to end you where you stand.”

Michael shakes her head. She’s staring at him, eyes wide. “You don’t have that power, angel.”

Aziraphale’s fingers release her blade. He stares, almost disinterested, at the golden blood pooling in his palm. His brows draw together, and he speaks slowly, as if trying out the words. “I think I do.”

Glowing eyes flick up, and Michael takes a step back. Swallowing, she makes a single, sharp gesture and transports away with a pop.

Crowley stares up at Aziraphale, and he’s expending every ounce of his energy holding the Hellfire at bay. Aziraphale is - he’s beautiful and dreadful, and he’s become something powerful, otherworldly. But even with unfiltered, wrathful power radiating from his earthly form, Crowley fears what an explosion of Hellfire would do to Aziraphale at such close range.

The knife is pressing down - perhaps an unconscious action on Gabriel’s part, and Crowley gasps as the searing pain redoubles.

Aziraphale is on the archangel before the sound has fully left Crowley’s throat.

Wings snapping, he shoves Gabriel up and off Crowley.

When Gabriel, re-gripping the dagger, slashes out at Aziraphale, the angel sends the dagger flying with a flick. The blade spins, sinking hilt deep in sand.

Aziraphale stands between Gabriel and Crowley, every one of his glowing eyes glaring with burning brightness at the archangel.

“Okay, what the fuck Aziraphale?”

Aziraphale blinks, and so too do the rest of the eyes.

“You mean to murder Crowley. And Aziraphale: Principality, Guardian of the Eastern Gate.”

“Third person, really?”

When Aziraphale steps toward him, Gabriel hops back, and his palms are raised, placating.

“Okay, no. Not murder. This was supposed to be justice Aziraphale. You betrayed Heaven!”

Aziraphale hesitates, the crackling energy around him intensifies. His wings shiver.

“No,” he finally answers, distant. “It’s not...justice.”

“And you would know?”

Slowly, Aziraphale looks from Gabriel, then back to Crowley. Golden, ethereal blood drips, like tears from his eyes.

“Yes. I can hear Her.”

Gabriel physically staggers.

“No. No. That can’t - No one’s actually heard Her voice. Not since-”

“I hear Her now, Gabriel.” Aziraphale says, in that somber, distant tone, as though a part of his mind resides elsewhere. Liquid gold streams over Aziraphale’s jaw and down the curve of his neck.

Crowley has the horrified thought that this might be killing him.

“Aziraphale,” he rasps, hopelessly reaching. “Whatever it is you’re doing - you can stop now, angel. Rest.”

“Not yet,” Aziraphale says, looking to Gabriel.

When he lifts a hand, the archangel flinches, stepping into a fighting stance.

“You’re to be confined. Here. On Earth, Archangel Gabriel. Powerless. Like a human.”

“What?” Gabriel snaps.

“And here you will remain. Until you learn one very important lesson. The most important of them all.”

“What? No. What?”

“You, Archangel Gabriel, must learn true, selfless love.”

Gabriel gapes. “Oh come on! You can’t honestly expect me to believe-”

Aziraphale lifts a hand. A wide, impassive eye blinks upon his palm. Aziraphale flicks his wrist, and Gabriel is gone.

“I agree,” Aziraphale says, answering an unheard voice. “Los Angeles is a suitable punishment, I think.”

A fresh stream of angelic blood rolls down Aziraphale’s neck. This time, from his ears.

Crowley is sweating, unconstrained Hellfire burning him from the inside out. Groaning, he struggles to rise.

“Angel. Aziraphale. You’ve got to break the connection, love. Hang up,” Crowley coughs, gasping. “It’s hurting you.”

Aziraphale’s brows draw together and he touches a hand to his neck. He blinks, staring blankly down at the blood.

“Oh.”

And he tilts his head, listening.

“Love? What about it? I don’t understand.”

And then the angel is staggering back, the glow around him slowly fading.

When Aziraphale turns, the light in his gaze has dimmed enough for Crowley to once again see his eyes. Gone is the aloof distance. And when Aziraphale looks to Crowley, his emotions flicker, devastatingly open across his face.

“Oh. Oh - Crowley!”

Aziraphale is dropping beside him, hands fluttering, as if afraid of harming Crowley further with his touch. The extra wings are still there. So are the eyes. And they all watch Crowley, Aziraphale’s agony mirrored in their inhuman stares.

When Aziraphale cradles his face, cool fingers gently brushing his bruised cheeks, Crowley sinks into the touch, closing his eyes.

But the Hellfire is pressing up. Impatient. Eager.

Eyes snapping open, Crowley presses a hand to Aziraphale’s chest.

“Angel,” he says, stiffening in pain. “Angel, you need to leave. Hurry.”

“Crowley?” Aziraphale’s voice is sharp, afraid. “What’s happening to you?”

“Hellfire,” Crowley manages to gasp.

“But it’s - that - it can’t hurt you!”

Crowley heaves a deep breath and then another. He can’t seem to get enough air.

“I...did a bad thing angel. Unleashed the monster, if you will. Now...it won’t stand to be leashed again. Hellfire’s tricky that way.”

Aziraphale stares at him, horrified. “What?”

“It wants out. And it’s gonna go through my very being to get there.”

“Crowley. There has to be - I mean, there must be something-”

Crowley, shaking with the effort, grabs a fistful of Aziraphale’s shirt. “Don’t even know how you got here, but you need to leave. Now. I am not,” Crowley roughly shakes him, “going to let you burn with me.”

When Aziraphale doesn’t move, Crowley’s chest heaves.

“Angel please-”

“You left me behind,” Aziraphale hisses, cutting him off. “And now you expect me to leave you. Here? Like this?” His voice breaks.

Hearing it hurts - more than Crowley had previously thought possible.

Crowley slowly, agonizingly lifts a shaking hand. Gritting his teeth, he presses it against Aziraphale cheek, still damp with angelic blood.

“Angel. Angel. I’m so sorry.”

Eyes fluttering closed, Aziraphale leans into the touch.

“If - If we could do it over again, I wouldn’t change a thing, not a moment- save admitting my love for you sooner. What I wouldn’t give for more-”.

Aziraphale’s eyes snap open. All of them.

“Love,” Aziraphale breathes.

“Yes?”

And then Aziraphale is shaking his head, “No. It’s love. The thing that Gabriel needs to learn. What allowed me to hear the Almighty today. Love, Crowley.”

Crowley is trying to concentrate, he really is - but it’s taking nearly everything to hold the damned Hellfire back. And it’s a fight he’s rapidly losing.

“Aziraphale. Stop. Just listen,” he says, screwing his eyes closed. “You’ve got to go. I’m begging you.”

When Aziraphale’s soft fingers brush his face, Crowley flinches back.

“Angel-”

“We are going to discuss my anger at the dismal way you handled this situation later.”

Crowley swallows around the fire in his throat.

“There is no later, Aziraphale-”

When Aziraphale sets a finger against his lips, Crowley presses them desperately closed.

“Maybe there can be,” Aziraphale murmurs, kneeling over him. “At the very least, I’ve got to try.”

And then Aziraphale’s hands are cradling his jaw, thumbs stroking battered skin. One of his hands shifts back, gently lifting Crowley’s head.

When his fingers touch the wound there, Crowley’s lips part in an involuntary hiss. Molten fire spills down his jaw. Though it passes centimeters from Aziraphale’s skin, the angel doesn’t shift his hand.

Crowley stares at Aziraphale, horrified. “Angel - what’re you-”

Aziraphale’s fingers press beneath Crowley’s jaw, tilting his head up.

Blue eyes glowing impossibly bright, Aziraphale says, “I love you. Wholly. Fully. Purely. With all of my being,” and presses his lips to Crowley’s.

Crowley jerks back, white hot panic roaring through him.

Flames are in Crowley’s throat, his mouth, his nose, his eyes.

Aziraphale’s flesh will burn. And then he’ll swallow the flame himself. Be consumed from the inside out.

But Aziraphale has a hand at the back of his head. His other grips Crowley’s jaw, and as Crowley gasps, too weak to shove him back, Aziraphale closes his eyes and deepens the kiss.

Crowley closes his eyes. Cowardly though it may be, he can’t bear to watch.

Aziraphale’s thumb is stroking a fumbling path over his cheek, and as Crowley shudders, Aziraphale kisses him again and again, deeply and unflinchingly.

Gasping, Aziraphale whispers, strained against his lips. “I love you. I love you with all of my being. I love you and nothing - no part of you - would ever harm me.” Another kiss, and he starts the mantra again.

This goes on, and Crowley can’t bear it because he’s waiting for Aziraphale’s voice to hitch, for his angel to begin to tremble as he’s devoured by hungry Hellfire. Crowley is so entirely, soul-consumingly destroyed by the idea of it, that it takes him a long moment to realize his cheeks are no longer hot, but wet.

It’s no longer Hellfire, but tears spilling from his eyes.

Blinking wet lashes, Crowley stares.

Before him, Aziraphale kneels. The glow in his blue eyes has faded, both the extra wings and the otherworldly eyes are gone, and the angel’s soft skin, lit by the pale moonlight, is unmarred. Gentle fingers brush the tears from Crowley’s cheeks, and the angel’s lips part in a wobbly smile.

“What - how - angel, what did you do?” Crowley sits up, and is amazed to find his body only protests with a dull ache. He glances down to see the lacerations in his skin have faded.

“I took the Hellfire.”

“You what?”

Aziraphale’s eyes flick down, and he presses his lips together. “I love you. More than anything,” he says, glancing up. “You love me too, and I told myself that no part of you - nothing from you, could ever hurt me.”

Crowley is reaching up, cradling Aziraphale’s face in his hands before the angel has even finished speaking. “Simple as that?”

Aziraphale shrugs, pressing his hands over Crowley’s. “Love is the simplest thing there is.”

At that, Crowley’s throat aches, and he feels uncomfortably like he might once again start crying. Dragging the angel closer, he presses his face into his shoulder. “M’really glad you’re okay.”

Aziraphale’s arms encircle him, and then his hands are clutching at the scorched shirt on Crowley’s back. “I’m glad you’re okay! Oh, Crowley, when you left and I was alone, there in the shop-”

Squeezing his eyes closed, Crowley draws his arms tighter around Aziraphale. “Angel, I - forgive me. I was only trying to-”

“Oh hush. It’s - well I can’t say it’s okay. I’m awfully angry about it still,” Aziraphale says, face pressed into Crowley’s neck. “But let’s discuss it later. Please.”

“Of course, angel. Anything,” Crowley says, leaning back to brush a kiss against his ear, then his jaw and his cheek.

Stroking a hand down Aziraphale’s neck, he wipes at the damp blood.

“Aziraphale - did you know you could talk to God?”

“Oh no, I had no idea! Though,” he hesitates, “I did do it once, I suppose. It was quite a while back, and I just assumed she occasionally had little chats with everyone.”

“She doesn’t.”

“Yes, well I know that now.”

“Well,” Crowley says, using his sleeve to wipe up the last of the blood. “That was a day. You ready to go home?”

“Oh yes please.”

Hand in hand they rise, stumbling to their feet.

“Should we fly?” Crowley asks, looking around at the empty desert. “I could miracle us, but I’ll need a moment to recharge.”

“I’m spent too, actually. I’m not sure I’ve even got the energy to fly, frankly.”

Lifting his wrist, Crowley squints down at his watch. “I think, ehhh - about 15 minutes should do. Until then, care for a moonlight walk?” He nods in a generally Easterly direction. “Home’s that way. Wouldn’t hurt to walk a bit of it.”

Smiling, Aziraphale takes his arm. “A walk sounds lovely.”

As they pass the dagger, Crowley gives it a kick. The blackened hilt skitters across the sand. The blade has disintegrated.

“You do that?”

Aziraphale shrugs. “Possibly.”

Crowley nods and they continue on.

The broken, blackened hilt is an inanimate object, and so it cannot think, touch, smell, or hear, and it certainly cannot watch the angel and demon, walking arm-in-arm away from the battle scorched earth. If it could however, this is what it would have observed:

As they walk together, distance making them grow small, Crowley turns a sudden sharp look at the angel. “How did you get out from the circle, by the way?”

“Oh that? Your little demon friend stopped by looking for you. Apparently you owe him some demonic miracles? Anyway, I convinced him to wipe away a few runes.”

“My - wait - Daeval let you out?”

“He’s quite pleasant,” Aziraphale says, as they stroll away, their voices growing all the more quiet.

“He’s a little shit! I told him he was never to come to the bookshop.”

“I’ve already invited him to tea next Tuesday.”

“Angel, no.”

“Oh! And you can make those spinach-pastries. The ones I like so much. You will, won’t you?”

A long pause. Somewhere, an owl hoots in the darkness.

“...Fine. Okay, yes.”

“Oh lovely!”

The moon illuminates their figures - one light, the other dark, as they walk, leaning toward one another as if drawn by gravity. And when the one in black turns, replying with hushed words and a contented smile, distance and the sleeping desert at long last swallow their contented voices.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

I’m thinking I might write an epilogue :)

Some of you asked to be tagged! I’m 100% positive I’ve missed some of you. If you were forgotten, sorry!

Tags:

@maacomics @dreamingof-stars @viper-official @moose-called-crowley @royalazy @a-girl-with-a-ponytail @missshadowpup @sugaredsundrop @younggayanddoingokay @theyreineffablyhuman @saratsuzukii @to-dance-among-stars-in-dreams @nitrostreak @boquet-o-undercaffeinated-roses @vinylisthebestwaytolistentomusic @the-best-pilot-in-the-resistance

@fandomflier @buckybarnesandbowties @bread-potato @okionlywanttoreadforever @galaxytaker @kawaiiusagichansan @fieri-sentio-et-excrucior @ineffiblehusbands @keatsdumbfanbl9g @jim-jam-davis @falloutboyrocksmysocks @thesaltofcarthage @perfectlychiefbarbarian @bornonthesavage deamonia @sophiaissupsgay7 @movrings @thanksveryga @d0zack @nonredroses @stingerpicnic @rowboatanimeking @altean-aus @belleparanoia @alliemack30 @asilentcruellullaby @liliemsharpe @bouquetofjunk @mysticalhermitofdoom @strangelingincarnate @the-rainbow-witch @burning-bentley @loveharrington @carkiechu @justthebestaround @soulless-creature @i-dont-know-how-to-exist @totallysilvergirl @erisunderthemoon @thedoctorwillsaveus @yomikoreadsbooks @thatonewholikesalotofthings @ayanemoonlight @ladyhawknell @akavincent @sw1mmer-0 @mirrorstarweb @notreallylapa @agentlokii @singasongrightnow @pathwaybeyondexistence @eternallystarlight @onceuponadisembo @amidst-innumerable-stars @spacemonkeyeatingcookies @monochromatic-starlight @groot-omens @doublematch @somewhereinspacewheretimestops thekingofhelios muscial-prostitute-my-dear sararwen icyignorance redundantoxymorons nothing-toseehereatall macabre-fandoms annia316 thats-freaking-pantastic enby-crowley stitchinaride

NOTE: Tagging like this takes wayyy too long. So for future tagging, I’ll just have one list, and if you’re on it, I’ll tag you in everything. If you’d like to be on that list, send me an ask or a message or something. I’ll make a post about it as well.

#my writing #ineffable husbands #ineffable partners #otp: ineffable #good omens #good omens fic #good omens fanfic #fanfic #good omens fanfiction #aziraphale x crowley #crowley x aziraphale #ineffable husbands fanfic #ineffable husbands fanfiction #fanfiction #go fic

4K notes · View notes

ineffablegame · 5 years

Note

26 + ineffable husbands, please!

26. Tending an injury

Aziraphale has had the same body for six-thousand years, and that is due in no small part to Crowley. Aziraphale’s survived plenty of scrapes over the millennia, but each time one grew truly dire, Crowley would ferret him out in the nick of time.

The first time it happens, Aziraphale has wandered out of the Garden. Squinting in the sunlight, startled by how very harsh everything is - the sun lancing his fair skin, the sand baking his bare feet, the arid wind blasting grit - Aziraphale does not think to watch his flank, and that is when Crowley strikes. They may have commiserated up on the gate, but things are different outside Eden. Aziraphale is an angel and Crowley is a demon, and it is knitted into their incorporeal DNA to do battle. So, when Crowley charges him with a feral shriek, Aziraphale is wholly unprepared. The angel whirls around, catches his heel on a jutting rock, and tumbles backwards down a sand dune.

And strikes his skull on a sharp stone.

Aziraphale comes to, dazed, to find Crowley grumbling at his side. He tries to swat the demon away, but Crowley only snarls at him, hold still, you idiot, I’ve nearly finished mending your head. I don’t think letting your brains dribble out would make you any more witless, but let’s not take any chances.

Crowley is gone moments later, gone before Aziraphale can fathom how to react. He touches the back of his head. His hair is stiff with dried blood, but the skin is unbroken.

The next time it happens is centuries later, when Aziraphale has run afoul of a demon. Not Crowley - he hasn’t the foggiest what this fellow’s name is, only that he was lurking among a group of highwaymen, tempting them to rob passers-by traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. Aziraphale, believing his enemies all human, sends them into a stupor with a few well-spoken Words. He only realizes one of them is a demon when he feels the bloom of pain in his back, the warm rush of blood. He manages to discorporate the demon before staggering off the road, mindless from pain to all but the need for shelter, safety. He takes refuge in a cave, but try as he might, he cannot heal the infernal wound. As the sun sets and the moon rises, Aziraphale begins to shiver from more than mere cold.

Aziraphale! He thinks someone is calling his name, but no, it must just be the scream of the wind outside. Aziraphale sits back against cold stone, trembling violently, darkness creeping across the edges of his vision.

And then: hands on his shoulders. He cannot tell if they are shaking him or trying to hold him still, he is shivering so hard. Aziraphale! Wake up, you idiot!

