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preraphaelitepunk · 5 years

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Fictober19 Day 25: Ducking Peckish

Prompt #25: I could really eat something.

Fandom: Good Omens

Characters: Crowley, Aziraphale

Rating: Teen (for brief discussion of vaguely phallic pastries)

Warnings: None

On AO3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/20843936/chapters/50389301

“D’you ever wonder what the ducks think about us?” Crowley bounced a frozen pea off a mallard’s head, enjoying the irritated squawk and ensuing scramble for the tidbit.

Aziraphale cut his eyes over at him, lips compressed. “I’ll wager I can guess what they think about you, my dear.”

“Come on, they love me.”

“I think you’re confusing the ducks with me. I love you; the ducks, I imagine, find you an infernal pest and only tolerate you because you bring food.”

Crowley grinned. That was the most amazing, wonderful, jaw-droppingly beautiful thing about this new life after the failed Armageddon: the ease with which they could say things like that to each other now. (The bit about love, at least; they’d always teased and poked at each other. For centuries, it had been their main form of conveying affection.) It wasn’t a panacea — they both still tended toward anxiety under stress, and Crowley still had to fight off the dark seduction of self-hating depressive episodes sometimes — but they were free, without fear of repercussions from their former bosses, and they were together. They were both absolute messes, but they were each other’s messes, and that made so much difference. He’d never believed happiness like this was possible. It scared him sometimes, how precious it was.

“Not really seeing the difference there, honestly,” Crowley said, shoving his sappy thoughts into the back of his mind.

Aziraphale chuckled and bumped his shoulder against Crowley’s. “Oh, hush, foul fiend.”

“Won’t hush. You know you love it, same as the ducks love us. D’you think they tell stories about us to each other?”

“What? They’re ducks.”

“So maybe they tell duck stories. Duck tales, sort of thing. After all, we’ve been coming here off and on for hundreds of years; they probably have ancestral legends about us, going back generations. How long is a duck generation, anyway?”

“I’ve absolutely no idea.”

Crowley pulled out his mobile and jabbed at it. “Five to ten years for a wild duck. Bless me, that’s nothing, poor buggers. So say we’ve been coming here for 350 years, give or take. Say 10 years for a generation, just to make things easy. That’s 3500 duck generations. That’s unreal. Their legends about us must be insane.”

“Again, my dear, they’re ducks. And I think you’ll find it’s 35 generations, not 3500.”

“Humour me, angel?”

Aziraphale sighed as he tossed a handful of chopped lettuce onto the water. “When do I do otherwise?”

“Right, so if we map duck mythology onto human mythology, they must consider us like gods or something. Not God gods, but like, Olympians or Egyptian gods. Lower-case gods.”

“Or mythical heroes, perhaps.”

“Ooh, I like that. I could be Odysseus, famous trickster. Though I’ve always fancied being Set — you know, from Egypt.”

Aziraphale frowned thoughtfully. “Wasn’t he considered essentially a demon?”

“Nah, s’more complicated than that. He killed Osiris, but he was also in charge of chaos and trickery and strangers. Plus, he was ginger.” Crowley landed a particularly choice bit of veg precisely equidistant between four ducks, smiling at the ensuing squabble.

“That does sound a bit like you,” Aziraphale admitted. “So for the purposes of this discussion, the ducks think of you like Set. What about me?”

“Thoth. Creator of writing, god of magic and healing.”

“Ooh, I like that.” Aziraphale considered this. “But ducks don’t have writing. They don’t even have hands; how would they hold a pen? With their beaks?”

“Point. And they don’t have fire, so you can’t be their Prometheus. Maybe you’re their Apollo, then. A shining golden god who brings light and art and beauty everywhere he goes.”

“Now you’re just being silly,” Aziraphale said, but he was blushing and cutting his eyes up at Crowley in that gorgeous way he had.

“Or Asclepius, god of healing. I’ve seen you sneaking in healing miracles on them. You’re really terrible at trying to be furtive.”

Aziraphale pretended not to hear that last bit. “Asclepius was the one with the snake, right? That would fit. That’s the last of the veg, by the way.” Aziraphale considered the plastic sack. “Does vanishing something count as littering?”

“‘Course not, angel. It’s vanished, not there any more.”

“But its atoms are still there, somewhere. I think. They might, I don’t know, contaminate the ecosystem.”

“Shouldn’t think so. Just atoms, not molecules or chunks or something. Its bits go into other bits, make something new. Circle of life thingie.”

“Good.” Aziraphale snapped the bag out of existence. “You know, I could really eat something about now.”

“You, angel? No, I can’t imagine such a thing.”

