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irlythyra · 8 months

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A Little Miracle

Summary: Aziraphale secretly visits Earth again.

Warning: Good Omens S2 spoilers.

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For the first time in thousands of years, Aziraphale finds no pleasure in the food he's eating. Blandness and dullness—these are the only things he can feel at the moment. But it would be rude to decline Nina's hospitality, so Aziraphale tries his best to fake a smile, making sure to savour the eccles cake and tea Nina gave him for free.

"Are you sure Archangels can just, take a break, Mr. Fell?" Maggie asked Aziraphale, staring into the man's eyes with deep concern as she perched herself on the chair next to him.

"Ofcourse! I have some authority; I can do what I want! Well...I can't always do what I want...there are rules. I do what God wants! Yeah, that's what, hmm, ahem, so!" He stops mid-sentence. Can't have himself questioning God again.

"How are you and Nina?" he asked Maggie, successfully changing the subject.

Maggie tries to hide the glee on her face; her small grin slowly turns into a wide, flustered smile. She leans in closer, excitedly telling the angel how she and Nina have started going on dates just this week. "I mean, I waited six months for her! Not that it was a task really; I would wait years for her, thousands of years in fact." She exclaims.

"Hmm. Thousands of years. How patient."

At this moment, Aziraphale finds himself distraught. Of course he's happy for the soon-to-be couple, but hearing those words...

How long did Crowley wait for me?

How long did I wait for him?

Aziraphale spent his whole afternoon in the coffee shop before saying goodbye to the pair. Nina gave him the most comforting hug. During the hug, Nina whispered in his ear, "Mister Crowley has been sleeping in his car parked in front of your, well, Muriels' bookshop. Everynight." She urged him to visit him.

He could only nod and smile, although he doesn't think he'd have the guts to follow through ("I'll think about it," he thought). Aziraphale ventures to the bookshop next.

He knocked on the door before opening it. A loud gasp echoed throughout the room. "Sir. Aziraphale!" Muriel stood there with her hands balled into cute little fists, which she excitedly shook. A loud thump came after she dropped the stack of books she was holding.

"Muriel...no, those are first... editions." He stumbles through his words, realizing that this is Muriel he's talking to. Aziraphale scans the entire room, seeking comfort in the familiarity of the place.

The chandelier seems intact. The books are properly dusted. The floor isn't dirty. The kid.

Kid?

Aziraphale took a step back. There is a kid scribbling away in his book. With crayons, markers, and everything. What, when-

"Muriel? My book? This kid?"

"It's erasable, sir! Don't worry, Mr. Crowley made sure all the art supplies are washable or erasable," Muriel proudly explains.

Aziraphale sauntered into the room. His eyes were directed only at Muriel. "Crowley?" he asked.

"Yes sir!"

"And this is whose kid?"

"Mr. Crowley's sir."

Aziraphale's stomach fell ill. Muriel can see the quiver of his lips; however, she does not comprehend what it means. He turns around, attempting to blink away tears. His?

"What do you mean?" Aziraphale turned in her direction again, staring at her eyes, hoping that she contradicts his thoughts. "Oh!" Muriel replies, giggling in the process. "He isn't technically his, sir. He's taking care of him."

Quite dramatically, Aziraphale puffed out a breath. As if he wasn't breathing the whole time. "Yeah, he said he found him on some street. Mr. Crowley said he's an orphan, whatever that is. " He reckoned that Crowley was not bothered enough to explain it to her.

He left the bookshop pretty soon. He made sure Muriel was adjusting well. Apparently, Crowley has been assisting her, explaining relevant human terms to her, and teaching her how to act like a convincing human. The whole time, his chest tightened. Every mention of his name drove him crazy.

To clear his mind, if that's even possible, he walked around the street. Inevitably, he ended up thinking about Crowley again.

Should I check on him? Should I talk to him? What would we even talk about?

He was so deep in his thoughts that he didn't realize it was already night, that he circled back to his bookshop, and that there was a familiar bentley in front of him.

"Oh, dear," he breathed out. He reluctantly walked closer to the car, sneakily peering through the window. Just in case he changes his mind about talking to him. As he did, he saw the most heartbreaking thing.

There in the car lay a scrawny redhead, sleeping soundly, clutching a piece of paper that seems to be a picture. Aziraphale noticed the picture he was holding. It was a picture of them during his magic show. He almost let out a small cry. Beside him was a container of travel sweets. On the back seat was the most horrid sight.

His potted plants were all rotting, dry, and...mushy? If you look even closer, you can see random bits of food being devoured by worms, ants, and bugs. The plants are barely alive; he can tell by the slight shiver they make every now and then.

Oh, Crowley, darling, what happened to you?

Aziraphale was about to knock at Crowley's car door, but before his knuckles reached the glass window, a blindingly bright light appeared behind him, and with it came an elevator 'ding'.

"Eugh." he grumbled, already knowing what was going to happen.

"Sir. Aziraphale sir."

"Yes, yes. Leave; I'll be there." he said.