He opens his eyes with a weak attempt at a smile. Ah, dear… dear boy. S-so sorry, but I-I’m rather indisp– indisposed.

Shove yourself, Crowley barks, his voice echoing shrilly in the cave, and he tips Aziraphale onto his front. His hands graze the wound in his back and shrink back as if burned. Then, Hold still. Aziraphale hasn’t a moment to protest before his tunic is torn away in a flash of pain. He keens, curling into himself, as fresh blood oozes from the wound. Hold still. I can. I can fix this.

Aziraphale may be delirious, but he thinks he glimpses Crowley’s hand shaking the moment before he snaps his fingers.

It happens a handful of times over the millennia. When Aziraphale wanders, bone-weary and bedraggled from a seedy alleyway in Jerusalem, Crowley just happens upon him. Hold still, he says, brooking no argument as he grips the angel’s wrist, turns it to expose the pale forearm, the lily-white patch of skin that hasn’t gone away in weeks. Crowley prods it with a sharp nail, and Aziraphale watches with detached alarm as blood pearls painlessly. Been miracling lepers well, have you? Let’s sort that before pieces of you start falling off.

Thousands of years later, as they stroll out of the Bastille, Crowley remarks, good thing I happened upon you when I did. I dunno if I could heal a decapitated body.

Aziraphale harrumphs. Oh, really. You needn’t be so dramatic.

Nearly one-hundred and fifty years later, after Crowley drops a church on a gang of Nazis as effortlessly as Dorothy dropping a house on the Wicked Witch, after he saves Aziraphale’s books and steals Aziraphale’s heart - after all that, Aziraphale is running through the chaos of London, alarms screaming overhead, people clotting the pavement as they try to get underground. There is the piercing whistle, the doom drop, and Aziraphale is about to snap his fingers and deflect the bomb when a mammoth of a man knocks into him and he falls to his hands and knees. He is too busy trying to find his feet, trying not to be crushed by the tide of humanity, when the bomb hits and the world is obliterated in a cacophony of screams.

He comes to he doesn’t know when, groaning past what feels like an elephant on his back. Only it isn’t an elephant, it’s part of a fallen wall, and his legs are crushed and his spine is crushed and oh, goodness, is that– yes, that is a metal rod sticking out of my side and this is going to be such a nightmare to explain to Gabriel.

Aziraphale is just about to get around to the business of dying when the rubble around him shifts and groans. And then the weight on his back is gone and Crowley is kneeling beside him, spitting curses, hands scrabbling over his shoulders and down to his crushed legs. You idiot! You blasted, bloody fool! Why couldn’t you leave London when you had the chance!

Couldn’t leave my bookshop, Aziraphale says. He shivers as sensation returns to his legs in a trickle like sun-warmed honey. And Crowley curses him and curses him and curses him for a fool.

Later, deep in their cups, Aziraphale plucks up the courage to ask, How do you always find me?

Crowley gives him a blank look. (At least Aziraphale thinks it’s a blank look. Drat it, but he sometimes resents those glasses.) I can sense pain. M’a demon, after all.

Aziraphale lifts the cup to hide his frown. Ridiculous of him, really. What did he think, that Crowley was looking out for him? That he was especially attuned to him? Love makes fools of us all, he thinks. I see.

After - after you go too fast for me, Crowley, after Armageddon - Aziraphale is in his bookshop, leafing through a heavy tome as Crowley slinks aimlessly around the stacks. Aziraphale’s attention slips and his finger brushes the edge of a crisp-new page, opening the skin with a bright sting of pain. He winces and closes the book.

Angel? Crowley asks. You all right?

Yes, fine– I’m fine, Aziraphale says, but Crowley is already crossing the shop, hand outstretched. He catches Aziraphale’s hand and brings it up to his scrutiny. Aziraphale feels his chest tighten. I’m fine, really…

Hold still. Crowley rubs the pad of his thumb over the cut, so gently, a line of warmth knitting the skin together. Aziraphale, flustered, tears his hand away. His voice is sharp in his own ears. Really, Crowley, I said I’m fine!

Crowley’s expression goes blank. He takes a step back, hands buried in his pockets. Sorry.

And later, sitting in the armchair in the backroom of the bookshop, hating himself, heartsick for what he lost over a stupid, knee-jerk impulse leftover from Heaven - from a family that is no longer his - Aziraphale drops his face into his hands and wills himself to breathe. And startles when the door creaks open.

Crowley, standing in the doorway. I thought I felt– felt you were hurt. But you’re… He trails off, and something in Aziraphale’s face must resemble great pain, because he takes another step inside. Angel, are you all right?

No, Aziraphale says, I– I do believe my heart is wounded.

Crowley draws closer, intent on him. You don’t look wounded.

But it hurts.

Let me see. Crowley stoops before him, hands gentle on his wrists. And Aziraphale thinks of thousands of years of this, of shattered bones and bloody wounds and horrible ailments, and of Crowley healing each one in turn. Protecting him.

I’m sorry I snapped at you, Aziraphale says.

S’fine. Are you certain you’re hurt?

Aziraphale, heart hammering, turns his wrist to grasp Crowley’s hand. He lifts it to his lips, holding lightly, giving Crowley plenty of freedom to pull away. When the demon makes no move to do so, he brushes his lips to his palm. Healing the little hurt. Crowley shivers in his grasp.

Yes? Aziraphale asks.

Crowley swallows, nods. Yeah– yes. Yes.

Aziraphale draws him closer. I think I am going to be quite all right.

#good omens #ineffable husbands #good omens fanfic #long post #good omens word prompt #axton-blogs

2K notes · View notes

aethelflaedladyofmercia · 4 years

Text

Dream A Little Dream - 6

The final @bingokisses prompt for this fic is “Cheekbone Kiss/The Look from Across the Room.” May we finally get some resolution for our dear pining Ineffable Boys.

Also available on AO3!

Or read the entire fic here!

Chapter 6: 2019 - Dream Until Your Dreams Come True

For the first few weeks after the Apocalypse failed, they simply reveled in being normal. Going for walks. Eating dinner. Talking about nothing and everything.

Not that they spent every day together. Aziraphale took three days to re-catalog every book in his shop, or at least that’s what he claimed; Crowley couldn’t discern any organizational strategy, just piles of dusty books moved from one table to the next.

Crowley had taken some time for himself, too. A long drive, an even longer nap. Nearly a full week, sprawled in bed with the softest sheets and duvet humanity could devise.

No dreams of Aziraphale, though, not a single one in seventy-eight years. It wasn’t so unusual – he’d gone the odd century without them, over the millennia – but he did miss it. And it was strange, that the final dream had been the one where he’d somehow come on too strong and frightened Aziraphale off.

Well. He wasn’t one to psychoanalyze. They’d come back when they came back.

Tonight, though, the very real Aziraphale was in his kitchen. Crowley had wowed him with a gourmet meal containing a dozen of his favorite dishes; further wowed him by somehow setting the sticky toffee pudding on fire; and confessed to having had the actual dinner courses delivered from several high-end Mayfair restaurants, all while Aziraphale laughed so hard his eyes filled with tears.

Then he’d looked up and smiled, eyes that were more than a little warm meeting Crowley’s from across the room and--

Well, Crowley could only consider the night a raging success.

At last they stood on the balcony, sipping wine, and gazing out across the city – the world – that hadn’t been destroyed. At least, Aziraphale was looking at the world; Crowley’s eyes remained much closer to home, and he wasn’t sure his glasses could hide that.

“I uh…” Crowley cleared his throat. “I have…stuff…to say.” Brilliant.

“As do I.”

Crowley’s heart leapt – then crashed into his stomach at the worried look on Aziraphale’s face – then rose again as he remembered that Aziraphale always looked that way when he had something big to discuss, good or bad – then dropped to his feet when he recalled how rarely Aziraphale had something good to share.

Twenty seconds in and he already had vertigo. This was going to go great.

“Ah. Good. Um. Ngk. So. Uh. Should – should I go first? Or…euh…”

“I believe I should begin. Though I…I don’t know quite how…”

“Oh. Um. Yeah.” Crowley carefully set his glass of wine on the metal railing, which might have been too thin to support it, but the glass wouldn’t dare wobble. He thought about reaching for Aziraphale’s hand, but decided against it when he saw how the fingers nervously twisted against each other. Better not to intrude. He stepped back, shuffling his feet, trying to give the angel his space. “Would it…hngh…would it help if I said…I think I know what you’re going to say?”

“No.” A quick flash of blue eyes, pained and lost. “No, I – I don’t think it’s what you expect at all.”

Crowley sucked in a breath and nodded, shoving his hands in his pockets. Right. Of course not.

Every instinct screamed for him to run, get away, wait for…whatever it was to blow over. If he ducked into the bedroom, Aziraphale wouldn’t dare follow, even if he slept for a month.

But he couldn’t run away, not from Aziraphale, not anymore. If they were going to make this – make Our Side work – well, they were going to have to communicate.

He’d much rather face off against Satan again.

As for what Aziraphale was probably going to say – he’d rather face the whole of Armageddon…

No. Our Side. They could do this. Just take the hit and find a way forward.

“Alright. Go ahead.”

“I…” Aziraphale cleared his throat. “I suppose…well, it started five thousand years ago when I – I had something I very much needed to say, and I somehow – entirely by accident mind, though, really, the intrusion is, is simply unforgivable—” he gasped a little over the word. “I somehow touched your mind while you slept and…and pulled you into my thoughts…”

Aziraphale had been right about one thing. What followed was, to put it mildly, not what he expected at all.

Aziraphale laid out all the facts as quickly as he could, trying to explain what he thought had happened. He glanced at Crowley a few times – the demon’s jaw was completely slack, a look of complete dumbfounderment.

Good lord. Shocked into silence, not even one of his trademark subvocal grunts. Aziraphale couldn’t even remember the last time that had happened.

“So, well. As near as I can discern…” He tugged on his waistcoat so hard he thought it would tear. “The, er, the first few…encounters…required us to be quite close, and – and, ah, desiring the same thing of each other.�� Was it hot out here on the balcony? Oh dear. “But, ah, eventually, as you…you…” Just say it. “…you fell in love with…with that version of me, I was able to – to pull you in, I think, whenever I…wished to, er, to see you, regardless of the…the reason for…for my…yes.”

He stumbled to a halt. For an eternity, the silence hung over them, so complete even the street below seemed to disappear.

“You wot?” Crowley finally demanded.

“Oh, ah, please don’t make me repeat all that.”

Crowley’s head bobbled, nodding and shaking at the same time, his jaw so tight Aziraphale worried his teeth would crack. Then the demon sprang into motion, crossing nearly to the sliding door back into the kitchen before spinning around again. “You saw – you saw all of my dreams of you?”

“I believe so. Or rather, you – you saw mine. We could, er, compare, if you wish.” Oh, no, the idea of dissecting every one of his – his foolish fantasies…

“Ngk.” Crowley reeled. “No. Just.” His fingers ran through his hair, creating a mess of red spikes. “All of them? Even the – the one on the Greek island…”

“Oh, yes.” Aziraphale closed his eyes, feeling sick. “Yes, I’d been, ah, doing a tour of the Aegean and…well…there was this lovely beach, and I couldn’t stop imagining…” A rather vivid memory of a hot sun on pebbled beach, long arms and limbs twined all around him, as Crowley licked the saltwater and sweat from his collarbone… He swallowed. “I – I – I’m terribly sorry if I caused you any, um, discomfort.”

“Ha!” Though there wasn’t much humor behind the laugh, just incredulity. “Don’t think I’d call that uncomfortable.” He ran his hands down his face, pulling at the skin of his cheeks. “What about…what about…”

Aziraphale could see his eyes going wide with panic, even behind the black sunglasses. “Please, don’t…”

“And all the – the things I said! In Rome…Venice…Munich…New York…Vienna…Edinburgh.” He seemed to lose his balance for a second. “Edinburgh!”

Ah yes. Sitting on the cliffs at the edge of the city, Crowley’s head in his lap, composing poetry for each other. Crowley’s had been quite marvelously romantic, and Aziraphale had rewarded him with a kiss each time.

“I…I don’t know how I…”

“Paris. The Bastille!” No teasing smile this time, Crowley looked as mortified as Aziraphale felt. “The whole bloody month—”

Aziraphale buried his face in his hands. “I – I didn’t mean – I’m so—”

“No wonder you hate me!”

What?

Slowly, Aziraphale lowered his fingers, peeking at Crowley’s stricken face. “Why…why would I…?”

But Crowley shook his head. “I always told myself I’d – I’d give you space. Let you…decide for yourself…what you wanted, but.” He turned away. “There I was, the whole time, forcing my thoughts on you.”

“No…” he tugged his coat straight. “That wasn’t – I’m the one who dragged you…” Perhaps he hadn’t been clear after all. Aziraphale glanced out over the city, took a breath, and tried again. “I’ve…I’ve thought it through quite…quite thoroughly. I can remember them all. And…and every fantasy came from something I’d been thinking, I’d experienced. Something I desired.” He closed his eyes, feeling a tear run down his face. How undignified. “You’ll, ah, you’ll see it too. Once you know…know what to look for. The – the moments of connection are…fairly obvious.”

“But you said…” The sound of footsteps as Crowley paced. “You said your – your – your…whatever you want to call it, everything went off as soon as I arrived!”

“Well…I suppose but…it wasn’t…everything was perfectly in line with…with…what I wanted.”

Another interminable silence. He waited for Crowley to walk away. Surely any second…

“Yeah. Me too.”

He glanced to the side and – oh, dear. Crowley hadn’t been pacing, he’d been walking closer. “What…what do you mean?”

“Just.” He looked down at his feet. “Y’know. The things I said. I…I do wish…I could…in real life.” Shook his head. “Been trying to for days.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale thought about the things Crowley said in the dreams. “Oh.” Another pull on his waistcoat, straighten the tie, try to think. “I assumed you…you only…that your feelings were…were for that…that version of myself.”

“Isn’t…” Crowley rocked where he stood, hands in his pockets. “Isn’t that…are you…is ‘dream you’ different from ‘real you’?”

“Well.” He’d run out of articles of clothing to adjust. Perhaps Aziraphale should start wearing a watch? “I suppose…I’m more…more bold than I would be in reality. More certain of myself. More open. But…no, that’s…not fundamentally different, no.” He tugged at his sleeves, just in case they were somehow wrong. “I think...I’m just...more how I...I wish I could be.”

“Nh.” One more sway, and Crowley stepped forward, almost close enough for their toes to touch. “I always…know what to say. In the dreams. But. Um.” He glanced up, and Aziraphale saw a flash of golden eyes above black lenses. “I did…write all that poetry…weeks before the dream.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale tapped his fingers against his legs. “Wait.” He looked up, indignation replacing embarrassment. “You said you were – were making it up as you went! You lied to me!”

“It was a dream! I thought I was!” He scowled, but somehow that made Aziraphale feel worlds better. “You can’t just – just pop a sonnet off the top of your head!”

“I certainly did!”

“You certainly tried.”

“Well! See if I compose any verses for you again!” But, strangely, for the first time since the conversation started, Aziraphale felt ready to smile.

He took a deep breath. One thing he had to know for sure.

“Crowley…If you only thought you were composing those…well, did you perhaps…only think you wanted to…go along.”

“No.” Another step closer.

“How can you be sure?”

“Well…” Crowley rolled out the word, tipping his head back. “How many times did you think about teaching me that bloody dance?”

“Quite a few,” Aziraphale confessed.

“Mnh. Well. I wanted to know where you were…I wanted to know you were…you know…alright. So I let you teach me but…I never wanted to try again. And I didn’t.” He looked down again, watching his toe move across the ground. “And, um, did you ever dream of me teaching you to disco?”

“Certainly not!”

“So, I wasn’t influencing you either.” His fingers emerged from his pockets, dangling close to Aziraphale’s. “But um. The…Bastille. I always woke up right when it, ah, when it was getting…interesting.” He ducked his chin but looked up. “I…did want to know how the dream ended.”

“Ah.” Aziraphale’s face burned. “It…quite…quite well, thank you for inquiring.”

“Grrrgh!” Crowley spun away suddenly, raking his hands through his hair. “Why is this so hard? I’ve already – we’ve already—” He glanced back. “Look, Aziraphale. Yes. Everything we did…I’d like to say, and, and do…or at least try, right? I just…”

“I…also…don’t know…quite how to proceed.” But he forced himself to look up, to meet Crowley’s gaze across the landing, to acknowledge that endless array of emotions neither of them could quite put into words and - at last, at last, he smiled. “I…would very much like to, though. With you.”

Crowley turned a rather brilliant shade of red red, turned away - but when he turned back, the glasses were clutched in his hand. And the softness in his eyes made Azirapahle’s heart turn over in his chest. “Pity we can’t just…continue this in a dream.”

“Can’t we?” With his eyes bared to the world, the look of shock was raw, exaggerated, and in Aziraphale’s opinion quite satisfactory. “I…believe I’ve taught myself to control it now. Which also means…I could start one. On command, as it were.”

“Oh?” Crowley crossed quickly to where his wine glass still sat on the railing, drained it in one gulp. “That’s um…”

“Not the Bastille, of course,” Aziraphale rushed. “I think that’s…something…perhaps not. But…I have an idea where we can...start.”

“Nkh. Nfrd.” Crowley tried to gesture with the wineglass and launched it off the balcony entirely. “Akgh.”

“Is…is that a yes?”

“Mmh.” He took a breath, grabbing the railing for support. “How…would it work? Will I know it’s a dream?”

“Most likely not. I’ve taught myself to...to be more lucid, more aware, and I could teach you. It will take some time, but...even so, I don’t know if I’ll be able to, um, maintain perspective when I’m, ah, in the thick of it. But I can… stick to fantasies where…where we simply talk and…and enjoy each other’s company. Nothing…physical. At least.” He placed his hand on the railing, next to Crowley’s. “At least until we’re sure of our…our sense of control.”