Aziraphale’s eyes narrowed. “Sarcasm is the lowest form of humour, Crowley.”

“Uh, gotta disagree with you there. Fart jokes, they’re lower than sarcasm.”

“Really, my dear.”

Crowley shot him a teasing sidelong glance. “If you like, I can switch to fart jokes any time. Got a whole slew of new ones courtesy of the Them.”

“I believe that will not be necessary, thank you.”

“You’re no fun, angel. So what food can this infernal pest provide you with? Are you thinking elevenses, or the full meal experience?”

“Elevenses, I think. Perhaps some eclairs? I saw a lovely little bakery on our way over here; we could stop in and get some pastries to take home?”

“Your wish is my command, angel. If you want suspiciously phallic-shaped pastries filled with creamy goo —”

“Crowley!” Aziraphale blushed and lightly slapped Crowley’s arm.

“Well, they are a bit suggestive. The goo spurts out when you bite into it.”

“What kind of penises have you been seeing that you think eclairs are phallic?”

“Didn’t say they look realistic. Just vaguely phallic-ish, that’s all.”

“Honestly, you are a child.”

“Takes one to know one.” Crowley stuck out his tongue, then offered his arm. “Shall we?”

Resting his hand on Crowley’s bent elbow, Aziraphale said, “I’ve quite gone off eclairs now.”

“Come on, angel,” Crowley said as they strolled away. “It’s not like it’s any more suggestive than anything else you eat.”

Aziraphale squawked. “There is nothing at all suggestive about the way I eat!”

“Ha! I should film you sometime when you’re eating asparagus. Or cake, for that matter. The sounds!”

“Are you determined to ruin every food for me? I’ll be too self-conscious to eat anything in public ever again.”

Crowley grinned and put his free hand on top of Aziraphale’s. “I’m teasing. I’m sure nobody else notices; it’s just that I’ve been watching you eat for millennia.”

“And you only just now think to mention how disgracefully I behave? How I sound?”

“It’s one of my very favourite things, angel. Seeing you enjoy yourself makes me happy. And hearing you enjoy yourself,” he couldn’t resist adding, just to see the blush deepen.

“You are a very naughty demon, and I have half a mind to banish you from the table next time I eat.”

“Yeah, you’d never. Not now you know how much I like it.”

Aziraphale gave him a grumpy sidelong look, but he was obviously trying not to smile. “Perhaps not. But you are under strict orders not to smirk at me while I’m eating. Even if it’s eclairs, or asparagus.”

“No promises, angel. I’d do anything for you, you know, but that one may not be physically possible.”

[Author’s note: Apologies for the Duck Tales reference. I could not help myself. Also, apologies for being really bad at titles: my brain insisted on combining an autocorrect joke with a pun. Obviously, I need more sleep.]

#fictober19 #good omens #good omens fanfic #ineffable spouses #ineffable husbands #fluff #general nonsense #aziraphale x crowley #ducks #eclairs are inherently funny to me #because i am apparently 12 years old emotionally

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crystalninjaphoenix · 5 years

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Stalkers and Masks

Septics Inverted

A JSE Fanfic

These are two moments that I really wanted to address, but I felt both were too short for their own story. So I took one and made it a framing device for the other. One’s about Stacy and what she’s going through, and the other is about Marvin and one of his problems. Ehhh, probably not my best work but I’ve done these two plot points all the justice I can.

Read the intro story: Part One | Part Two

Various other AU-related stuff found here

Taglist: @evyptids @awkward-bullshit @watermelonsinmyattic @asunachinadoll @a-humble-narcissus @metautske @odysseus-is-best-boi @acuriousquail @beerecordings

Stacy liked to think that her computer was secure. She kept up-to-date on her antivirus software, didn’t give trust anything that asked for her security information, and kept her passwords on a sheet of paper in her nightstand drawer instead of anywhere digitally that could be hacked. However, she quickly learned that all these precautions were for naught when it came to the living glitch who decided he wanted to check on her every ten hours or so. She’d be browsing the Internet and suddenly the webpage would freak out. That didn’t mean she was being hacked (actually, technically she was) it just meant Anti decided to pop in.

Honestly, she was starting to warm up to him. Maybe that was because he hadn’t showed up in person for the last week so she didn’t have to deal with his personality. Occasionally she’d get an email or text from a blocked user, asking her how life was, if she was safe. And, well, life was better. She’d gotten a new job at a department store with better pay. The hours were good too, now she had time to spend with her kids and also get enough sleep. Things in the city seemed to have calmed down, in that there was less death and disappearance on the news.

