#some voids are too big to pretend you are gonna replace that emptiness with something else | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

trashcanband4 · 4 years

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Therapy Sessions Ch. 3

Ch. 1 Ch. 2

Pairing: NeganxOc (Kelly). Setting: The Sanctuary. Warnings: Ooc Negan.

Three weeks went by. She would sleep on the other side of Negan’s bed. Wake up to him gone, do a morning work out, eat whatever small amount of food was left on a plate on the table then wait for Negan to come back just to be prodded with what he called get to know you question’s. These questions were so pointless and superficial that she swore that Negan was simply trying to bore her to death. Frankly she was getting tired of it.

It was after the twentieth or so question of the day that she asked, “Why are you wasting time and resources on me?” finally snapping, raising her voice at him for the first time. “Why are you dead set on this?” she stood up and looked down at him.

He glared up at her. “I don’t know. I just know I need to.”

“God, you are so…” she started but stopped, not being able to think of a word that described him.

“Charming,” he said as she stood up, looking down at her, “handsome, generous, drop dead fucking sexy as hell.” He finished with a smile and a slight lean back.

“Annoying…ass-hole…arrogant… bastard.” She spat the words at him then moved to turn around, but he grabbed her by her arm and pulled her back around to face him. Her eyes traveled to his hand on her sleeved upper arm then back up to his glaring, dilated eyes.

“I have taken it easy on you, Dead Girl.” He warned her. “Talk to me like that again and you’ll join Daryl on easy street.”

“Good, do it, it has to be better than do you like this, do you like that, when did you lose your virginity, when did you have you first kiss, blah blah blah blah blah.” She said in her best deep Negan voice. “If your goal is to drive me fucking bat shit crazy then congratulations you’ve won! The fucking gold metal goes to surprise, surprise, you! Asshole of the year everybody!” she was yelling at him and finally lashing out, but it wasn’t enough for Negan, he needed more.

So with glaring eyes and a strained grin Negan he wrapped his long fingers around her neck and shoved her back until her butt hit the edge of the table causing glasses to rattle then pressed his lips to hers. He was actually surprised that she started kissing him back and placed her hands on his sides. As her tongue snaked its way into his mouth she slid one of her hands up to rest on his chest. His hand on her throat relaxed as his eyes slipped closed. Feeling him relax she swiftly, slid her hand across his chest and used her forearm shove him back with all her might.

He stumbled back, hand still in there air where it had been on her neck as his eyes slowly opened. As he saw her panting with flared nostrils and fire in her eyes, a smirk spread across his lips. “Well, I wasn’t expecting that.” His words had no effect on her. “But that, right there,” he motioned to her face, “I did. You fuckin’ look like you want to murder me right now, Darlin’.”

“I fucking hate you.” she growled still seething in anger.

“According to that kiss, you fucking love me.” He said with another cheeky grin and a jerk of his chin.

“Don’t flatter yourself.” She told his as she walked around him. “It was a distraction tactic and it worked.” She grabbed her plaid shirt off of the bed and shrugged it on.

With her back still to him she drew in a calming breath then held it a few seconds. “Holy shit, he just fucking got to me. He fucking did it. I felt pure…raw rage for the first time since Markus left me. Oh my God, is that when all this started, when he left me? Is that when I started shutting down? And whoa, that kiss. I had thought about Negan kissing me before, when he first brought me here and I thought that sex is what he wanted from me, but holy fucking shit was that good.” After silently panicking she let the breath out. “What’s next, you gonna try to make me cry?” she asked as she turned around and walked past him and sat down in her dining chair on the left side of the table. “Boo hoo hoo my children died and my husband left me. You murdered two good men and took me away from my people. You made Kelly angry waah.” She rubbed under her eyes as she pretended to cry then dropped them from her faced and let her face turn sarcastic. “I don’t cry anymore. In order to cry you need to hurt and I can’t get hurt anymore.”

“Getting hurt is part of living.” Negan responded. “Shutting down like you’re doing is hurting you.”

“I can’t feel anything.” As she spoke her eyes fell to the floor. “What I’m doing is self preservation.”

“No, what you’re doing is selfish.” He countered.

“How so?” she asked.

“By not letting people in, you’re robbing them of the pleasure of knowing you, of having a friend in you. Hell you are drop dead fucking gorgeous.” She rolled her eyes at him. “Seriously, I’m surprised some poor fucker hasn’t turned just from lookin’ at you. If that kiss is any indication I’m sure you’re a good fuck too.” He was trying to get under her skin again.

“None of that is true.” She said with a head shake. “As for being a good fuck…I don’t even remember what I’m like.” She shrugged then leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest.

He moved to straddle her outstretched legs. Her eyes took in his big hands that gripped the arm rests of the wooden chair she was sitting in before she let them travel up his plain white t-shirt covered chest, his neck, his lips then his eyes. “Do you want me to help you remember?”

“No.” Negan was surprised to see that all that rage he had seen before was now gone and she was back to her cool calm collected self. “I may be mentally broken…but I still have morals. I’m not your wife.”

“Would putting a ring on your finger get you to open up to me…let me in?” he asked, still leaning over her, staring her down in the chair.