“Nh. Sounds good. And.” He cleared his throat, glancing nervously. “I think…I want to try…things…in reality, first.”

“I…yes. As well.” Aziraphale wanted to move his hand those last few centimeters. Wanted that more than anything. “When shall we…?”

“Tonight?” Crowley caught his gaze, held it, and Aziraphale drank in the mix of fear and hope, knowing his own eyes looked the same. “I’d like…before I lose my nerve. Yeah.”

“I would…” he swallowed, reached his fingers ever so slightly closer. Almost. “Yes. I as well.”

Aziraphale walked down the wooded path; just ahead stood the tiny stone cottage, unchanged since he’d first seen it, nestled in a perfect glade over eleven hundred years ago. Golden sunbeams landed on the grass, the flowers, reflected up from the pond in the back. When the wind came from the south, it carried the sharp tang of sea salt.

At the corner of the cottage, Crowley looked up from the blackberry bush, and his eyes gleamed, for all the world like captured sunbeams. “Angel! Look, they’re perfectly ripe.” He turned, scoop of his tunic filled with the tiny fruits, almost to the point of spilling out.

“Sounds like we got here just in time.” Aziraphale came closer, and all of his worries, his anxieties, everything that had held him back melted away. Why had he ever doubted himself? This was Crowley, his Crowley, his dearest friend, his heart, his soul.

“You mean you got here in time, I’ve been waiting for ages.” Crowley’s fingers - stained purple-black from the berry juice - plucked out one, a cluster of little bumps tipped by tiny hairs. “Here, saved it for you.”

Aziraphale parted his lips, accepting the offering - tasting the tart, almost gritty berry, feeling the rush of juice pour across his tongue and hit the back of his throat - so much more real than any fantasy. Crowley’s thumb caught a bit of juice at the corner of Aziraphale’s lips, wiped it clear.

“Darling, that’s mine!” Catching Crowley’s hand, he drew it back, kissing the droplet off the pad of his thumb, letting Crowley cup his palm around the curve of Azirpahale’s cheek. Warm, slightly rough with callouses Aziraphale would never have expected. “I do believe I missed you.”

“Hmmm. Me, too.” Crowley leaned close, brushed his lips across Aziraphale’s cheekbone in a slow, lingering kiss. “Dunno where you were but...don’t go away again.”

“I won’t.” Aziraphale turned his head until his nose brushed along the length of Crowley’s, felt the little shivers up his spine. “I’ll never leave you again.”

He wanted to kiss Crowley, so very badly. Let the blackberries tumble down to be crushed under their feet as he pushed his demon back against the wall--

No, he’d promised. Nothing physical. They would do that in reality, and it would be so much better than he could imagine.

So, instead, Aziraphale tugged on the hem of Crowley’s tunic. “Come on, let’s get these inside. I think we’re going to have a lovely pie for dinner, and then perhaps a nice walk to the shore. I can’t remember the last time we went down.”

Crowley caught his hand, and together they walked into their home, their little cottage in the South Downs, their shared dream that, one day soon, they would make a reality.

Thanks to everyone who read, liked and shared! Thus concludes my 10k dream fic! Final shout out to Elf-on-the-Shelf and @angel-and-serpent (Sosser86 on AO3) for their help!! This fic is partially your fault. ;)

22 notes · View notes

oopshidaisyy · 4 years

Text

May Fic Recs

your silence, simple, as a ring by arriviste It was an accident. Enjolras certainly put no thought into it; one moment he was standing nose-to-nose with Grantaire, and the next he had his hands on Grantaire's wrists, and their long bones were flexing within the circle of his fingers. Enjolras/Grantaire, 4k, T Note: my favourite fic ever, if that counts for anything

lélio & ophelia by firstaudrina Find me, Lestat is saying in a thousand different ways, find me find me find me. Lestat/Louis, 4k, T

Desert Sand by VillaKulla The origin story of Goodnight Robicheaux and Billy Rocks Billy/Goody, 34k, M

there’s probably a word for it in unmodified sumerian by ghostsoldier It’s weirdly flattering, in a way, that Cecil can wax rhapsodic about his very cells. Carlos can empathize: every single one of his tests has shown that Cecil is just as human as he is, and yet he’s also absolutely not. Carlos knows he’s not, with the sort of bone-deep certainty he usually reserves for universal constants. Cecil’s not human, but he is, and Carlos finds he wants to shout it from the top of the radio tower. How wonderful this makes Cecil. How beautiful. How imperfectly and uniquely perfect. Carlos/Cecil, 1k, T

my whole trajectory’s toward you, and it’s not losing momentum by theappleppielifestyle 14 year old Eddie gets a glimpse into what's coming. Richie/Eddie, 8k, G

An Invitation You Can’t Decline by thehoyden “I have standards,” Aziraphale huffed. “Don’t I know it,” Crowley sighed. And then, like he’d done it a hundred times before, he covered Aziraphale’s hand with his. Aziraphale/Crowley, 1k, E

Love Hath Made Thee a Tame Snake by thehoyden He was the bloody Serpent of Eden, and he wasn’t going to stand for this kind of flagrant trespassing. Aziraphale/Crowley, 3k, E

all of this then back again by firstaudrina Magnus is joking when he says, "You," but Alec says, "Okay." Magnus/Alec, 2k, M

Believe Me if You Can (The House at Pooh Corner) by gyzym In a world where Arthur is Rabbit, Eames is Tigger, Cobb is Pooh, Yusuf is Eeyore, Ariadne is Piglet and Saito is Owl, nothing makes sense anymore. Arthur/Eames, 11k, T

not so different, you and i by theappleppielifestyle Three years ago, the idea that Tony Stark being one of her best friends would have been something she’d laugh at. Not even laugh- she’d have given whoever suggested it a dry look and changed the subject. Nat & Tony, 15k, G

unintended results by theappleppielifestyle Tony stares at the ceiling, white-knuckling his pockets. I will not get off to Steve jerking it. I will not get off to Steve jerking it. I will not- That thought is put on hold as something starts to buzz, and Tony has to bite down forcefully on his tongue to stop himself from groaning out loud when he realizes what it is. Steve/Tony, 2k, E

Left Side Advantage by susiecarter Post-MoS AU: A year after Black Zero, the Metropolis city government decides to hold a commemorative gala, with Superman as a guest of honor. And after a year of trying to gather intelligence on Superman without all that much success to speak of, Bruce Wayne is definitely going to attend. Except it turns out he may not be the only one with plans for Superman, and there might be a few other pieces of the puzzle that he's been missing. Clark/Bruce, 61k, T

Enemies to Lovers by susiecarter Then: Bruce and Clark argued, fucked, kissed, and didn't talk about any of it until the day they stopped. Now: they're living together in the lake house, trying to figure out how to be around each other day in and day out without stepping on each other's toes or crossing any lines. Which might be easier if Clark weren't pregnant. Or if Bruce weren't being so weird about it. Or if the mother box hadn't rearranged Clark's insides on a whim in the first place— There's a lot that could have made this easier, basically. But then Bruce and Clark always did do things the hard way. Clark/Bruce, 28k, E

dear friend by firstaudrina Jo might have said, “I left something for you in the old mailbox and I think that you should read it.” Jo & Laurie, 1k, G

le coup de foudre by firstaudrina three vignettes about desire. Lestat/Louis, <1k, G

Circuit by thingswithwings Post-movie. Watson finds a reason to go back to the flat on Baker Street. Holmes/Watson, 1k, E

2 become 1, or: these are totally normal roommate shenanigans by dollsome Chloe decides to fake-seduce June in an act of vengeance. Naturally, June strikes back. Chloe/June, 3k, T

un oubli profond by arriviste Three (in)glorious days. Enjolras/Grantaire, 6k, M

How to Tame a God by theorytale Loki is unstable. Tony is a genius. Together, they fight crime still don't like each other very much. There might be some benefit in alternative tactics. Loki & Tony, 5k, T

Ready, Fire, Aim by gyzym There's no "I" in "Avenger." Steve/Tony, 21k, M

it should follow, you know this (like the panels of a comic strip) by gyzym Four, eleven, fifteen, twenty-one, thirty-six, forty, as old as he's always been, too young, and everyone knows Tony Stark. Steve/Tony, 1k, T

music to watch girls to by firstaudrina They're both laughing, helpless and stupid with it. Izzy doesn't remember half as much of this before Clary came here. She remembers smirks and side-eye and the occasional chuckle but never gasping laughing over something that isn't even that funny, when you think about it. Clary/Isabelle, 1k, G

let me lay waste to thee by postcardmystery Ink stained fingers and ale left untouched. The cheapest paper left to rot and cuffs stained with little spots of black. A life shared but never quite lived together. A boy who wanted to be a poet, remembered as a playwright, and a boy who wanted to stage, remembered for his blood on a dagger held by no one. Marlowe/Shakespeare, 4k, M

Crash Landers by gyzym In which Stiles learns to Stalk That Stalk. (Or, how to accidentally woo your unfriendly neighborhood alpha in roughly five hundred handwritten steps.) Derek/Stiles, 31k, T Note: i’ve never watched teen wolf i just think this fic is neat

48 notes · View notes

patsdrabbles · 4 years

Text

Down in the Underground

Title: Down in the Underground Fandom: Good Omens & Labyrinth (1986) Pairing: Crowley/Aziraphale Rating: General Audiences Word Count: 4675 Summary: Ten minutes after he had been given the basket with his charge and short but clear instructions on what to do with it, Crowley pulled his car over and panicked. There had to be another way. There had to. In which Crowley wishes the Antichrist away to a not very thrilled Goblin King. A/N: @szappan wrote an amazing fic about Crowley being a Bowie fan (please do check it out, it’s great! ❤) and it made me wonder what would happen if Crowley and Aziraphale met the Goblin King. Which I then just had to write because Good Omens and Labyrinth are two of my absolute favourite books/series/movies. Thank you so much @blue-ravens for the help with editing this fic! Please enjoy ❤

AO3 & a drawing I made for this fic

Ten minutes after he had been given the basket with his charge and short but clear instructions on what to do with it, Crowley pulled his car over and panicked.

There had to be another way.

There had to.

Sometimes, the ideas we have when under distress, later on prove themselves to not be among the brightest we have.

“This child is not from the Aboveground.”

Jareth held the baby a bit farther away from himself and looked at him with curious eyes.

“Wha– Of course he is!”

The Goblin King gave Crowley a wary look.

“He reeks of a strange kind of magic.” He pondered Crowley with narrowed eyes for a moment and Crowley felt himself shift, wanting to slither backwards under his scrutinizing gaze. “As do you, for a fact.”

“Well, ha.” Crowley shrugged. He should have known he wouldn’t be able to conceal what he was from another powerful being, shouldn’t he? “Comes hand in hand with fallin’ from the skies above, I guess.”

Jareth stared at him with an unreadable expression for a moment. Then, Crowley could practically hear the cogwheels turn in his mind and his gaze darkened.

“So this is–” Jareth paused and held up the baby a bit, so that he could look into his eyes. “This is him then, isn’t it? Remarkable... If he didn’t smell just like his people, I wouldn’t even have noticed that he was different.”

He turned back to Crowley.

“I cannot give him back as the Labyrinth’s rules forbid me from doing so, but I do not wish to take him in permanently. I’m sure you understand that I don’t want my kingdom to be destroyed by his powers or... for it to eventually be overrun by folks from Heaven and Hell, when it comes to it.” He sighed. “Do traverse the Labyrinth and take him back, demon. Otherwise, we might be faced with a far greater measure of destruction than is already likely to follow him Aboveground.”

Crowley, who had found the grass at the tips of his shoes especially fascinating the last minute or so looked up sharply when the Goblin King sighed loudly.

“Think about it, demon. You still have thirteen hours from now to come and claim him back. Trust me that I will make your life living hell in new, creative ways if you don’t.”

Crowley hadn’t been listening to everything Jareth had said, too busy still panicking about the impending end of the world while wondering several times why the Goblin King looked so familiar, but he had heard the last part.

He gulped and forced himself to smile.

“Sure. I guess I’ll think about it. Uh... See ya!”

He gave a wave of his hand as he turned and sauntered with dangerously shaky steps back to his car.

He’d have to call Aziraphale. Aziraphale would know what to do.

In hindsight, maybe he should have called Aziraphale before wishing the boy away.

Oh well, it was too late for that line of thought now.

As Crowley drove away (in search for the nearest phone booth), Jareth kept holding onto the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan, and Lord of Darkness and scowled.

He had planned to relax today, maybe enact only two boggings (the goblins in question had taken the chicken tossing too far and had hit him square in the face the other day. They had escaped but Jareth had found out their names, which would be enough). He had planned to have a Good Day.

This however? This didn’t look like it was going to be one.

The world wasn’t, as most people would have you believe, influenced by two great powers.

The lack of knowledge about the third wasn’t all that surprising, given that it had itself wished to not be involved in Heaven’s and Hell’s meddling with humanity or get tangled in their “weird kind of codependency”.

The third of the powers that be was neither good nor evil – much rather, it was a wild sort of chaos that was able to be precisely just what you imagined it to be.

And when you knew the right words, you might just be lucky enough to call on it.

“You did what?”

To say that Aziraphale sounded flabbergasted was an understatement like calling the melting polar caps a minor problem of Earth.

Crowley ran a slightly trembling hand through his hair, not noticing that he ruffled it up.

“I wished away the Antichrist. Sent him to the Goblin Kingdom.”

The voice on the other end of the phone call remained silent for a long moment.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale’s voice now was much more quiet and had an almost desperate edge to it. “You can’t just– wish away the Antichrist!”

“But I could, couldn’t I? I did, in fact, and now he’s being babysat by the Goblin King himself until the time’s up.”

“Crowley! You don’t even know what might happen after– even during those thirteen hours! We have no idea how his powers might react to wild fae magic! It might just bring about the end of the world faster than originally planned for all we know!"

Aziraphale was starting to sound frantic and Crowley’s hand was, by now, shaking noticeably as well.

“Alright, so what do we do now?”

“Go get back the Antichrist, I suppose.”

“You realize I can’t change the rules even for... people like you, do you?”

“I guess I can see why, yes.”

Aziraphale nodded and nudged Crowley’s arm when the demon didn’t respond to the Goblin King’s question.

Crowley, however, had been deep in thought, resulting in him asking the one question that had been on the tip of his tongue since he had first seen the Goblin King about an hour ago.

“Has anyone ever told you that you look a lot like David Bowie?”

The Goblin King didn’t reply, just gave him a terrifyingly wide smile in response as he held the Antichrist in his arms.

“Alright, the child. The Antichrist.” Aziraphale tried to get their attention back to the urgent matter at hand. “I’m aware that the rules give us thirteen hours to–”

“Twelve hours and ten minutes by now.”

“—solve the Labyrinth and get back the child you have taken. Right.” Aziraphale cleared his throat as the Goblin King continued staring him down.

“Uhm.”

“Usually, only the one making the wish gets to run the Labyrinth, but as the rules aren’t very clear on this, I can twist them somewhat. You may run together. Let’s hope for all of us that it’ll help.”

Aziraphale looked at Crowley, who had remained silent after asking his strange and out of nowhere question.

“I don’t want Hell’s Antichrist here any more than you do,” Jareth continued, sounding vaguely annoyed despite continuing to calmingly rock the baby in his arms.

“So you better make an effort – a successful one – and take him back.” He looked at them both, individually, before adding: “I’ll be waiting in my castle in the center of the Labyrinth.”

With that, he disappeared.

“Well, that didn’t sound too difficult.” Aziraphale smiled nervously at Crowley. “We can do this, we’re an angel and a demon, after all! What is a magical labyrinth to us, right?”

“...”

Crowley didn’t meet his gaze, instead looking out over the vast expanse of the Labyrinth in front of them. Inwardly, he cursed himself for his own stupidity.

Wishing the Antichrist away like a nervous teenager unwilling to babysit their baby brother.

In the oddest sense of the word, he supposed, that was exactly what it was.

He was only pulled out of his thoughts when a warm hand grabbed his and Aziraphale smiled at him reassuringly.

“Come on, Crowley, let’s get the boy back.”

Crowley managed a weak nod and followed Aziraphale, who clearly was doing better at trying to convince himself of the upsides of their current situation.

“Come on, feet!”

Crowley sighed but couldn’t resist a tiny smile at the comment.

Together, they made their way downhill.

Glitter.

The damn glitter was everywhere. On his jacket, his shoes, his glasses...

Aziraphale either didn’t notice or didn’t mind the light silvery glitter making him shimmer in the light as they walked down the seemingly endless corridor.

Crowley sighed but refrained from commenting on the obvious.

“’ello!”

“Oh, hello there, my friend!”

Aziraphale crouched down to be on eye level with what appeared to be a little blue worm.

“We’re trying to cross this labyrinth, but we can’t seem to find our way out of this corridor.” Aziraphale smiled at the tiny worm, who looked at him with big blinking eyes.

“Oh, you should come inside an’ meet the missus. The tea should just be ready.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale looked at Crowley, somewhat at a loss. “We’re a bit in a hurry right now, I’m afraid ...but maybe on our way back?”

Crowley nodded, although there were more important things than tea dates with magical worms on his mind right now. Such as finding the Antichrist in order to ensure his own continued existence, for one.

“Lovely!” the worm exclaimed. “You two are the first who didn’t outright decline the offer, the missus an’ I do appreciate that, really!”

Crowley nodded again and gestured for Aziraphale to get on with it, becoming impatient.

“Uhm, the exit to this corridor, kind sir?”

“Ah yes, the exit! You aren’t looking for a door an’ you will have to look from the right angle to find it!”

Crowley nodded and, without another word, turned into his old form.

“Oh, fancy that skill!” The worm commented and nodded in approval.