But...something was off. There were times when she was out and about, driving the kids to places or running errands on her own, when she felt like someone was watching her. When she looked around, she usually didn’t see anyone. But there were times when she thought she saw...him. To the point where it was starting to freak her out.

One night, after putting the kids to bed, she sat down at her computer and typed a simple phrase into Google: “how to tell if someone is stalking me.” Immediately, the page froze. She hit enter several times, trying to search, but a strange, rapid staticky beeping just came out from her speakers. And it was that moment when she realized it wasn’t just something wrong with her Internet.

A fizzing of pixels later, Anti was sitting on her desk, legs dangling off the side. “What are you, seven?” she asked before her brain could catch up with her mouth.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Anti said. “So what’s up with that search?”

“Are you spying on me whenever I use Google?”

“No, I just installed a program to let me know when certain words were searched. Such as ‘stalk’ or ‘stalking.’” His eye narrowed. “So? What’s the deal? Is it him?”

“I’m...not sure,” Stacy said slowly. “Sometimes I think I see him, other times I just get a...a vague sort of sense that...someone’s watching me. It’s probably nothing, I’m probably just being stupid, but...better safe than sorry, y’know?”

“Definitely, especially considering they could be magically tracking you.”

Stacy gaped at him and his nonchalant statement. “Excuse me?”

“Come on, you were there that night at the diner. You saw that magic was real. Didn’t you think something like that was possible?”

“No, I didn’t.” Stacy leaned back in her swivel chair. “I guess it never occurred to me that that was a-a possibility. I didn’t know the rules for this sort of thing. Sorry, I should have thought—I should have known.”

Anti stared at her, then glitched off the desk and into a standing position. “No, you really shouldn’t have, because nobody told you. It’s not your fault, so don’t assume it is. I could possibly give you a brief overview, let you know what you’re in danger of.”

“Oh! Th-thank you!” Stacy hadn’t realized she was apologizing for things that weren’t her fault. Force of habit, she assumed. She looked at the computer screen, where her question still lingered, unsearched, in the search bar. “Do you think...I-I mean, I know Chase doesn’t have any magic, unless he does and I didn’t know, so...are they teaming up?”

Anti considered this. “Probably. Your ex and the magician aren’t on the best terms, but they’re civil. You’d be in more danger of having the doctor or the vigilante stalking you for him, those guys are closer.”

For some reason, that simple statement made dread pool in her stomach. “H-how many of them are there again?”

“Five.”

“And...and they could all help Ch—help him follow me?”

“Mmm, probably.”

“Oh my god. Oh my god.” Stacy sat on her hands to keep them from shaking. She’d never done anything in her life to warrant so many enemies. And, if she remembered correctly, these guys were responsible for most of the current chaos and terror in the city. She worked hard to take deep, controlled breaths. “Do you...do you have any, uh, um, any info on these guys I could see? You’re all computery, do you have files on them or something?”

“I do. But you don’t want the full files, you’ll lose sleep. I can maybe give you some edited versions...” Anti’s head tilted to one side. He stared intently at her computer screen. She watched as her browser closed and her file explorer opened. By itself, the computer navigated to the downloads folder, then five new folders appeared, each one labeled with a name, followed by (edit).

“Huh...that’s handy.” Stacy scooted her chair closer to the desk, grabbing the mouse. She stared at the folder with his name on it for a while, but she couldn’t bring herself to click on it. Instead, she clicked on the next one down, opening up the folder to reveal various .txt files.

“There used to be photos and videos in here,” Anti said, peering over her shoulder.

“Why’d you remove them?”

“How squeamish are you?”

“I mean...my daughter broke her arm once. It was all bent but I could look at it.”

“I probably made a good call then.” Anti pointed at one of the files, and it opened up. “Brief overview: guy’s a doctor. Not really, ‘cause he got booted from medical school for maltreatment. Didn’t stop him from faking graduation, getting a job at a hospital, and then stealing the patients who wouldn’t be missed.”

“This sounds like the backstory of a horror movie villain,” Stacy laughed nervously.

Anti didn’t laugh. “I’m sure the patients thought they were stuck in a horror movie.” He gave Stacy a dead-eye stare until her smile faded. Then he turned back to the screen. “Police in his home country found out. He ran, ending up here. Started a nice little black-market clinic and kept up his hobby.”

“You know I think I’ll read this one later, when it’s lighter outside.” Stacy hurried to click out of the folder. She opened up the next one instead. This one had videos as well as text files. “...should I be worried about these?” she asked, circling one of the videos with the mouse.

“Nothing explicit, just violence like you’d see in a movie. Criminals get the shit beat out of them. The works.”