Aziraphale stared at Crowley one more time. Flicking his hand in the air for one miracle. Then he left for heaven.

The next day, Crowley wakes up. Miserable once again. He sits down and fixes himself through the rear-view mirror. "What in the..."

Crowley looks behind him in disbelief. His plants are alive, and their leaves are greener than ever. The bugs and worms are nowhere to be found, nor are the bits of food he throws in the backseat. His eyes turned watery before a stream of tears fell down his cheeks.

"Aziraphale."

#oneshot #short reads #fandom ships #good omens #azicrow #good omens s2 #IHATEHOWTHISSHOWHURTSSOMUCH #neilgaiman:why?#aziraphale #crowley #im crying #angst #michael sheen #david tennant

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ambiguouspuzuma · 3 months

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Redneck

"I mean, sure, slurping is frowned upon - but I can't well let the good stuff go to waste, right? Y'all got all them nice juices down at the bottom of the body, and it'd be a crying shame to leave them for the coyotes like the rest of the carcass. Waste not, want not, as my ma always said, back when we was coming up. You know, I never really got what she meant, until I came to be raising a boy of my own."

Princess Ekara guzzled from their victim between mangled sentences, letting the blood flow freely down her throat. They were amongst friends, secluded here between the trees. Just the three of them, and each of them cursed. She and Count Kajal went back a long way, all the way to the Old Country, and this was nothing that he hadn't seen before - and besides, he'd taken the best bits for himself.

"Well, not my own, grant you, but near close enough. I found him in these here woods, can y'all believe it? Feeding off them slow moving possoms and Lord knows what else, and I'm learning him how to live proper. Taken him under my wings, as they say. Are y'all sure y'all don't want no more?"

"I'm good, thank you," Count Kajal said. He'd brought their quarry down, and that had meant the first glut of fresh blood had filled him up in minutes. It came gushing out if you hit the artery right, and you didn't need to slurp at all.

"That means helping him with his eating, too, of course - he's only a few months undead, you see, and not yet made the switch from solids to liquids. His teeth are still coming in, if y'all can remember what that feels like. Bless his cold unbeating heart. But he's just the most precious thing, the way he tries to chew the gristle down."

Turning, as the elders had termed it, was by no means a one-off thing. A newly formed vampire had to be constantly suckled with some sort of blood - or formula, for those who preferred - to keep the grip of death from taking hold. Before their bodies adjusted, that meant red meat, and lots of it. A balanced diet, with all of the major blood groups.

Princess remembered how it had felt to turn for herself: starting to like her meat rare, and her meals often. She didn't remember much before - the mortal memories often became hazy, lost to the trauma of death. That was why new vampires needed raising: even after learning to feed themselves, they'd forgotten how to do everything else. They were basically kids, even at a century old.

"And he's teaching you the accent?" The boy sat to the right as they caught up, quietly chewing the fat. He would have been a teenager, in human years. Or a corpse. "The dialect?"

"We'll that's the long and short of it, sure," Princess replied. "To help me blend in, best I can, whilst I help him to blend his food. That's the deal we got in place. I teach him to be a vampire, he teaches me to be a regular Joe."

"A regular Joe called Princess," the Count noted, with no small amount of scepticism.

"Oh, that's no problem at all," she said. "We got an Earl or two in the town, a Duke, a Queenie, a Barron. Ain't nobody pays no mind to little old me. Even the surnames really ain't the problem, settling here - y'all get plenty of migrant labourers, Old Country families and the like. We fit in like gecko on a rock. No, the accent's the rub. I can't be talking in that high-falutin, fancy-pants European vernacular. They'll think me awful uppity, and it'll be sore thumbs and pitchforks time."

"So this is all about camouflage." He seemed somewhat relieved. "You haven't just gone entirely native."

"Well, I'm sure fixing to. The boy reckons I still sound like a bad impression, but Lord I'm trying. He says it's like I'm mocking them. Mortal folk can get real snooty like that. But I sure as Hell know they'd mock me if I was talking like we used to."

Princess paused, hearing his own scant lines on replay in her mind. Haven't, not have not. Starting a sentence with So. The old Count wouldn't have ever talked like that. But it had been a long journey here, and it had clearly rubbed off on him too.

"Oh look now, even y'all have softened it a touch, Mister 'I'm good, thank you'. This ain't the land of castles no more, and you ditch the crenellations from your speech to adjust, right? You always got to adapt to survive."

"It seems easier than the cities, at least. More space to hide. More places like this."

She nodded. "We're at home around country folk, y'all got that right. Vampires have always known that rhythm of reap and sow; the milking of the herd, the harvest of the crops. I figure the mob can't come with pitchforks if you're holding onto one yourself."

"American Gothic indeed."

"If you like," Princess said, pushing the finished corpse aside, its remnants now drying on her cheeks and throat. She'd have to show the boy how to get the stains out of their clothes. "I'm just trying to be an ordinary redneck."

#writing #short story #creative writing #original writing #vampires

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