Crowley slithered along the wall, turning his head this way and that way, until the wall seemed to give way beneath him. Or rather, disappear.

“There’sss another pathway right here, angel.”

He turned back into his human form and went to take Aziraphale’s hand in his to pull him along when he didn’t move.

But Aziraphale didn’t budge even so.

“We don’t even know what direction to take yet, Crowley!”

Crowley sighed heavily.

“Alright, Mister Worm, what direction should we take?”

“Take a turn to the right, this should fit your purpose. The path to the left is filled with grave dangers!”

His eyes widened comically and Crowley grinned at him.

“What dangers might those be?”

Crowley felt Aziraphale’s hand twitch in his own and became aware of the heat rising in his cheeks when he realized that he was still holding the angel’s hand.

“The path to the left ...it leads straight to the center of the Labyrinth!”

Aziraphale turned sharply toward Crowley.

“Then the path to the left is the one we need to take!”

“But–”

“Thank you again, kind sir. I will keep your offer for tea in mind.”

Crowley turned toward the new path and felt, just as he was trying to let go of Aziraphale’s hand unnoticed, that the angel held on tighter to his own. Unsure what to say – or if he should say anything in the first place – he continued on, Aziraphale by his side.

The worm looked torn as they left, unhappy to see them choosing the more dangerous of the two options. But they had asked the right question and gotten their answer.

In the castle, the Goblin King nodded at a crystal sphere in satisfaction while rocking the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan, and Lord of Darkness. They might very well make it in good time.

“Crowley, I’m starving!” Aziraphale was wailing and Crowley rolled his eyes.

“You can’t starve, you’re an angel.”

“But still, I very much feel like I am.”

Crowley got distracted by something to his right rustling in some sparkling bushes, so he didn’t notice Aziraphale moving on ahead and looking around the corner of the pathway.

He didn’t see Aziraphale’s delighted facial expression at the sight of an apricot tree that was yielding a lot of beautiful, ripe fruit.

He also didn’t see Aziraphale’s plucking an apricot from the tree or how he pulled out a handkerchief to quickly clean it.

And he didn’t see Aziraphale take a bite of the apricot or the moment of realization he had, mirrored in his widened eyes.

He did hear Aziraphale’s physical form hitting the grassy ground beneath his feet and was running toward him before he could even see what had happened.

He felt the panic rise in his chest.

“Aziraphale! Aziraphale, what happened?”

When Crowley reached him he still hadn’t gotten a reply or any other reaction, so he let himself fall to his knees to take a better look at the angel.

He was still breathing, which... Wasn’t a requirement for a heavenly being, but at least seemed to indicate that, albeit unconscious, Aziraphale hadn’t been discorporated... or worse.

Crowley frantically looked around, trying to figure out what had happened.

Then he saw it and froze.

Lying on the ground not far from Aziraphale’s outstretched arm and clearly bitten into – a peach.

Crowley growled in frustration.

They should’ve brought sandwiches.

A clearly magical sphere floated by him and Crowley managed to get a glimpse at the translucent image it showed.

It was Aziraphale, looking confused and kind of lost, in a ballroom, surrounded by ballgoers whose faces were covered with masks.

The people were staring at him, making it hard for him to pass through the mass. Then, music must have started playing, because several people started dancing and Aziraphale’s eyes lit up in delight.

“Damn it, angel,” Crowley hissed to himself.

A second glance into the sphere showed him Aziraphale dancing among the crowd and... a very annoyed looking person who could only be the Goblin King himself, albeit disguised with a mask. When said Goblin King turned to stare up at him through the magical sphere, Crowley cursed again and took a step toward the apricot tree.

They were all round and ripe, the perfect apricots. Since they would all hopefully lead to the same thing, however, he plucked one at random.

He hissed in his best snakely manner at the fruit he held with his fingertips and reminded himself that he was doing this for Aziraphale. So that after that, they could continue searching for the Antichrist.

Damn hell.

He took a bite and felt himself falling.

Damn all fruit trees.

When he came to, the first thing he noticed was that the world seemed brighter than before. Looking around, he decided that hundreds of candles seemed to be to blame for that. Second, things seemed rather... peachy. But not in the all-is-well kind of way, but in the way that the taste of the godforsaken peach he had eaten was still lingering on his tongue, coating his mouth and, quite oddly, also affecting his other senses, almost... clouding them.

He didn’t like that one bit.

He continued down an already quite crowded hallway and reached a big double door that presumably led to the ballroom he had seen. He pushed it open and shuddered momentarily at the sight in front of him. There were way too many people attending this ball for what he considered to be his comfort zone, if one were to ask him. But since nobody was asking him, he went on inside, hoping to find Aziraphale as fast as possible.

People were laughing and giggling almost manically as he made his way through the crowd, having to push more than a few of the ballgoers aside when they seemed to intentionally block his path or hold onto his sleeves.

He was getting rather annoyed by the time he spotted Aziraphale, standing rather lost in the middle of the ballroom. The spark Crowley had momentarily seen in his eyes in the crystal was gone and he looked rather worried as he unconsciously fussed with the hem of his coat sleeves. When his eyes met Crowley’s, however, they seemed to light up again and he started to make his way toward the demon.

Crowley felt relief wash over him when he came to stand in front of Aziraphale and grabbed him by the shoulders.

“Don’t. Don’t ever just do something so stupid ever again! I thought you had died or something for a moment!“

Aziraphale’s mouth fell open and his eyes widened and he looked so sorry and–

“Aargh, stop it, angel! I know you’re sorry, let’s just. Find a way out of here.”

Crowley turned around and started looking for the ballroom door, just to find it was ...gone.

“What in all seven –”

He turned back to Aziraphale when he felt the angel’s hand gently on his shoulder.

“It’s gone, Crowley.”

“What do you mean, it’s gone? It was right over there mere minutes ago!”

Aziraphale shook his head.

“I checked after I appeared here, as well, but the door was gone again moments after my arrival.”

“So what do we do now?”

Crowley was starting to feel antsy. Things were not developing in their favor.

Suddenly, music began to play. There were no musicians to be seen, except for–

“I’ll eat a damn hat if that isn’t the Goblin King himself.”

Aziraphale followed his gaze to the other side of the room where Jareth the Goblin King was standing in an inexplicable beam of light and, by all appearance, was about to start to sing.

The two of them were so surprised by his appearance, however, that they noticed only too late that the crowd had started to close in on them, pressing in from all sizes and leaving them surrounded by a slowly moving circle.

“I’m sorry, Crowley. If not for me, we weren’t stuck in this mess of a situation.”

Crowley took a sharp breath when Aziraphale reached out and held his hand.

He obviously didn’t mind holding the angel’s hand, but he also feared the treacherous color that rose to his cheeks the last few times it had happened.

Aziraphale must have noticed his intake of breath, because he let go of Crowley’s hand all of a sudden, a quiet sadness overtaking his eyes.

“There’s such a sad love,

deep in your eyes...”

Jareth was, in fact, singing now, and Crowley felt awful. They were running out to time to fix the mistake he had made and now they both were stuck in this place with Aziraphale looking like Crowley had kicked him.

Crowley remained quiet for a moment, lowering his gaze to the ground when he noticed Aziraphale turning away his gaze.

The Labyrinth was a place full of riddles, going by what Jareth had told them at the beginning. So maybe being stuck in a ballroom meant...

He looked up with an apologetic smile and held out his hand to Aziraphale.

“There’s such a fooled heart,

beating so fast in search of new dreams,

a love that will last...”

“Come on, angel.”

Aziraphale was looking at him and then at Crowley’s extended hand. He looked back at Crowley and, after a moment of hesitation, took his hand and let himself slowly be pulled in.

“Maybe this is gonna fix things.”

Aziraphale frowned slightly and Crowley let out a small nervous laugh, his breath brushing over Aziraphale’s shoulder.

“...maybe it’s not, but it seems worth a try, right?”

Aziraphale met his gaze and nodded.

He looked back at the ballgoers surrounding them, a sort of dancing carrousel by this point, and frowned in thought.

“Perhaps we’ll manage to get closer to the Goblin King, that way. We should try to ask him what to do.”

Crowley nodded and felt warmth rise in his cheeks when Aziraphale squeezed his hand and took a step closer.

“I’ll paint you mornings of gold...”

“Let’s dance, my dear.”

“I’ll spin you Valentine evenings...”

Crowley nodded and took the first step.

And they danced.

While they were slowly swaying to the rhythm of the music, the ballgoers around them were still talking and pointing and moving around them.

Crowley tried to focus on the warmth that Aziraphale was giving off and not on ...everything else. He hoped that this would work. Things had obviously gone too well previously and...

“But I'll be there for you... as the world falls down.”

...Aziraphale was holding him, not letting go.

They made their way across the room in a slow pace, the crowd around them letting them move as long as they continued dancing.

“Falling... Falling...”

“It’s working,” Aziraphale breathed out in astonishment when he realized what was happening.

“Falling...”

“Yeah,” Crowley agreed quietly and held on for dear life.

“Falling in love...”

By the time the song ended, they had also reached the Goblin King, who was giving them a long, contemplative look. In one hand he was holding a ball mask, which he made disappear in exchange for another crystal. He let it run up and down his hand as he looked at them a moment longer, before this gaze fell to their still joined hands again.

“You’ve made it all the way here. What do you want?”

The astonished look must have been similar on both their faces.

“We want out, obviously,” Aziraphale stated.

“Are you certain of that?” Jareth asked. “Even if out of here and out there might mean a less pleasant life for both of you?”

Crowley cocked his head in inquiry.

“The whole doomsday situation. And–” Jareth nodded toward their joined hands. “–that, perhaps, even more.”

Crowley saw Aziraphale blush and look away out of the corner of his eye, but the angel didn’t withdraw his hand.

Somehow, confidence at last got a hold of Crowley and he squeezed Aziraphale’s hand as he grinned at the Goblin King.

“We’ll figure it out.”

To their surprise, the Goblin King threw the crystal up in the air.

“That’s what I wanted to hear.”

Jareth grinned back at them and around them, the world fell down.

After that, finding the castle in the center of the Labyrinth was a piece of cake.

They ran into a bunch of goblins and other fae folk, but for the most part, the direction they had to take was clear and their path free of dangers.

They had talked some and both realized that they were “absolute morons”, as Crowley had put it, smilingly. Aziraphale had returned his smile, equally radiant in its nature, and had gently squeezed his hand. They would talk about this once they had left the Labyrinth (‘this’ being their strong mutual affection that they both had previously been too nervous about to realize that it was reciprocated; ‘previously’ being the past four thousand years, give or take).

They also talked about the Antichrist and what they would do once they got him back from Jareth.

“Bring him to his new parents, of course.”

“Yes, of course, but what... what about his upbringing?”

“You aren’t suggesting...?”

Aziraphale nodded and, as they continued walking, they formed a plan.

They still had more than enough time to spare by the time they entered the castle together, only letting go of each other’s hands for the first time in hours to push open the big front gate.

They found the Goblin King and the baby in a big room at the center of the castle.

“At long last, here you are. And here ...you are.” Jareth grinned a toothy grin as he handed over the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan, and Lord of Darkness to Crowley. Then, he let himself fall back onto what appeared to be a fairly uncomfortable big chair that, on a second thought, seemed to function as a throne.

“You did it, great! And with four hours to spare, on top of that!”

As he shifted the Antichrist in his arms, Crowley heard Aziraphale exhale in relief next to him. Quite frankly, if the end of the world weren’t as immediate as it unfortunately was, he would have gladly spent the next two decades sleeping.

“So– any further... life-changing happenings or the like since you left my ballroom?”

When the two didn’t reply immediately, Jareth flashed a grin that only lasted for a moment, before being replaced by a more neutral expression.

“I have been told that it seems to be somewhat of a common experience among runners.”

Aziraphale turned a lovely shade of red and Crowley found himself rather tempted to just ...Ah, to hell with it.

He took Aziraphale’s hand in his as gently as he could while not jostling the baby on his arm and felt Jareth’s gaze on them even as he finally allowed the love he felt for Aziraphale to show when he looked at the angel.

When he looked back at Jareth, the Goblin King was smiling.

“So, there’s hope for you lot yet.”

With the Goblin King’s help, the three of them reappear Aboveground somewhere in the outskirts of Tadfield a short time later. The Bentley stood waiting for them a couple of meters down the road.

“Well, here we are.” Aziraphale looked down at the basket that was now, once again, holding the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan, and Lord of Darkness.

“Here we are...,” Crowley mumbled, when, suddenly, the thing that had been nagging him at the back of his mind for the past few hours finally surfaced.

“Oh, crap, we’re late for the birth of the other baby!”

Aziraphale paled and Crowley felt the panic rise in his veins.

“I’ll have to reorder time, though I don’t know if I can manage to turn back all thirteen hours, but I’ll have to try and–”

“Perhaps I could help with that.”

An owl sitting on a nearby tree branch turned into Jareth casually leaning against said tree’s trunk.

“Time is easily affected by my magic, Aboveground and Underground.”

A clock appeared in the air next to him, as if required for the impending demonstration.

The Goblin King snapped his fingers and for a split moment, Crowley and Aziraphale felt air and time rush past them. Then, it was night again and the clock on Crowley’s watch – just like Jareth’s flying clock – indicated that it was still 11.24 pm, mere minutes after Crowley had originally left Hastur and Ligur at the graveyard.

“Well, go then!”

Jareth made a shooing motion with his hands when the two others just continued staring at him for a moment.

“In that case... Thank you.” Aziraphale smiled and looked like he wanted to step forward and shake Jareth’s hand before coming to think better of it.

“Yeah, thank you, I guess. Spared us a lot of trouble if that had come out.” Crowley gave him what he hoped looked like an appreciative nod.

“Nevermind, I’m glad he’s not going to grow up with me. I have enough on my plate as it is.” The Goblin King sighed and shook his head.

“You still look like David Bowie, though,” Crowley couldn’t help but mention again.

Jareth just grinned at that and, within a blink of the eye, was gone.

Aziraphale sighed as they began walking toward the Bentley.

“You just had to point that out again, didn’t you?”

“Well, he does look an awful lot like David Bowie! Don’t blame me for stating the obvious!”

They continued their friendly bickering as they approached Tadfield, smiles on their faces and a plan for the upbringing of the Antichrist in the works. It was bound to go wrong, of course, before it would go right again, in the end.

A barn owl followed the Bentley down the street for a minute before disappearing in a light shower of glitter.

#good omens #good omens fanfiction #good omens fanart #ineffable husbands #crowley/aziraphale #crowley #aziraphale #jareth #labyrinth fanfiction #labyrinth #go ff #labyrinth ff #my posts #my fanfics #29.9.2020 #2020

13 notes · View notes

stevethehairington · 3 years

Text

Tagged by: the lovely @scimitar-and-longsword 💕💕

Name(s): my name is Mack, and if this also includes like usernames too then my ao3 is macksdramaticshenanigans and obviously yall can see my tumblr url lol. i have a fandom twitter but i hate twitter so i barely go on it lmao.

Fandom(s): oh boy haha this is a loooong list. as of right now, the main fandoms i’m involved in are The Old Guard and Trust FX, but in the past i’ve written for Skam, Marvel, Good Omens, Love Simon/Simon vs., Shameless, and IT. and ofc there are some fandoms i have not written for that i casually enjoy as well.

Where you post: all my fics are posted on ao3! or are sitting in my wips folder lol. i’ve ocsasionally posted some snippets of writing here to tumblr, but none of those are like full on, proper fics, mostly just me rambling off some thoughts i had about whatever characters in whatever scenarios

Most Popular One Shot (by kudos): Imagine Being Loved By Me (918 kudos) ((so close to 1k holy shit!!!! if it got to 1k i think i’d actually die of happiness omg)) this is my Good Omens smut fic lmfao, crowley is fantasizing and aziraphale makes it a reality skgjsd. i’m actually pretty damn pleased with how this one turned out, and i never expected it to get that many kudos so that makes me ridiculously happy sfjgfg. (and also podfixx made a podfic of this fic which made me INSANELY happy like that is the coolest thing ever)

Most Popular Multi-Chapter (by kudos): I Have Hella Feelings For You (697 kudos) ahhh this one!! this one is actually my very first ever chaptered fic!! it’s a skam fic, and i have the most distinctive memory of me sititng in my dorm bed freshman year of college, furiously typing away at my laptop everyday for a week because i somehow managed to post a chapter every day until it was finished, which meant i was writing a new chapter everyday. like damn, i really peaked with that huh? lmao

Favorite story you’ve written so far: ahh okay not to like. toot my own horn kgfldg but this question is HARD bc i have a lot of favorites. i’m going to pick a favorite from each of my main fandoms i’ve written for because i’m an Indecisive Hoe okay fdjdf.

- From Marvel: Just Called To Say I Love You this one is my wrong number stucky fic and i actually adore this one so much, and also it actually ended up being WAY more popular than i expected it to? like i was lowkey shook by how many people liked it

- From Skam: If You Love Me, If You Hate Me so. about this one. it’s probably my favorite skam fic that i’ve written. but. it also is the utter bane of my existence bc this is the one and only fic i have ever written and posted that i haven’t fnished gskgjfdlfs. it’s going on soon to be a little over 2 years of sitting on my account as an unfinished wip, but i REFUSE to mark it as abandoned bc i really genuienly DO want to finish it, i just havent written for this fandom in a while and inspiration/motivation is tricky yknow? but anyways. this fic is my soccer au!! it was a gift for a secret santa exchange i believe to a dear friend of mine and i still feel awful that i never finished it but. one day!!

- From Love Simon/Simon vs.: Where I Like You Best i am actually obsessed with this one. is that weird to say about your own fic? i enjoy reading a good soulmate au, but writing them has always been SO daunting to me bc i never feel like my ideas are original enough or like things that havent been done a lot for that trope. but for this one!!! omg i found the BEST prompt for it and it fit these characters SO well and i wrote it and i ended up absolutely loving how it turned out, and i was so proud of myself for writing a pretty successful soulmate au.