“Wait...this is for that vigilante, isn’t it? The one on the news?” Stacy looked at the folder name. “That’s his real—”

“Yep. So if you see a guy who looks like this—” He opened one of the videos, fast forwarding until he got to a good image of the vigilante’s face. “—and he introduces himself to you as that, you better run. Actually, don’t, he’s probably faster than you. Distract him until you can sneak away.”

“He can’t be that bad, can he?” Stacy asked, skeptical. “I mean...getting rid of the criminals in the city? It’s like a real-life superhero.”

“Well, superheroes don’t beat confessions out of mob members and then murder them. He’s probably the safest to have a conversation with, though. Assuming you haven’t done anything illegal.”

“O-kay...then...” Stacy was starting to realize just how deep this trouble she was in really was. She could feel the beginnings of panic edging in on her, but she pushed it away. She’d let herself freak out later. “Wh-what about that magician guy? I think you called him Marvin in the diner? Can he really...magically track me?”

“Probably.” Anti closed the vigilante’s folder and opened up the magician’s. There were a lot of images in this one, what looked like pictures of pages from books. “I’ve been trying to keep track of the spells he knows, but it can be difficult. There’s a good chance he knows a tracking spell, but he probably wouldn’t use it unless someone, like your ex, asked him to.”

“...do I want to know why?”

“Eh, he doesn’t really care for spells like that. If they can’t produce effects he can see, he won’t use them unless necessary. He’s a flashy bitch like that. Has a style and sticks to it. Like that cape, which he only takes off maybe one day per week, and that mask, which I actually haven’t seen him take off yet.”

“Really? Never? Not even to sleep or take a shower or anything?”

“Sleeps with it on. And I’m don’t know about that shower thing, I didn’t put a camera in their bathroom.”

Stacy briefly wondered if his knowledge about sleeping with the mask meant he’d put cameras in the bedrooms, but she pushed that out of her mind for now. “Why? Seems uncomfortable...”

Anti laughed. “Well, a long time ago, he tried a spell he wasn’t ready for, and it blew up in his face. I’m pretty sure he’s embarrassed about what it looks like underneath there...”

“Schneep! I know for a fact you’re in there!” Marvin banged on the door. When there was still no answer, he sighed, looking around the reception room of the clinic where he was standing. He didn’t like this place. It was that kind of almost-nice that looked like it was trying to fool you into thinking it was less shady than it actually was. The good doctor really needed to upgrade his decor.

Having enough of contemplating his dislike of this place, Marvin turned back to the door and started banging harder. “Hey doc! I’m not against melting your door down if you don’t come out in the next thirty seconds!”

The door flung open, and Marvin barely jumped out of the way in time to avoid getting a whack to the face. Schneep poked his head out. He was wearing his mask, which he proceeded to pull down in order to scowl at Marvin. “There is no need for such a commotion, my friend!” he scolded. “I was in one of the back rooms, I did not hear you for a while and then it took me a tick-tock to get here.”

“Whatever. Get a security camera wired up here, or a buzzer or something. I could’ve been a customer who just decided to take business elsewhere.”

Schneep barked out a laugh. “If people come here, it is not because they have options to take business to. But enough of this, what did you want?”

Marvin shifted on his feet. “I...need you to take a look at something.”

“Oh, is that all?” A wave of relief crossed Schneep’s face. He stepped back, opening the door wide enough for Marvin to pass through. “Come in, come in, I can see what it is back here.”

Marvin let Schneep lead him into the operating part of the clinic, but he refused to sit down on the table. “It seems not so serious, so if you would please wait a moment while I take care of this...” Schneep vanished through one of the metal doors leading deeper into the building, leaving Marvin to tap his feet impatiently. He didn’t like this. First of all, this place looked like it was thrown together, and also needed an upgrade. Second of all, he was already having doubts about this, he didn’t want them to have time to fester.

Schneep reemerged, tossing an empty syringe on a nearby tray. “There we are, we will not be disturbed now,” he said. “What is it you need help with?”

Marvin started fidgeting, pulling on his fingers. “Okay. So. I am—look, I’m trusting you with this. You can’t tell anyone, alright?”

“That is no problem.”

“I’m serious. I will literally put a fucking curse on you if I find out you told anyone.”

“Okay.”

“I’ve been working on one that can make it feel like pins are being shoved in your eyes whenever you look at something, and that something can be as vague as a specific color. Y’know, like the literal version of ‘cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.’”

“Now you are going overboard with this. I have no intention of telling anyone whatever it is this is about. This secret of yours is safe with me.”

Marvin exhaled slowly, and looked toward the ceiling. “Okay. Okay, good. Fuck. Here goes nothing.” Before he could change his mind, he reached up and undid the straps of his mask, then pulled it off. He slowly looked back towards the doctor.