- From Shameless: Wooden Floors, Walls, and Window Sills so this one was my second ever gallavich fic, and it’s probably my favorite because i think it’s the best characterization i got of them in all of my fics, and good characterization is one of the most important things to me when i write fic.

- From IT: To What We Might Do is my favorite reddie fic i’ve written! i definitely projected onto richie a teeny tiny bit in it for some parts lmfao, but yeah idk i just love how this one turned out a whole lot, and i enjoyed how i ended it too (esp since endings can be very difficult for me lol). ((BUT also a special shoutout to my fic Imagine Me and You, I Do bc that one is just pure fluff and i adore the concept of someone being just so absolutely in love with someone doing something so incredibly simple and it just rocks their world)

- From Good Omens: I Want To Know What Love Is (did i use the most cheesy title ever? absolutely. do i love it? absolutely.) anyways this fic is one where crowley the demon experiences love and promptly thinks he’s dying.

Fic you were nervous to post: ooh, i mean i’m always pretty anxious about any fic i post because i never know if it’s going to be recepted well or if people are going to like it or hate it or if anyone is even going to read it or repsond to it. especially if the fic is a gift for someone, because i just really want that person to like it yknow? but yeah idk if theres one in particular i was more nervous to post than any others... i guess maybe any smut fic? just bc i never know if the smut is even any good lol

How do you choose your titles?: eaaaaasy, i usually pick song lyrics lol, ocassionally i’ve used lines from a poem, and a few times i’ve gone with a pun, but mostly it’s song lyrics. i usually find a song with lyrics that i think will fit, or if there’s a particular song that vibes well with the fic or that i listened to repeatedly while writing the fic i’ll try to pick the best lyric from that one.

Do you outline?: yes and no lol. it honestly depends. sometimes i outline extensively, but other times i just sit in front of a doc and let whatever happens happen.

Complete: on my ao3 account i have 80 works completed (will be 81 once i finally finish that one single unfinished wip i have posted gahhh). but i know in my wips folder i have a at least one finished fic that i have not and probably will not post. there are also some other things in my wips folder that like technically could be conisdered finished too, but it’s not up to my posting standards so until i fix it so it is it’ll just sit there lol.

In-Progress: honestly there are too many to count lol. i have a shiiiiiit ton of wips (as yall will know if you saw that one ‘tell us about ALL your wips’ tag game post that was going around that i did lol).

Coming soon/not yet started: tbh see above answer bc it’s pretty much the same lol.

Prompts?: so the thing about prompts is that i would LOVE to take them, but it’s very very tricky bc i’m a super specific kind of gal and if i don’t vibe with the prompt it’s very difficult for me to write anything for it. but then there’s also the fact that inspiration/motivation are fickle bitches and they come and go as they please and so taking prompts is hard bc i never know if the stars will align and all that jazz for me to be in the ~ right mood ~ to work on a prompt. this is the exact reason why i have SO MANY sitting in my inbox right now, and i feel so bad for just letting them sit there but ughhh brain function?? how?? lol

Upcoming work you’re most excited about: sooooo i don’t necessarily have any specific works in progress right now (i’ve been so busy lately that writing has been the last thing on my mind and so i haven’t touched anything in weeks) but. i guess if i can ever get my shit together and finish the primo fic i’m close to finishing i’m pretty excited to post that! or honestly if i can actually get myself to finish any of the tog wips i have i’d be suuuper excited to post any of those bc i have not yet posted any tog fics!!

anways!! if you made it to this point thanks for sticking w me and reading through my long winded rambly answers lmao

Tagging: @peachykoya @wandering-scholar-lad @raynertodd @cluelessheroes @pinesboi @thewolvesrunwild @1derspark

#tag game #my wips #mack writes

4 notes · View notes

ollieofthebeholder · 4 years

Text

If I Knew From the Start

Also on AO3.

It's been a couple weeks since Armageddoff, and things are almost back to normal. Almost.

Certainly Crowley is spending more time at the bookstore than he used to, and Aziraphale's been over to the flat more often than he had before, i.e. ever. They're a bit more comfortable, a bit freer to communicate, now that they don't have the specter of their respective departments hanging over their heads. Some nights Crowley doesn't go back to his place at all. It's a new normal, but a normal that's barely to the side of the normal they had before.

Crowley is still pining, by the way. He thought for a brief moment, during what they thought was the end of the world...but it turns out that was probably just him projecting and it's back to what it was before. Except now it's a bit worse, because now he's got to face up to the fact that this really is one-sided, that it's not just fear of what Heaven will do that's keeping Aziraphale from saying that he feels the same way. Aziraphale really doesn't feel that way and it's not fair, but honestly, the way the last six thousand years or so have gone Crowley can't be surprised. The universe is stacked against him and it doesn't matter what cards he's holding, the universe has all trumps.

Still, he's a glutton for punishment. Or maybe he's just willing to take whatever he can get. He'd rather have Aziraphale in his life as nothing more than a friend than not have him at all, so here he is in the bookstore, sprawled across a chair and watching the rain lash at the windows.

Crowley hates storms. At least rainstorms. He's never said anything to Aziraphale, but they always remind him of the storm, the one that led to the Great Flood, and that's something that still haunts him. He shifts restlessly in his seat, fidgets with the stem of his wine glass, debates nudging Aziraphale with his toes to get some kind of reaction out of the angel, and finally gets up to go poke through something he shouldn't touch.

Aziraphale looks at him briefly over the tops of his glasses as he ambles over to a table in the back, well away from the windows, although that's absolutely not why he's heading that way. “What are you up to, dear?”

Crowley gestures vaguely at the old-fashioned Victrola and the box next to it, both pristine and virtually untouched. “I'd like to listen to something other than Queen for a change.”

“I thought you liked Queen.”

“I do, but—you wouldn't want to only read one book all the time, would you?” Crowley points to the book in Aziraphale's hand. “Imagine if any book you left in your office for more than two weeks turned into—into—into something by that Christie woman.”

Aziraphale purses his lips thoughtfully. “I do like her works,” he says slowly. “But a constant diet of them—” He shakes his head and gestures vaguely at the box. “Please yourself.”

Crowley smirks. Usually, getting permission to do something he's planning to do out of mischief takes some of the fun out of it, but somehow, he likes knowing that Aziraphale isn't possessive about his things, or at least doesn't mind him touching them. He begins flicking through the neatly-stacked cardboard sleeves.

It's more or less what Crowley would have expected. Bach, Handel, Mozart, a little Debussy, something with a red cover that shows a silhouette of what looks like two people dancing on the beach that Crowley skips over hurriedly because he can only take so much torture in a single day, three or four Christmas albums, and—wait, this is odd.

He stops at an album that looks very different than the others. It's black, mostly, with what looks like a checkerboard falling to pieces—no, he realizes, glancing at the album title, not a checkerboard. A chessboard. Same thing, technically, but it's got a different feel to it.

“What's this, then?” he asks, pulling it out.

There's a pause just long enough to be noticeable. Crowley looks over his shoulder to see Aziraphale staring at the album. He can't read the look on his face, and that's a bit disconcerting, because usually his angel wears his heart on his sleeve.

“A rock opera,” he says at last.

Crowley remembers now. He saw the posters hanging up in the West End, actually considered asking Aziraphale if he wanted to go see it (It's opera, which you like, and it's rock, which I like, which means there's a fifty-fifty chance of us both liking it. Or both hating it. Want to take bets? Loser buys dinner), but the week it opened Aziraphale was awfully quiet and distant and he let the idea go. He never ended up seeing it. Going to the movies by himself is fine, especially since Aziraphale's never quite got the hang of them, but the theater? He can't do that alone.

“Just bought it because it says opera, eh?” Crowley turns the album over to squint at the track list.

Aziraphale clears his throat. “No...well, I went to see it. On opening night, actually. I thought...well, I do like opera, and you're a fan of—of rock music, so I thought I would see if it might be something we could both enjoy.”

Crowley stills. The fact that they'd both had the same thought almost makes him hope...but no, he tells himself firmly, he won't go down that road again. Not today. His heart can't take it. “Reckon it wasn't, then, since you never mentioned it to me.”

“No,” Aziraphale says, almost as if to himself. Crowley's about to say something else when Aziraphale continues, “I'm sure you'd have loved it, dear, but I—I didn't think I could watch it with you and not...I wasn't ready for a second viewing, and then it wasn't playing anymore and...” He waves his hands vaguely, conveying everything and nothing in that maddening way of his.

Crowley hesitates for a moment, then decides, to hell with it. (Possibly, although hopefully not, literally.) Aziraphale obviously enjoyed seeing it enough to buy the soundtrack. And if he thinks Crowley will like it, he's probably not wrong; he hasn't been wrong often in their acquaintance. He slips the first disc from its sleeve and pops it into the Victrola.

“What's it about, anyway?” he asks idly as the overture begins and he settles onto a chair—one closer to the music (and further from the window) than the one he was in before.

Again, there's that short pause, and Crowley looks up to see that indescribable look on Aziraphale's face.

“Chess,” he says shortly.

Which...it is. It's in English (obviously) and since it's an opera, the whole story is in the singing, they don't have to piece together bits left out in dialogue like they would with the soundtrack to a musical, so Crowley can follow the plot well enough. A chess prodigy from America, facing off against a champion from the USSR during the Cold War. It's upbeat and catchy, at least at first.

He finds himself identifying more than he'd like with the Russian character. He seems to be trapped in a situation he'd rather not be part of, like he enjoys playing chess but wishes he didn't have to do it for his government. Crowley can empathize with that.

“How long was this running, anyway?” he asks idly as they hit the end of the first side and he gets up to flip it over.

“Three years, I believe,” Aziraphale replies. He doesn't look up from his book. Must be pretty good, for him to be that intent on it. “It had a run on Broadway as well, but I hear they changed it substantially for that.”

“This is the original, though.”

“Well, it's the concept album. The actual musical had the songs in a different order. But yes, it's the original cast.”

Crowley settles back down for the rest of the first half—he's pretty sure Act One is on this disc and Act Two is on the other, that's how these things usually go—but then the woman who's been trying to ride herd on the American begins her solo and the lyrics grab Crowley's attention.

Maybe I'm on nobody's side...

He sits up straighter and listens intently. She might be singing about herself, her situation, but Crowley hears himself arguing with Aziraphale, trying to convince him to run away, to avoid the entire Apocalypse situation. To acknowledge that they don't have to decide between Heaven and Hell, that both sides are horrifying and it's the two of them that matter. Or maybe not. Maybe it's more that the woman is trying to convince herself to choose.

Like Aziraphale might have done after their argument.

He forces himself to sound casual as the music shifts to another song, mostly instrumental. “Whose idea was that anyway?”

“Hmm?” Aziraphale looks up from his book. He schools his emotions as he does so, but not quickly enough, and Crowley catches the glimpse of pain. He wants to ask about it, but backs down, a coward as usual. At least when it comes to this.

“The USSR,” he says instead. “Communism. All that nonsense. Was it m—you think it was Hell who came up with the idea, or did humanity do that on its own?”

Aziraphale doesn't answer for a moment, but that look of pain comes back and stays this time, and Crowley wonders if he actually changed the subject all that well. “It—actually, I think Michael got a commendation for that. At first. I mean, it sounds wonderful, doesn't it? Everyone equal, everyone cared for, no one better than anyone else? It's exactly the sort of thing She wanted. Until, of course, they denounced all religion and...well.” He sighs heavily. “Humans have always got to take everything just that bit too far, haven't they.” It's not really a question.

“Yeah,” Crowley says softly. He wants to smooth out the frown wrinkling Aziraphale's forehead, to kiss away the pain in his eyes, to hold and comfort him. But he also knows Aziraphale will fuss at him about it, so he doesn't.

The next song is a duet between the Russian and the woman—Florence, if the album is to be believed—and Crowley finds himself falling into it. He doesn't say anything else, too wrapped up in the music as Florence fights with the American and quits. There's a funny interlude as people who apparently work at an embassy of some kind fuss over the Russian's paperwork, and then a surprisingly heartfelt song where the Russian insists he's not leaving his country behind because my land's only borders lie around my heart, and then the needle clicks as the disc ends.

Partly out of morbid curiosity and partly because he can't just leave it there, Crowley gets up and lifts the record off the Victrola, then pulls out the second disc. To his surprise, it shows more signs of wear than the other. It's still in nearly pristine condition, of course—Aziraphale's always been careful with his things, even more so than Crowley who mostly keeps things together by force of will—but still, there are a few scratches, the normal sort of thing you find on vinyl records that have been listened to more often than not.

“You're supposed to listen to the whole musical, angel, not just one act,” Crowley chides as he checks the sides and puts the correct one face up.

Aziraphale mumbles something, but he doesn't look up from his book. Crowley decides not to ask and instead simply starts the record.

The first song is...nothing like the sort of thing Aziraphale usually listens to. It's almost more hip-hop than rock, and Crowley's not sure he likes it, although he does note that the last line of the chorus alternates between I can feel an angel sliding up to me and I can feel the devil walking next to me. Interesting.

The next song is slower, with more piano, sounding almost like something Bette Midler might've sung. Crowley stills as the lyrics begin, and he almost stops breathing altogether when he hears something soft and barely audible underneath the music.

Aziraphale. Aziraphale is singing along to Florence's solo.

Heaven help my heart...

Desperately, Crowley tries to focus on the song. It sounds like Florence and the Russian are having an affair, and Florence is already fearing that he won't love her once she no longer has any mysteries for him to solve. It's almost like pre-heartbreak. And Aziraphale seems to identify with it.

He swallows hard when it ends, but doesn't dare look over at Aziraphale. He guesses the angel has listened to this album more than a few times, and has most of the songs memorized. Still, Crowley can't help but notice that he's not singing along to the argument Florence has with the Russian afterwards. Maybe it's just too hard for him to follow.

Then the next song starts up, and oh, hell, Crowley knows this one. He knows it. It made the Top Ten lists on the radio in the mid-eighties. The first time he heard it, he almost wrecked the Bentley, and he cried for almost twelve minutes straight after it finished and never admitted it to anyone. For about the next two weeks, it was the only song that ever played on any radio station he tried to listen to, thus reaffirming Crowley's long-held theory that the universe is out to get him specifically.

He sits up, holding his breath so he won't say anything stupid, as the words start. Then his brain catches up to the fact that it's not just the record playing and he turns his head sharply. Aziraphale isn't reading his book anymore. He's on his feet, head bowed as he fixes himself another cup of cocoa, and he's singing along softly to the music.

Crowley has to look away.

The music is horribly unfair. It's a duet, between two women, and now that he's been listening to the whole soundtrack he can identify the singer of the first verse as Florence, and he can also guess that she's talking about the Russian. Crowley finds himself whispering along with the second part when the song hits the first chorus and the actual duet starts.

And then the second verse starts, and Crowley can't help himself. He's always identified with that part, and he memorized it even though he didn't mean to, so he sings along, huddled in his chair with his knees pressed to his chest, eyes closed as he thinks back, or more like overthinks, on the last six thousand years. On Eden and Mesopotamia and Golgotha, on Rome and Turkey and Paris. On all those years of knowing, or at least suspecting, that he was the only one feeling this way. The line towards the end of the verse, where the woman says she'd have learned about the man before I fell, has always been darkly ironic to him.

Looking back, sure, he could have played it differently. But would he have?

He loses track of the rest of the world, wrapped up as he is in the song and the way it makes him feel. It is madness, utter madness, that he can't be mine...

He suddenly becomes aware of the music getting closer, and he looks up and makes eye contact with Aziraphale, who's right there all of a sudden, and both of them forget to sing the last line.

I know him so well...

Aziraphale's eyes are wide and soft with all kinds of emotion Crowley can't quite figure out, and they're extremely wet. He's staring at Crowley like he's seeing him for the first time, his hand hovering inches from Crowley's arm. Crowley desperately wants to close that gap, but he can't bring himself to do it, especially as he doesn't feel like he deserves it.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says, his voice small and filled with pain, and Crowley responds to that pain because nothing in him says to do anything else. He untangles his arms from around his knees and reaches up to take Aziraphale's hand like he wanted to do before, and they clutch each other's hands in a way they haven't since the moment they realized they were about to face one of the few beings in the universe with the ability to destroy them both and everything they hold dear. The moment Crowley knew, with utter certainty, that Aziraphale is at the top of that list and let himself hope he was at the top of Aziraphale's.

“Angel,” he whispers, and he's not sure what he's trying to say with it, but he knows it doesn't come out right and he's not sure how to fix it.

Aziraphale licks his lips and shakes his head slowly, not really in denial of what Crowley's saying or trying to say, he thinks, just clearing it a little. “I...that's why I didn't ask you to go,” he says softly. “I couldn't...I didn't think I could sit next to you during that song and not...” He bites his lip and doesn't finish.

“You remember—” Crowley begins, and then he stops, because he's pretty sure Aziraphale doesn't remember. Why would he, after all? But Aziraphale is looking at him again, and Crowley decides to just go with it. He plunges ahead. “Do you remember—there was a while where I refused to listen to the radio, where I'd turn it off as soon as we got in the Bentley?”

“Yes,” Aziraphale replies, surprising Crowley. “You got very...grumpy when I asked about it. I thought I'd done something wrong, but...well, that wasn't long after I saw the play, and I'm afraid I wasn't entirely myself.”

Crowley tightens his grip on Aziraphale's hand before he can stop himself, then eases back so he doesn't hurt him. “No, you didn't. It's just—that song was on the radio constantly, every bloody time I turned the thing on, and I couldn't—I had a hard enough time dealing with it on my own and I definitely couldn't have handled it if you'd been sitting there.” He pauses. “Didn't realize it was from a musical, though.”