Schneep’s eyes were wide. He stepped forward until he was uncomfortably close to Marvin. He raised his hand. “May I...?”

Marvin hesitated. “...fine,” he grumbled. “But take off your gloves, they’re still messy. And be careful.”

The doctor pulled off his gloves, then put his hands on either side of Marvin’s head, turning it from side to side so he could get a better look. “My god,” he muttered. “What happened to you?”

“That’s not your fucking business,” Marvin said through gritted teeth. “But they’ve been...itching for a while now, and I’m wondering if they’re infected or something.”

“I would be surprised if they were not. They look...angry.” Schneep’s eyebrows furrowed. “How old are they?”

“I think about...four years at this point?” Marvin started turning his mask over in his hands. It was hard to remember sometimes.

“Really? I would think only a couple months.”

“Doc, I’ve been living with you for two years and haven’t once taken off my mask. You didn’t think there was a reason for that?”

“Ah yes.” Tentatively, Schneep reached out and tapped Marvin in the middle of his forehead. “What is this?”

“Okay, that’s enough.” Marvin yanked his head back.

“Excuse me, I am concerned! That looks like bone!”

“It’s not bone, it’s just—making my first mask out of ceramic was a really bad idea, ‘cause even magically-enhanced pottery can still shatter.”

“Why do you have ceramic embedded in your face?!”

Marvin resisted the urge to touch the places where the shards had ended up lodging. He had them memorized by now, mostly because of the dead spot in his nerves there. Forehead, upper cheeks, one between his nose and left eye, one above his right. He could have dealt with the rest of the scars, if only the shards weren’t there. “Look, I was wearing my old mask at the time this happened, it broke, I ended up getting pieces of porcelain fucking stuck to my face, can we move on?!”

Schneep raised his hands in surrender, stepping back. “Okay, okay, fine!”

“Thank you.” Marvin began spinning his mask around his pointer finger, using one of the eyeholes. “Anyway, can you tell if they’re infected? And can you help if they are?”

Schneep bit his lip, eyes scanning the damage. “Well, I would have to know what caused them. They look a bit like burns, but in the pattern of knife slashes. Like hot glass.”

“What?”

“Bits of broken glass, heated up so they will burn, flung at your face. That’s what it looks like. There are also parts where I am reminded of Lichtenburg figures.”

“What?” Marvin repeated, exasperated.

“When things are struck by high voltage, patterns will appear. These are not quite the same as scars of lightning, they are...bigger. But I am reminded of them.”

Marvin sighed. “You know what? Let’s just work under the assumption that someone took a hot, electrified knife and repeatedly applied it to my face, that’s probably as accurate as you’re going to get. There might also be some lingering traces of magic in there.”

Schneep rolled his eyes. “Well, I cannot do anything about that, but if they are itching and irritating you, I have some salves that may help. They are in the other back room, the storage one, if you would kindly follow me.”

“Alright, alright, but I hope you find this stuff quickly. Chase is making me watch his ex for him, and I don’t feel like getting into a shouting match with him over not actually doing it.”

It was around midnight when Stacy decided to go to bed. She’d tried to read through the file Anti had given her on the magician, but had to stomp halfway through. Some of these spells...why would anyone want to use spells like that? Instead, she switched to reading the vigilante’s file, managing to finish it. Then she realized it was way too late, and she had to get up early to make breakfast for the kids, get ready for work, take the kids to school, and go to work herself. That was only four things, but that was too much.

She was walking down the hall to her room when there was a knock on the front door.

Fear jolted through her. Who could be knocking this late at night? Nobody good, probably. She stood shock-still in the hallway, waiting for something else. When nothing happened, she swallowed her nerves and crept toward the living room and the front door. Maybe it was nothing?

When she flipped the lights on, the front room looked exactly the same as it had earlier that day. Except for one thing: there was now a brown envelope sitting on the floor, in the perfect position to have been pushed through the mail slot. Stacy slowly stepped forward. She peered through the peephole on the door, seeing nothing on the other side. So she looked down at the envelope on the floor, then bent over and picked it up. She turned it over in her hands.

There were words written on the back of the envelope. “Hello sweetheart.”

Stacy recognized that handwriting.

She collapsed on the couch, staring at the envelope, listening to her heart pounding in her ears.

He’d found her.

#jacksepticeye #jacksepticeye fanfiction #jacksepticegos #septic egos #septic egos au #antisepticeye #chase brody #marvin the magnificent #dr schneeplestein #septics inverted au #invertedau #brigid writes fanfiction

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