Aziraphale nods slowly. There's a vacant look in his eyes. “It's...I know in the context of the show, they're both singing about Anatoly. The Russian. Florence is his mistress and Svetlana is his wife. But I—the first time I heard it, all I could think about was—” He breaks off and looks away, and his hand slides out of Crowley's.

Crowley lets him go, although he doesn't want to. Something about this moment feels important, like he's just missing something. But he's following Aziraphale's lead, like he always has, letting him set the pace of things. Any time he tries to rush things, he ends up inevitably disappointed.

He ends up disappointed when he doesn't rush things, too, but at least then it's not his fault.

The music is still playing, and it sounds like there's an argument going on. Crowley forces himself to tune back into it, partly to distract himself from saying something stupid to Aziraphale and partly because now he needs to know how this thing ends, and it sounds like someone's trying to make a deal of some kind. In a voice that suddenly feels rusty, he asks, “What are they trying to do now?”

“They want Anatoly to throw the chess match,” Aziraphale says quietly. “He's defected—he's playing for the United States now—and they're trying to convince him to lose on purpose.”

“Why would he agree to that?” Crowley demands.

Aziraphale pauses. Crowley looks back at him and suddenly realizes that he hasn't gone anywhere—he's still crouching in front of Crowley's chair, one hand resting lightly on the arm, looking down at the floor.

“They're baiting him,” he says at last. “Florence's father was...he was captured by the Russians when she was a child. They tell him—and her, come to think of it—that if Anatoly loses the match and goes back to Russia, they'll set her father free. They think he might lose for her sake.”

Crowley swallows hard. “He will, of course.”

But Aziraphale shakes his head, firmly. “Never. Florence won't let him, for one thing. The game is more important to either of them than either of their...'sides'. And quite apart from that, he doesn't trust the Russians enough to accept a deal with them.” He looks up at Crowley with a sad smile. “After all, a deal with the devil only benefits the devil.”

Crowley knows that only too well. He wants to reach for Aziraphale's hand again, especially as the American starts singing about his terrible childhood. Instead, he swallows and tries for nonchalant. “So he stands up to the Russians, wins the match, gets the girl...”

“He wins, certainly,” Aziraphale agrees. His eyes slide away from Crowley's.

Suddenly, Crowley remembers a cartoon rabbit dramatically draped in the arms of a metal-clad hunter, raising his head to look briefly at the screen. What did you expect in an opera, a happy ending?

They sit silently through the next bit. It's obviously the final chess game, and there's a lot of arguing going on and some names being mentioned, and then the light, tinkling music that Crowley assumes is the actual game being played. After a few minutes, the Russian starts singing again, and Crowley finds himself empathizing with him once more. He glances at Aziraphale and finds that he really hopes he's wrong about how it ends, because if Aziraphale is Florence and he's the Russian...

And then the Russian and Florence begin singing a duet, and Crowley chokes back a sob, because the heartbreak is unmistakable even before they get to the chorus. But we go on pretending stories like ours have happy endings...

“Is he—he's going back to Russia, isn't he,” he says softly. It's not a question.

“Florence convinces him that it's where he belongs,” Aziraphale says, and his voice isn't any louder. “With his wife and children. But...”

He breaks off as the next line sings out: both the Russian and Florence claiming they're still devoted to this affair. It's the worst kind of heartbreak—both of them still loving each other, but forcing themselves to give one another up for the other's good. Aziraphale closes his eyes.

“S'ppose I can understand that,” Crowley says. He hates it, but he can understand it.

“You can,” Aziraphale says flatly.

Crowley nods slowly, his mind only half on the present and half on the past—the fairly recent past, but still the past. “If we hadn't known both sides were coming for us—if it'd just been Hell coming for me—I'd have gone back to them and let them do what they wanted, so long as they promised to let you alone. So I reckon I'd have given it up, if it meant you'd be happy.”

Aziraphale looks up sharply, and the combination of fear and anguish in his eyes would knock Crowley back a step or two if he was standing. As it is, he flinches back against the chair in surprise. There's a hitch in Aziraphale's voice as he asks, “And what makes you think I'd—my dear boy, they'd have destroyed you utterly. And you think I could have been happy if—?” He breaks off and looks away, but not before Crowley sees the glint of tears in his eyes.

“Angel,” Crowley begins, reaching for his hand, and then he suddenly realizes why it's not working and says, “Aziraphale.”

Aziraphale looks back up, his face open and vulnerable, and he meets Crowley's hand halfway and holds it tightly. “Crowley,” he whispers.

In his name, Crowley hears everything he's wanted to hear for years, everything he thought he'd never hear, and he sees it in Aziraphale's eyes and feels it in his touch, and he grips his hand like a lifeline. He really doesn't think he's imagining it this time, but there's still the whisper of doubt in the back of his mind—the part of him that thinks he doesn't deserve it to be true.

“What if they'd given you a concession, too?” he asks. “Like Florence. If they told you they wouldn't hurt me, that I just wouldn't be allowed back—would you have let me go then? If it meant we were both safe?”

“No,” Aziraphale says, promptly and decidedly, startling Crowley. “Absolutely not. After what happened that day? I wouldn't have agreed to let you walk away from me if it was the only way to save the rest of the world.”

Crowley blinks at Aziraphale, because that's absolutely not something he'd ever expect to hear from the angel. “I thought you angels were supposed to be for the good of humanity or whatever.”

Aziraphale's lips tighten briefly. “First of all, most of the angels are no more for the good of humanity than most demons are. They're for the good of Heaven, and if that just so happens to be good for humans, fine, but if not, I doubt Michael or Gabriel would lose much sleep over that, so to speak. And second, while I am for the good of humanity...” His expression softens, and he tightens his grip on Crowley's hand. “I'm also very, unabashedly selfish. And up to that point, I had always convinced myself that I had time, that there was no need to upset the Arrangement, that everything was going along fine. And then, suddenly, it wasn't, and the end was coming, and I almost lost you. I told myself that if we survived that, I wasn't going to waste another minute.” He sighs. “And then I've rather wasted a lot of them, I'm afraid.”

The record clicks off and the shop goes silent, except for the rain, which Crowley's still trying to ignore. He tries to think what Aziraphale might consider wasting time. “Why, what do you think you ought to have been doing with them then?”

Aziraphale takes a deep breath. He gets up off of his knees and lets go of Crowley's hand, but in the split second between losing the contact and Crowley's panic starting, he leans over and braces himself against the armchair, one hand on each arm, and bends down so that his face is level with Crowley's. Very deliberately, he reaches up and pulls Crowley's dark glasses off of his face and sets them on the table next to him without taking his eyes away, so there's nothing between blue eyes and yellow. Crowley ought to be anxious about losing that filter, about being so open and vulnerable, but it's Aziraphale, the one being he's always wanted to let himself be vulnerable around but never thought he could.

“I ought to have told you the moment the world didn't end that I love you,” he says.

“Ngk,” Crowley replies, which isn't really an answer, but his brain has just short-circuited. He's been dreaming of a moment like this for centuries—millennia, really—but he's always expected it to be more dramatic, more like in the movies. And more to the point, he's always assumed he would be the one to say it. He's never really expected Aziraphale to say it back, except in his wildest fantasies.

“I don't know if you ever knew,” Aziraphale continues. “Certainly I went out of my way not to let you know, but...honestly, Crowley, you're so intelligent, I rather thought you'd figure it out sooner or later. Still, I ought to have told you sooner, and I hope you can forgive me for not.”

“You—wait!” Crowley flails a little, more mentally than physically, but he also doesn't break eye contact with Aziraphale. “I—I honestly had no idea, angel, I thought you—you don't mean that, do you?”

“I do,” Aziraphale says. “With everything I have in me. I love you, Anthony J. Crowley. I've loved you since I saw you on the ark, surrounded by children and trying to pretend you were just thwarting the Plan. I loved you at Golgotha and I loved you in Rome and I loved you in Paris. I loved you when we first came to London and I loved you during the Blitz and I loved you in the Dowlings' garden. I loved you two weeks ago and I love you now, Crowley, and I will love you long after the world stops turning and the final battle does come about.”

Crowley tries to come up with an excuse for all of this, another explanation besides reciprocation of the feelings he's always believed were one-sided. The thing is, he can't. For as smart as Aziraphale seems to think he is, he cannot for the life of him come up with a single reason why Aziraphale might not mean exactly what he's saying, except for the sheer, inescapable fact that nothing good ever happens to Crowley. He stares at Aziraphale, mouth hanging open slightly, at a total loss for words.

Aziraphale stares back. There are a few emotions on his face and Crowley can't quite read any of them, at first. After a moment, though, he recognizes one of them.

Fear.

Oh. Oh. No, that isn't happening. Not on Crowley's watch. Not now, not when he has this chance. He won't blow it like he's blown everything else.

“I love you, too,” he blurts out. “I think I've loved you from the beginning, really, from that moment at the Garden wall when you said you'd given up your sword, but I didn't really realize it until later, I thought—I don't know what I thought, but it's been there, all these centuries, and I—I thought it was just me or I'd've said something sooner and—”

“—And I'd have hurt you dreadfully by pretending I didn't love you, so perhaps it's best that you didn't, sweetheart,” Aziraphale breaks in gently.

Crowley gets hung up on the sweetheart for a minute, so it takes him a bit to catch up with what Aziraphale actually said before that word. “You were pretending that anyway,” he accuses.

“Yes, but so long as I didn't say it...” Aziraphale sighs. “It took me longer than I'd like to admit to realize you felt this way, too. Once I did, I rather hoped you knew how I felt but were sensible enough to keep things quiet.”

“So you wouldn't be seen to be consorting with a demon,” Crowley guesses. Heaven's always been so sanctimonious, and so bloody smug about it. Aziraphale's just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing, but he still bought into all that nonsense a lot longer than someone as intelligent as he is ought to have.

Aziraphale takes Crowley's hands in his and straightens, pulling him to his feet as he does so, and they stand toe-to-toe, facing one another, holding hands in a way Crowley's always wanted. He so rarely gets to touch Aziraphale and he's wanted it for centuries, and now here they are. He relaxes into it, even though he's dreading what's coming next. Aziraphale's eyes are so serious as they bore into Crowley's.

“Crowley,” he says quietly, “do you know what Heaven would have done if they had known?”

“They'd have kept us apart,” Crowley says. He's thought of very little else. “Called you back Upstairs. Like they tried that one time, back in the 1800s. You remember?”

Aziraphale shakes his head, and Crowley's going to describe the incident in more detail when Aziraphale says, “No, nothing like that. I was never worried about what they would do to me. Much, anyway. But you...Crowley, they'd have accused you of seducing me. Tempting me away from righteousness or some nonsense like that. That's not something they would have ever forgiven. So I kept it to myself, and I thought...well, the Arrangement worked well, neither of us got bothered very much, so they certainly wouldn't think we were friends and I could at least keep you in my life. And then I realized you felt the same, and I...I got frightened. Because I know well enough that if you ever said it out loud...”

“Heaven would know,” Crowley completes.

“And so would Hell.”

Crowley hisses. “I'd never have let them touch you.” The very idea of it makes his blood boil. Crowley would fight a lot worse than the forces of Hell for Aziraphale.

“It wasn't me they'd have come for,” Aziraphale says softly, and Crowley remembers again just how intelligent the angel really is—and how intuitive. “Heaven would have seen you doing what demons do—tempting and leading astray—and punished you for targeting an angel. Hell would have seen you getting distracted, going soft. They'd have gone after you, dearest, not me. And the very thought terrified me beyond reason. Hell would have destroyed you utterly, but Heaven would have made you suffer first.”

Crowley shudders, remembering the look on Michael's face, the punishment he'd had in store for Aziraphale. He was able to stand up to it because he was doing it for Aziraphale—and because he knew that it wouldn't hurt him really—but the look of contempt and sadistic glee still haunts him. That expression didn't belong to someone big on mercy.

“Either way, wouldn't have been good,” he manages. “For me, at any rate.”

“Or for me. I never would have forgiven myself if I'd been the reason something happened to you. And I wouldn't have been able to survive without you.” Aziraphale tightens his grip on Crowley's hands. “After six thousand years...I cannot lose you, Crowley.”

Crowley's chest constricts, and it's hard for him to catch his breath. He never expected to hear such a heartfelt declaration from his angel—can he actually say that now, his angel? Yes, he supposes he can. That's what all this is boiling down to, isn't it? Aziraphale loves him. He loves Aziraphale. That makes Aziraphale his. And—he'd swallow if he had the air to do it—it makes him Aziraphale's in return.

Aziraphale looks at him for a moment, his expression as serious as Crowley's ever seen it. Finally, he says, “I would very much like to kiss you now, dearest, if you'll let me.”

What Crowley wants to say is I would very much like to kiss you back. What he wants to say is I've been wanting that for at least five millennia. What he wants to say is What are you waiting for?

What he actually says is, “Wg.”

His eyes must convey what he wants to say, though, because Aziraphale lets go of his hands and cups his face gently and tilts it towards him, and Crowley closes his eyes and oh...

The touch of Aziraphale's lips against his is everything he's imagined and more. They're soft and warm and pliant, like the rest of him, and so gentle and tender. Crowley finds himself grabbing desperately at the lapels of Aziraphale's jacket, frantic for something to hold onto lest he find himself floating away into space. Aziraphale slides one hand to the back of Crowley's head, threading it through his hair, and shifts the angle.

Crowley whimpers slightly, and Aziraphale evidently takes it as an invitation to deepen the kiss, which it absolutely would have been if Crowley had known before this moment that was possible. He gasps and tightens his grip on Aziraphale, then melts under the combination of heat and tenderness the angel is pouring into their kiss.

When at last Aziraphale breaks away—slowly, ever so slowly—Crowley finds himself gasping for air and reluctant to open his eyes. He's also vaguely aware that he's trembling all over.

“Crowley?” Aziraphale sounds worried. “Are you all right, dearest?”

“Fine,” Crowley manages, and it's only partly a lie. He's better than fine, actually, he feels fantastic, but at the same time he feels open and vulnerable and known for the first time since he became a demon, and it's a bit much to handle. He forces his eyes open and tries to smile, but he's still a little shaky. “Is it always like that?”

“Is it—have you never kissed anyone before?” Aziraphale asks, obviously startled.

Crowley wonders, for a brief moment, if he wants to be able to say yes, of course I have, or if he should want that. Instead, he decides to be honest. “No. Never wanted to, really.” He hesitates. “Well, except you.”

He sees Aziraphale's expression, interprets it as shock or disbelief or skepticism or some combination of all three, and he does what he often does in these situations: babble. “I know, I know, it's proper demonic activity and all that rot, seducing and luring with sexual wiles and whatnot, but that's not me, angel, that's never been how I work. And I never met anyone that seemed worth wanting to kiss. Never met anyone who was a patch on you, and that's the big thing, I think, is that I compared every person who ever even flirted with me to you—”

“Been that many, then?” Aziraphale interrupts, and Crowley misses the flash in his eyes.

“Yeah, a few,” he says distractedly. “Mostly before we came to England for good, but one or two since then. Parts of the city get a bit—”

He's cut off abruptly by Aziraphale tugging him sharply forward and kissing him again. It's not like the first time at all. Crowley can feel all the emotions in it: passion and a bit of lust and a hefty dose of what feels like possessiveness, and all he can really do is hold on and ride the tide of heat. In a distant part of his mind, he registers that he's being claimed, that Aziraphale is staking his territory and damn anyone who says otherwise. It occurs to him, with a rush of surprise, that Aziraphale might be jealous, even though he's got no reason to be.

He's panting for air when Aziraphale finally lets him up, and he's definitely shaking again. “Yeah, okay, that answers that question then,” he says, a bit dizzy.

Aziraphale, damn him, smirks, rubbing his thumb against Crowley's cheekbone. “I've admittedly had a bit of practice. I'll be happy to show you.”

Crowley definitely feels jealous himself at the thought of the angel kissing anyone else like that. It must show in his face, because Aziraphale's expression softens, and he plants a brief, gentle kiss on the corner of Crowley's mouth. “Only once or twice, while you were taking that long nap of yours. I...I think I was trying to banish the memory of the way I treated you.”

“'S not your fault,” Crowley protests. Now that he knows how Aziraphale's always felt about him—and that Aziraphale knew how he felt in return—a lot of things make more sense. “You know I've never looked at anyone but you, yeah?”

Aziraphale blushes. It's unfairly adorable. “Crowley,” he murmurs. “Will you stay?”

Crowley's heart flutters, and he clutches Aziraphale a little tighter. He's never wanted anything more. “As long as you like, angel.”

“Forever,” Aziraphale whispers.

At that single word, something inside of Crowley rights itself and snaps into place. For the first time in six thousand years, he's right where he belongs. He's home.

“Yes, Aziraphale,” he whispers back, wrapping his arms around the angel's neck and pressing his face into his shoulder. “And even longer.”

#good omens #ineffable husbands #ineffable idiots #azicrow #ollie writes fanfic

31 notes · View notes

yamisnuffles · 4 years

Text

Falling For You

A week after receiving the thermos of holy water from Aziraphale, Crowley leaves London to try to clear his head. It goes even worse than expected. Luckily he has someone to save him from himself.

Read on Ao3

- - - - -

Crowley was falling. No, not like that. He'd already done that once and thankfully it wasn't the sort of thing you were expected to do twice. Also not like that. That sort of falling, for someone as it were, was something you could do more than once but Crowley never had. Well, perhaps he had but it had all been for the same person, time and again. No, this was a completely mundane fall, the sort humans did countless times a day. Only, this was no trip over a step and he was no human. He was a demon who had accidentally stumbled right off a cliff.

It was stupid. It was so stupid that he couldn’t think of anything else. He really wasn’t looking forward to explaining himself in Hell when he got discorporated. Did he leave out the part where he’d seen an angel, got so distracted by that fluff of hair as white as the cliffs that he hadn’t paid attention to where he was walking? Of course, if he left that out, it just left him with the scenario where he’d gone and stepped right over the edge. For no reason. There really wasn’t a good way to spin it. He’d have to spend however many decades getting mocked for it while he waited for a new body.

Great. Fantastic. What a way to finish the week. Start it by going too fast and end with a quick tumble to his death.

He closed his eyes and readied himself for a crash into the rocks. Instead, he heard the loud whump of something large passing through the air above him and came to an immediate stop. His eyes snapped back open to find that the very angel who had literally just about distracted him to death had come to save him. Aziraphale had his arms wrapped around him and his cloud white wings flared wide to abort their fall.

Crowley thought he should say something but apparently thought was still not playing nice with him. Instead he garbled out a bit of nonsense as Aziraphale adjusted his grip on him and flew back up. Aziraphale had Crowley held flush to his body in an iron tight embrace and Crowley thought he was just as likely to discorporate from that as from the fall.

Aziraphale flew up, up, up, until they were nowhere near the cliff edge and then lay Crowley on the grass. His arms were still draped loosely about Crowley, as though he was afraid if he let go altogether, Crowley would toss himself to the sea. Unlikely, Crowley thought, given that all he could do was gawp at the angel’s still unfurled wings and the light press where their bodies met at the hips on the ground.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said, in his best, most chastising tone, “what were you thinking?”

Crowley worked his mouth. He still couldn’t get his brain to work, let alone form words. Maybe he had died and he had been granted one last ridiculous fantasy before he left his body.

“Well?” Aziraphale pressed.

“Wasn’t. Thinking.” Try again. “Wasn’t thinking.” This whole impromptu trip was an exercise in that. He’d climbed in the Bentley without a destination in mind and driven until he hit the sea. “Was just sort of-” He waggled a pair of fingers like legs to get across the idea of walking.

“You just walked. Off. A. Cliff?”

“Nnnnnnh…” If he hadn’t wanted to tell Hell that he’d fallen because he’d spotted Aziraphale, he certainly didn’t want to tell the angel himself.

Aziraphale took his nonanswer as confirmation. His face crumpled and his sea blue eyes turned grey. “I know we didn’t part on the best of terms and while I’m quite glad you didn’t turn to the holy water for this, I didn’t think… I had hoped…”

Crowley felt like he was tumbling off the cliff again for the way his stomach plummeted. He waved his hands quickly to stop that line of thinking. “Angel. Angel. Angel.” There were tears falling onto his face now and Crowley couldn’t handle it. “Stop. Hey. It wasn’t on purpose, okay? I was just out here to clear my mind because being in the city was starting to drive me crazy and then who should I see but you and I, er, well. Ijustwalkedoffonaccident.”

Aziraphale blinked quickly to try to rid himself of some of the tears. “What was that?”

Crowley wrinkled his nose, swallowed hard, and sighed. “I said I just walked off on accident. I was so surprised to see you here that first I thought maybe I was hallucinating. Then I thought, hallucinating isn’t good. Then you were running toward me and shouting and I guess I figured that was a weird thing for a hallucination to do. But that meant you were really here. So then I felt stupid for staring and, well, ah, off I went.” He shrugged his shoulders as best he was able while lying in the grass in an angel’s arms. “Whoops?”

It was Aziraphale’s turn to gape. His mouth worked around word that wouldn’t come. Finally he said, “It was an accident? Truly? Why didn’t you fly back up yourself, then?”

Crowley blinked. Good question. “Uuuuuuuh… Could have done that, couldn’t I? Not my finest hour, gotta say.”

Aziraphale pulled Crowley in for a proper hug. With the Principality’s surprisingly strong arms, Crowley felt like he was being crushed. He wouldn’t complain, though. Wouldn’t dream of it. It felt like Heaven or better, really, since it was Aziraphale embracing him like both of their lives depended on it.

“Oh, Crowley. Oh, thank goodness,” Aziraphale said between sniffling breaths.

Crowley felt hot tears soak the shoulder of his jacket where Aziraphale’s face was buried. He let his hands flutter uselessly for a moment before he finally worked up the courage to put them on Aziraphale’s back. “There, there. Wouldn’t do for an angel to cry over a demon,” he said. He moved them in what he had intended to be a soothing motion but the effect was probably ruined by the way they jittered with his nerves. After more hesitation, he reached a little further and let his fingers ghost over feathers. And then, though he hated to say it, “Also probably wouldn’t do for any humans to see those.”

Aziraphale finally remembered himself. He released Crowley with a start and folded his wings safely back into another plane as he shuffled backward. With a water laugh he said, “Right. Silly me.”

Crowley tried to regain some dignity from the day’s events by picking himself off the ground and rematerializing sunglasses that he’d lost in his fall. He brushed off his jacket with his hand to buy himself a moment more. It wasn’t enough. When he looked back at Aziraphale, the angel’s eyes looked startlingly blue against the red that rimmed them.

“So, I guess you were out here for the same reason as me? Get away from London and-” You. He didn’t need to say it for Aziraphale to understand.

The angel nodded. “Funny that we both ended up in the same place.”

“Yeah, funny that.” He scratched the back of his neck. There was still air that needed clearing. “I know you still have your own ideas about why I wanted that holy water and I can promise you that’s not it until I’m out of breath but… What I’m trying to say is… Still the Ritz to look forward to, yeah? Listen, I’m not great with-” He wheeled his hand around in a gesture that didn’t really mean anything. “Anyway, sorry for scaring you, I guess.”

Aziraphale gave him a wide, wobbly smile. “Sorry for being such a distraction that you walked straight off a cliff.”

Crowley laughed, a real whole hearted laugh for the first time since that night with the thermos. “You bastard.” He jammed his fingers into his pockets to keep from reaching out and drawing Aziraphale into another hug. He jerked his chin inland. “Want a ride back? Unless-” Could he say it without shredding his own heart? Two could be bastards and he had a reputation to upkeep. “-You still think I go too fast.”

Aziraphale swatted his arm. “You do drive abominably. But, yes, I believe I would appreciate a lift.” He strode forward a few more steps at the demon’s side before adding, “That is, if you think you can keep your eyes on the road and not drive right off another cliff.”

“Alright. I’m not gonna hear the end of this, am I?”

“Hmmm, no, I don’t think you ever will.”

Crowley groaned. “Look, it’s not like this is worse than marching into the middle of a revolution to get some crepes.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, my dear.”

#crowley #anthony j crowley #good omens #aziraphale #ineffable husbands #fic #my writing

78 notes · View notes

lady-divine-writes · 5 years

Text

Concerning the End of the World ... Again ...

Summary: When Crowley shows up for his picnic with Aziraphale in serpent form and refuses to change into human, Aziraphale fears the worst. (1837 words)

Warnings: Some mild angst and anxiety, but mostly fluff :D

(AO3)

“Oh, there you are! I was wondering when you were planning to show,” Aziraphale says, greeting the long black serpent slithering onto his picnic blanket like it’s an old friend.

Namely, because it is.

His oldest and dearest friend.

And, as of recently, his husband.

“Where have you been? I was getting worried.” Aziraphale side-eyes the serpent, waiting for it to stealthily change into human form. But it doesn’t, winding carefully through the jars of jam and honey, the plates of bread and cheese he’d set out. “Uh … is there a reason you’ve chosen not to transform?” He waits for the snake to give him a sign of acknowledgement. When it doesn’t, Aziraphale chalks it up to his husband’s temperamental nature (he is a demon, after all), and continues the conversation alone. “Well, if you don’t, you’re going to miss out! I’ve gotten a few pears from a local vendor, apples, some fresh strawberries ... I took the liberty of sampling a few, and they’re all scrumptious!”

The serpent pauses momentarily, tilting its head as if struggling with a decision. Whatever the options, it chooses to tuck itself beneath Aziraphale’s knee. From beneath the shelter of the angel’s leg, it pokes its head out, tongue flicking to taste the air. A sensation of dread creeps into Aziraphale’s chest, latches on with hooks, and stays there.

“Wh-what … what’s going on, Crowley? What’s the matter?” He looks about, stretching his own mental feelers, searching for anything not quite right in the area. Of course, if someone was going to detect something not quite right, it would be Crowley, his serpent form the best way to keep tabs on it.

Months ago, they’d both been able to convince their ‘powers that be’ to leave them alone, but how long would that last? Aziraphale naively hoped forever, but Crowley is a cynic. If his assumptions are correct, their brief time of peace was a stop-gap - a calm before a storm of epic proportions.

Greater than Satan himself clawing out of the ground? Apparently.

“H-have you heard anything from … you know …?” Aziraphale subtly points down, but the serpent, eyes locked on a point in the distance, neither confirms nor denies. Aziraphale watches, breath held, overly wary of its cautious behavior. He finds himself suddenly dubious of everyone – the ice cream seller, an older married couple, a little girl riding her trike, a corgi rummaging through the bushes for a ball. It may seem ridiculous, but if the events of the Notpocalypse have taught him anything, it’s that their enemies could be hiding anywhere, could be anyone. “If you have, you’re right to remain hidden. Best to stay under the radar, as they say.”

Aziraphale is uncertain which would be less conspicuous – a distinguished man dressed as stylishly as he sharing an intimate picnic lunch with a man who looks like a rock star, or this right big snake?

Either way, it doesn’t matter to him. As long as they’re together.

Truth be told, Aziraphale is quite fond of Crowley’s serpent form.

Maybe he could try his hand at shapeshifting next time. But what would he become? A dove? Mmm, no. Aziraphale loved doves, but that seemed a bit too on the nose. A cat? A sleek, dignified, yet fluffy Persian? Or a Siamese – all cream coat and stunning blue eyes? Ooo, a Russian blue!

But he’s not sure Crowley fancies cats. Would he want one following him about, or perched on his shoulder, shedding fur onto his clothes?

Probably not.

A dog? Yes, Crowley might prefer a dog. A big, strong, strapping dog - something along the lines of a hellhound, Aziraphale assumes, but he can’t picture himself that way. Not as a menacing beast with glowing red eyes and sharp teeth. But he’s sure he can get Crowley to compromise. Maybe he could be a feisty little Scottish terrier in a smart tartan coat, as long as he also agrees to wear something more Crowley-esque – like a spiky, leather collar. That would surely suit the both of them.

It was actually rather exciting now that he’d given it proper thought.

“I haven’t heard anything either,” Aziraphale affirms, though whether Crowley said he had or not, he doesn’t know. Aziraphale can’t speak to Crowley in his snake form. He can’t speak to snakes at all. Or any animal. Though he did feel a spiritual connection to an owl once back in the 16th century. Rupert, he called it. Regardless, he believes that what he and Crowley have is deeper – a connection that allows him to infer what his other half is thinking, even when those thoughts are wrapped inside the labyrinthine mind of a serpent.

“Honeymoon’s over, I guess, hmm?” Aziraphale says with a forlorn sigh, gazing at the world around him – the world he loves – with bittersweet affection. “I know you’ve had suspicions about a battle to come, I just … I didn’t think it would happen so soon. I thought we’d have more time.” He runs a hand gingerly down the neck of the snake, chuckling to himself. “Listen to me. More time. We’ve known one another for six thousand years! If the end is coming, I guess I should be grateful for the time we’ve had.” The snake rests its head on his thigh and seems to sigh as well – not in defeat, but more like sympathy. Knowing Crowley, he already has plans – escape to the stars, other planets, alternate dimensions. Crowley will know a way out of this. He’ll know what to do. And they’ll be fine, provided things work according to plan. But what about the world? Aziraphale wants to spend forever with Crowley, but something has never sat quite right with him about abandoning this world to do it. “We’ve been walking the middle ground for so long, Crowley. And I will admit, even if I didn’t show it, I always feared one day it would end. I don’t want that day to be now. Not now. Not yet.” He bends as best he can in an awkward position to lean close to the serpent, and the serpent rises to meet him. Aziraphale cups it under what he assumes is its ‘chin’ and rubs it’s snout with his nose. It’s scaly and cold, nothing like the warmth of his husband’s skin, but it’s comforting nonetheless. “But whatever happens, we’re in this together. You and I, till the day we …” The rest gathers at the back of the angel’s throat, huddled in a lump, refusing to come out “… well, you know. But I want you to know, I’m not leaving you without a fight. Not ever. Because … well, because I love you, Crowley. I do. I should have said it a million times – the very moment I knew. But I’m saying it now, every day, as a matter of fact. I love you. I love you, I love you, I love …”

“Aziraphale? What on Earth are you doing?”

Aziraphale stops talking. His eyes go wide. He stares questioningly at the snake in front of him. If he didn’t know better, he would swear it shrugs.

“Crowley?” He sits up, hand still cupping the serpent’s chin, and sees his husband – human form Crowley – standing before him. His jaw drops, the apples of his cheeks glowing a jasper red, brighter than twin stoplights, especially since the rest of his color has drained clear away. “Wha---?” Aziraphale looks at the black snake sitting beside him on the blanket, the one he’s been talking to for the past half hour, then back up at Crowley, who’s taken on a rather defensive stance – arms crossed, hip cocked, glaring behind his dark glasses at his angel’s offending hand. Aziraphale pulls his hand away and swallows hard.

“Th-this isn’t what it looks like.”

***

“Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O no; it is an ever-fixed mark, That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;

“Ah, Shakespeare …” Aziraphale hugs the leather-bound book to his chest, gazing down the length of the sofa he’s on to the serpent lying by his socked feet, coiled against the cold. “In thousands of years, I’ve never had the pleasure of reading works by anyone who could do poetry such justice. Don’t you agree?”

The serpent raises its head, gives a little nod, then rests it on the angel’s ankle, exhaling in contentment.

“Hmm, I do agree. I do agree. So where were we? Ah …”

“Are you reading him sonnets?” Crowley snaps when he walks in and catches his husband curled up on the couch beside the creature he has affectionately begun calling his son.

“He listens,” Aziraphale replies, going back to the book and turning the page, “unlike some people.”

“You forget, I was there the first go round.” Crowley grabs a glass and a full bottle of wine from the desk nearby. “Wasn’t too impressed then, either. Why are you letting him stay here anyway?”

“He followed me home, Crowley! I can’t just put him out! That would be cruel! Besides, I don’t understand why you’re so upset! It’s not like I …” Aziraphale cuts himself short and looks up from his book. “Wait a minute …” A small smile dances at the corners of his mouth, not easily noticed by one unaccustomed to being teased by an angel. But Crowley’s seen it a thousand times “… you’re not still upset about …?”

“Yes! Yes, I am!” Crowley miracles the cork from the wine and drinks straight from the bottle, bypassing the glass clutched in his other hand. “I find it offensive that you can’t tell a common black snake from your own husband!”

“I’m sorry, my dear, but at first glance, you two do look strikingly similar.”

“Oi! Oi!” Crowley points at his angel, stuck for a comeback strong enough to express his displeasure.

“Also, it’s a large, black snake, Crowley! Those aren’t all that common in these parts! How was I supposed to know it wasn’t you? Do you know the odds? Really …”

“That doesn’t excuse the fact that you were getting all lovey-dovey with …!”

“… something that I thought was you!” Aziraphale closes his eyes in frustration and shakes his head. “But don’t worry,” he says, waving away his husband’s ire with a flick of his hand. “I promise not to fall into the same trouble I got into with the last snake that followed me home.”

“Is that so?” Crowley grumps, searching under the sofa and around the stacks of books for the offending bugger. “You have a whole harem of snakes hanging around here, do you?”

“Nope. Just the one.”

“Ah. So tell me, Aziraphale - what happened to him, eh?”

The angel and the serpent, thick as thieves at this point, look at a put-off Crowley, wearing matching smug smirks. “I married him.”

*** Notes: This was a sort of a culmination of different ideas I got from fanart on Tumblr. There's a consensus (I think) that when Crowley shows up in his snake form, Aziraphale automatically knows it's him. So I thought ... what if it doesn't work that way? XD

#Good Omens #Good Omens Fanfic #ineffable husbands #crowley x aziraphale #aziraphale x crowley #fluff #Frankie writes

243 notes · View notes

irisrecs · 4 years

Text

good omens masterpost jan 2020 (classic tropes)

My favourite ineffable fics this month!

Established Relationship

We can have forever— Arej— 3k— General Audiences

Crowley has been holding out his hand, metaphorically speaking, since the Garden, and Aziraphale is ready to take it - to have and to hold it, for all that entails. Only, he wants to do it right. Mother nature has other ideas. Or, Aziraphale gets caught indulging a fantasy, and gets the best possible response.

The Art of Taking a Hint— firenzia— 5k— Explicit

It's about six weeks after their wedding, and the evening before Crowley and Aziraphale's big move to their cottage in the South Downs.

Aziraphale is just trying to have a nice conversation over dinner, but Crowley is somewhat... distracted.

let my imagination run away with you gladly— imperiousheiress— 20k— Explicit

He figures it will be rather simple. All he has to do is send the right signal, and Crowley should be able to pick up on what he wants no problem. He’s a demon, after all. Seduction (not that that’s what this is) is something demons know all about.

And then, they can proceed straight to the kind of ethereal, mind-blowing sex the likes of which has never been seen by either heaven or hell.

It’s rather a perfect plan, if he says so himself.

In Good Hands— Sunjinjo— 14k— General Audiences

Aziraphale was created wearing a golden ring. It’s now the last remaining aspect of his original attire.

One day, he tries to take it off. The rest follows naturally.

Can be read as a standalone work.

come as you are— punkfaery— 10k— Mature

Aziraphale visits a modern art gallery, goes on a diet, and submits to the mortifying ordeal of being known. Not necessarily in that order.

You Light The Fire In Me— Arej— 6k— Explicit

It is seven years to the day since first discovering Crowley’s tattoos that Aziraphale deciphers the secret hidden deep in the tangles of his lower back piece.

Or, Aziraphale solves a demonic magic-eye puzzle, and Crowley is beyond thrilled with the results.

A Safe Place for You— Vagabond— 10k— Mature

Aziraphale will spend the next six thousand years showing Crowley that he's safe, and sometimes Crowley returns the favor.

Friends to Lovers

everything just stops— witching— 4k— Teen and Up

i'm spilling wine in the bathtub

you kiss my face and we're both drunk

everyone thinks that they know us

but they know nothing about

all of this silence and patience

pining and anticipation

my hands are shaking from holding back from you

// taylor swift, "dress"

The Sandford Flower Show— Mussimm— 46k— Explicit

Crowley had waited six thousand years, kept it all in check. But this was the slipperiest slope he’d ever set foot on and as soon as he’d indulged in a few discretionary acts of kindness he was falling face first into pining, tumbling into flirting, about to dislocate his knees on the sharp rocks of intimacy.

Was this really it? What he had waited six thousand years for? A stupid flower show? Aziraphale wasn’t pulling away from him. Maybe… maybe this time he wouldn’t? Maybe they’d hold hands again. Maybe tonight with a bottle of merlot in them he’d finally work up the courage and just kiss him and he wouldn’t pull away.

The very moment he’d thought it he spotted the problem at the flower show.

Demolishing Proofs We Never Believed In— die_traumerei— 35k— Teen and Up

After it was all over, after the apocalypse-that-wasn't, after they wore each others' faces, after the end of all things that wasn't an end -- they did what happened next.

How Aziraphale and Crowley wound up in a cottage in the South Downs, and a few of the things they did there.

Something We Were Withholding Made Us Weak— triedunture— 17k— Mature

"Yes, exactly. Retire." Aziraphale reaches for the last remaining tartlet brimming with summer berries. "Somewhere along the south coast, perhaps."

Or: Crowley and Aziraphale learn to move in tandem.

on the necessity of a temptation— darcylindbergh— 4k— Mature

“Let’s get lunch,” Crowley said, sauntering into the bookshop one October afternoon, his hair a little windswept and his cheeks a little pink from the chill, “what do you think, Le Café du Marché?”

Whatever it was that was waiting to give inside Aziraphale’s chest snapped like a twig. He didn’t even like French food.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said, setting down his book with an argumentative slap. “You don’t even like French food.”

The world hadn’t ended, which was all well and good. If only this had. This, of course, being lunch.

Small infinities and all that— JustStandingHere— 13k— Mature

And there it is, isn’t it? Something they’ve known for a long time, but haven’t named it. Have been too scared to name it. Something that speaks in their bones, in the space between them.

Crowley and Aziraphale are turned human. This is the aftermath.

The Singularity— impossibilitiesandmiracles— 6k— Teen and Up

Surprisingly it wasn’t stopping the end of the world that was hard. It’s what came after. Now that they have some time to themselves Aziraphale and Crowley battle with domestic bliss and 6000 years of pent up celestial angst. Lucky they have each other.

all i need, darling, is a life in your shape— deadgreeks— 14k— General

After everything, Aziraphale and Crowley, by unspoken agreement, begin sharing their lives.

Angsty ones (with a happy ending)

no mind to lose— iselmyr— 2k— Teen and Up Audience

“I do miss when you had more hair, it was lovely,” Aziraphale says, studying Crowley meditatively over the top of his book. They’re sitting in the back room of the shop, not doing anything in particular, and Crowley has done absolutely nothing to deserve a comment like that.

“Ssorry?” Crowley says, startled into half a hiss, because the only reasonable answer is that he was daydreaming or something, slipped off into another world while staring at the ceiling and thinking about nothing, and misheard very dramatically.

can you keep me close (can you love me the most)— taizi— 2k— Mature

When his angel stretches out a hand, cupid’s bow mouth curved into a familiar smile, Crowley knows better.

When he’s led to his own bedroom, pushed down amidst the silk sheets and hastily miracled pillows and a sinful duvet, when Aziraphale leans over him and the whole world seems to hang right there in his eyes, Crowley knows that this is not his to keep.

It’s not for him to have this.

Carpe Diem, Carpe Mei—starknight— 18k— Explicit

It’s the last night before the last morning before the world ends. Aziraphale is looking up at Crowley with pink cheeks and wide blue eyes. And Crowley has nothing left to lose.

How do you politely ask your Divine Nemesis, best friend of six thousand years, and relatively recent allegiance: wanna fuck?

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20358616

His Lips Sealed— LollipopCop— 11k— Explicit

He stared at him for a long moment, and then suddenly surged forward, grabbing Aziraphale by the coat and shoving him hard against the bookcase. Their noses were centimeters from touching, his breath hot on Aziraphale’s skin. “You knew the whole fucking time?” he repeated, growling. “And never said a God damned thing?”

Not at all the response he expected, Aziraphale only blinked dumbly a few times, hands instinctively grabbing Crowley’s, but not pushing him away. Humiliated? He didn’t understand. All of the anticipation he had before was replaced by ice in his veins. “Yes?” he croaked.

Crowley’s trembling fingers tightened around the lapels of his coat. “How could you?”

I was lost at the edge of dying(in a world so cold)—@brokenfannibal— 3k— Mature

Crowley gets captured and tortured by some cult. They know he is a demon so they know how to hurt him.

When Aziraphale finally finds him, he is a complete wreck.

Enjoy, team gang fam.

—Iris

#good omens #good omens fanfic rec #good omens rec #ineffable husbands #ineffable husbands fanfiction #ineffable husbands fanfic rec #my recs #iris recs #fanfiction #omg I can’t do a line break on fuckin m*bile wtf #hit me up if you know how to?? because bitch this shit is hard #friends to lovers #fluff #angst #angst with a happy ending #good omens masterpost #established relationship

20 notes · View notes

dragon-temeraire · 5 years

Text

Put away all I know for tonight

Summary: “I imagine it’s hard to get in the mood when someone might discorporate you at any moment,” Aziraphale muses. “Which means Hell must be absolutely full of sexual frustration.”

“One of the main elements of Hell’s atmosphere,” Crowley agrees.

(Or: Aziraphale discovers that Crowley has never had an orgasm, and decides to help out)

Notes: I just really felt like writing some smut, but with neither of them having any real experience. The sex still manages to be (miraculously) good. On AO3.

_______________________________________________________

Crowley isn’t nearly drunk enough to be having this conversation, but he’s doing it anyway, because he needs to know. He glances over at his sunglasses, sitting innocuously on a side table, and decides it would be too telling to put them back on now. “Angel, is it just food? Is that the only human thing you indulge in?”

Aziraphale, probably also not drunk enough, looks at him oddly. “Well, there’s alcohol, of course. And I’m quite fond of the clothing. So many varieties and colors!” he says cheerfully.

“Obviously they’re delightful,” Crowley says dryly, taking a pointed look at his all-black ensemble. “But I was more wondering if you engage in…self-pleasure.”

Aziraphale makes a thoughtful humming sound. “I do love a good bubble bath, or taking in the smell of newly-blossomed flowers. And it should be apparent that I take great pleasure in both collecting and reading books,” he says. “But if you meant masturbation, then yes, I do that too,” he adds casually.

Crowley chokes on nothing, but manages to recover enough to take a fortifying gulp of wine. “You do?”

“I think you’ve surely realized by now that I’m a bit of a hedonist,” Aziraphale says, smiling. “I’ve tried nearly every sort of pleasure this world has to offer.”

“I see,” Crowley says, distractedly setting his glass down before he drops it.

“Do you?” Aziraphale asks curiously. “Engage in self-pleasure, that is.”

“No,” Crowley says, without hesitation. “I can’t.”

“What do you mean, you can’t?”

“It’s not possible for demons,” he says, shrugging. “Believe me, I’ve tried.”

“What…happens?” Aziraphale asks, then looks horrified at himself for doing so.

“Nothing,” Crowley says dourly. “Nothing at all.”

“So, you can’t—not by yourself—but what about with someone else?”

“Yes,” Crowley says.

“Then you have?” Aziraphale says, cautiously. “With another demon?”

“No,” Crowley says, though he doesn’t particularly want to admit it. “What you’ve got to remember, angel, is that demons don’t trust each other. At all.”

“I imagine it’s hard to get in the mood when someone might discorporate you at any moment,” Aziraphale muses. “Which means Hell must be absolutely full of sexual frustration.”

“One of the main elements of Hell’s atmosphere,” Crowley agrees.

“And you’ve never,” here Aziraphale hesitates, “had an orgasm? Ever?”

“No,” Crowley says again, rubbing at his face and feeling rather more than frustrated. “I haven’t.”

“Well. Would you like to?”

And even though he absolutely knows it is, he still has to ask. “Is that an invitation?”

Aziraphale smiles at him encouragingly, with a little hint of pink in his cheeks. “If you want it to be,” he says.

And oh, how Crowley does want.

Aziraphale feels himself fairly trembling with anticipation as they make their way up the stairs to his flat. He’s very much looking forward to introducing Crowley to a new form of pleasure, and to expressing what he feels for Crowley in a different way, whether Crowley realizes it or not.

Aziraphale’s bed gets only occasional use from his forays into self-pleasure—and much of that has, admittedly, been spent thinking about Crowley—so it’s a wonderful treat to actually see Crowley sprawled across it, looking delectable.

He admires the view for a moment, then joins Crowley, covering him with his body. Aziraphale kisses him first, because he believes this sort of thing should have a lead-up. He himself has spent many hours lightly touching his own neck, and chest, and stomach, places he feels Crowley would kiss him if they were in bed together.

Crowley looks surprised by the kiss, but settles softly into it, mouth opening for Azriaphale. Neither of them are particularly skilled, but that doesn’t matter. Aziraphale fumbles at the buttons of Crowley’s shirt as the kiss deepens, and with a snap of Crowley’s fingers, it’s gone completely.

Aziraphale pulls back far enough to frown at him, but Crowley looks so amused—and aroused—that he can’t hold onto it for long. “Let me handle the rest,” he says sternly, then huffs when he sees Crowley’s boots and socks have joined his shirt on the floor.

In retribution, he presses light, tickling kisses to Crowley’s chest and stomach, making him squirm and grin. “All right, all right, the rest is yours,” he says, gesturing to himself. “Angel, are you planning to take any of your clothes off?”

Aziraphale, who is barefooted but otherwise fully clothed, smiles sweetly at Crowley. “Not at the moment, no.”

Then his hands are at the waist of Crowley’s rather tight trousers, unbuttoning them and pulling them down those long, long legs. He’s met with a pleasant, musky smell as he does, and he looks at Crowley in surprise.

“Oh, making an effort, I see,” he says admiringly.

Crowley looks embarrassed. “This is actually what happens when I’m not making an effort. I can change it, if you want?”

“No, my dear, you’re perfect as you are.” He brushes his fingers across Crowley, where he’s hotter than anywhere else, and already damp. Settling himself eagerly down between Crowley’s thighs, he pauses long enough to ask, “May I?”

Crowley, who’d covered his eyes with his arm, moves it enough to look at him. “That’s what we’re here for, isn’t it?” he says, and it’s an obvious attempt at bluster, but Aziraphale can hear the nervousness underneath.

“I do hope you’ll like it,” he says, then takes a tentative lick.

The texture of wiry hair against his tongue is strange, and on second attempt he does better, pushing between Crowley’s soft lips and finally, finally getting a taste. It’s good, mild and a little sweet, and Aziraphale finds himself breathing in deep as he maps Crowley with his tongue, keenly exploring.

He loses himself a bit, like he always does when trying something new, but he realizes quickly that the noises Crowley’s making are too good to miss. They’re wonderful, desperate and yearning, and Aziraphale wants more. He moves down just a little, just far enough that he can push his tongue inside, and oh, the sound Crowley makes at that.

He thrusts his tongue inside Crowley, slow and deep, loving the way he shoves up into Aziraphale’s mouth, gasping and needy. Crowley tastes even better here, and Aziraphale would be happy to stay right where he is and taste him forever, but knows it wouldn’t be fair to leave him in suspense that long.

He moves away, replacing his tongue with two fingers, curling them up as he rocks his hand forward. He’s touched himself this way and enjoyed it, so he hopes Crowley will too. Then he returns to licking Crowley, running his tongue across him in short, firm strokes as he speeds the pace of his hand.

“Aziraphale,” Crowley says, sounding overwhelmed, his whole body moving and shifting restlessly against him. “Aziraphale, something is happening.”

Aziraphale makes an affirmative noise, working his tongue across Crowley just a little bit faster.

Crowley’s noises suddenly turn ragged, breathless, and he bucks up under Aziraphale as he finds his release, clenching around Aziraphale’s fingers in waves.

He keeps moving, though more slowly and gently, to work Crowley through the aftershocks. Then he carefully pulls his fingers free, and begins to kiss and nuzzle Crowley’s thighs, giving him a moment to recover.

“That’s,” Crowley tries, still sounding breathless. And maybe stunned. “I can’t believe I’ve been missing out on that all this time.”

“I think it’s a bit more intense for us than it is for regular humans,” Aziraphale says. He hopes he doesn’t sound too smug. “But it is rather nice, isn’t it?”

“More than nice,” Crowley mutters, rubbing his hands across his face.

He doesn’t say anything after that, seeming content to stay right where he is and catch his breath.

But left unsupervised Aziraphale has never been great at resisting temptation, and since he’s still optimally positioned to taste Crowley again…he tilts his head and does just that.

Crowley makes a surprised grunt, but rolls his hips encouragingly.

Aziraphale is just getting into the rhythm, Crowley wonderfully slick against his tongue, when Crowley’s hand slides into his hair and tugs him up.

“Angel,” he says a little breathlessly. “Now I need you to make an effort.”

Aziraphale is momentarily affronted—he is most certainly putting forth a great deal of effort—when Crowley’s actual meaning strikes him. And it’s no trouble at all, because he’s been making an Effort this whole time, and had in actuality been rather helpless to prevent it. The pleasure flooding through his body at being able to touch Crowley, to taste him, had needed to be expressed somehow.

It’s also made his trousers uncomfortably tight, and as Aziraphale is rather low on patience right now, with a snap all his clothes are neatly folded somewhere in Crowley’s apartment. Hopefully.

“Is this the sort of Effort you wanted, my dear?” he asks, sitting back on his heels so Crowley can see him.

Crowley’s eyes take a long and languorous path down his body, pupils widening as he clearly likes what he sees.

“You’re perfect, Angel,” he says, and while Aziraphale’s not certain he actually answered the question, he appreciates the sentiment nonetheless.

Crowley opens his arms, beckoning, so Aziraphale settles down on him, gently at first, then relaxing when he realizes Crowley isn’t bothered by his weight. He tips his head down to kiss Crowley, but finds himself distracted by the way he’s now nearly perfectly aligned, pressed up against Crowley’s slick heat.

Crowley looks at him a moment and then folds his legs up, thighs bracketing Aziraphale’s hips, and it changes the angle enough that Aziraphale actually begins to slip inside.

“Oh,” he gasps, startled by both the sensation and by Crowley’s almost immediate come on angel, please.

So he keeps going. There’s a moment of resistance, at first, and Crowley makes a displeased noise, but after a deep breath and a bit of patience, he’s able to slide all the way in, slow and easy. Crowley makes another noise at that, and Aziraphale lifts up enough to take in his expression.

“All right?” he asks, doing his best to keep completely still.

Crowley makes a face, mouth pulling down thoughtfully. “Feels strange,” he says, wiggling his hips a little. Aziraphale fights not to gasp. “More unyielding than I expected,” he says, “but maybe kind of good, too.”

Then he squirms again.

This time Aziraphale can’t help the sound that escapes him, nor can he keep his hips from jerking forward.

“Hmm, that’s it,” Crowley says encouragingly, tugging at his shoulders. “Just need some motion.”

Aziraphale has, of course, observed sex, but observing and participating are two very different things. He never anticipated the way pleasure seems cyclical, how hearing and seeing Crowley’s enjoyment only increases his own. How his body seems almost out of his control—but in a good way—moving and driving toward the sensation it seeks, toward fulfillment.

Fortunately, it seems Crowley is also gaining something from Aziraphale’s admittedly quick, desperate thrusts, body drawing tight in anticipation. His hand steals down between them to touch himself, and it only takes a few rough motions before he’s coming, clenching around Aziraphale.

Aziraphale manages to shudder to a near-halt, letting Crowley chase the dregs of his orgasm, but he can’t manage it for long. He’s aching with need, with pent-up desire, and his hips jolt forward of their own volition. It’s an urgent pace, one that has him burying his face in Crowley’s neck, trying to muffle the moans he’s making. It all just feels too good, like nothing he’s ever experienced before, and the fact that he’s experiencing it with Crowley only heightens the pleasure.

Crowley’s hands slide down to rest at his lower back, an encouraging pressure that helps Aziraphale let go completely. He’s not sure if he’s extended Crowley’s orgasm, or if he’s having another, but he’s suddenly tightening around Aziraphale again, back arching. And all at once Aziraphale’s release is there, and he thrusts deeply into Crowley as he comes. He trembles with it, every muscle tensing, then relaxes into Crowley, breathing hard.

They lay there for a while, sated and still entwined, before Crowley curls a hand around the back of Aziraphale’s neck and gets him to lift up enough to look at him.

“Angel,” he says very seriously. “Angel, we have got to do that again.”

“Of course, my dear,” Aziraphale says, stroking a thumb across Crowley’s cheek and feeling his love burning brightly in his chest. “Any time you like.”

He can see the trust and contentedness in those unguarded eyes, and tries to convince himself that, even if he never has Crowley’s love, this will be enough.

#smut #ineffable husbands #good omens #pining #aziraphale/crowley #my fic

63 notes · View notes