“No.”

“Tell me why not.” He said leaning down a little more as if that would get to her, “Explain yourself.”

“If you didn’t have other wives…If I knew making a vow and putting a ring on my finger would make me something special to you, then maybe it would help. Maybe, but you’ve already admitted between the lines that you don’t see them as real wives. So why would I want that for myself?”

“I guess as you see it now you wouldn’t.” he stood back up and moved to sit in the chair across the table from her. “But you’ve already got one advantage over them. I don’t allow them to sleep in my bed. I don’t give anyone anything without expecting something in return. Most people here, they work for points and those points are spent on what it takes to keep them alive and comfortable. My wives, they earn their keep by keeping me happy. Then there are the people that are good for nothing but working the fences.” He explained a bit of the inner workings of the sanctuary to her. “What have you given me to earn what you have been given? As I see it you are in negative points right now which is not a good place to be.”

“I didn’t realize that’s how it worked.” She said quietly, hating the fact that she was now in debt to him. “I’ll earn my point’s… Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”

“All I want you to do for now is let me help you.” he answered.

“I don’t know how to do that.” She whispered more to herself than him. “I can handle being thrown into a room to be isolated and abused. I can even handle physical torture, but I have spent years building up these walls that you’re asking me to break I…” for the first time in a long time she felt her eyes water, but she didn’t let the tears fall. “What if I break?”

“That’s what I’m here for.” He told her as he leaned up and placed his arms on the table. “If you break, it’ll be because I made you. So I’ll pick up the pieces and put you back together.”

“And how do I know I can trust you?” she asked sitting up to mimic how he had his arms cross on the table. “How do I know that you don’t intend on breaking me and leaving me that way? How do I know that you don’t get some sick sadistic pleasure out of breaking people?”

“Blind faith?” He answered and she shook her head no. “Do you know why I chose you?” he asked and she shook her head no again. “I’ve seen a lot of people with the same void look in their eyes and it never bothered me before, I never cared before. But something about you, something about how you looked at me, made me care. I care too much about you to break you indefinitely. I can’t find out what has drawn me to you until you are alive and care about the people in your life.”

Kelly sighed and let her head fall onto the table, her forehead pressed into the cold wood as she covered her head with her arms. “You might as well stick me in the cell next to Daryl. There is no fixing me. I’m too damaged…”

“You don’t have a choice, sweetheart.” His whispered, soft words made her pick her head up and rest her chin on her arms that she folded on the table. “I’m gonna fix that fucked up head of yours rather you fuckn’ want me to or not.” He stood up and locked the door and chained it shut. “You’re goin’ to stay right here. You can fight me every inch of the way, but it happenin’ darlin’.”

The fire was back in her eyes for a split second. So it surprised him when she said, “Fine.” And just like that the hatred in her eyes was gone, replaced again with emptiness. “Do your worst.” She said as she stood up and walked over to stand chest to chest with him. Her boldness also surprised him. She kept doing that, surprising him when he thought he had her figured out. “Try to make me feel something other than rage, but it won’t work. I…feel…nothing good.”

If he was being honest, she had him riled up, harder than a rock the way she kept glaring at him, her chest pressed against his. He wanted to grab her and this time push her against the door and take her right then and there, but he knew that wasn’t the way to go about getting to her to truly open up to him. Instead he bit his lip and nodded then walked around her to sit back down at the table. Her eyes followed him curiously. “You know, Daryl’s been asking about you. Every time someone goes in to feed him he asks where you are and what I’m doing to you. He’s threatened to kill me several times if I lay a hand on you.”

She sat down on the bed and pulled her knees into her chest. Negan noticed her start chewing on the inside of her lip as she stared at the floor. She had never done that before, but Negan had never spoken about how Daryl was doing before. He had mentioned here and there about what he was doing to Daryl and how he intended on breaking Daryl, but never had he mentioned Daryl’s side of things. Kelly had cared for Daryl at one point a long time ago. He’d saved her on more than one occasion and in more than one way.

“No comment?” he asked making Kelly’s dark eyes snap up at him. “Do you care about him?” he watched her suck her lip into her mouth and shake her head as her lips slid between her teeth. “Could’ve fooled me.”

“I cared about him…past tense.” She answered as she dropped her legs to hang off the edge of the bed.

“Tell me what you think about Daryl.” He told her as he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest.

“No.” she shook her head, her brown frizzy waves slapping her in the sides of the face.

“Why not?” he asked, trying to not let his aggravation show.

“Because I’m not going to give you ammo to use against him.” She answered.

“What is said between us in this room stays here in this room.” he told her and she just stared at him. “As soon as I walk out of that door I will forget whatever you may tell me. We can’t talk about your past for forever. We need to talk about the here and now. The people you surrounded yourself with and what you think about them will tell me about you. So talk to me.”

“Fine.” She said as she leaned back to lay on the bed. “What I think about Daryl.” She sighed as she stared up at the ceiling. “He’s a damn good man. Loyal to a fault. Protective of his people. He’s saved me a lot, even when I didn’t want him to. We were close before I fell away from everyone.”

“What about Rick the prick?” he asked as he stood up and took off his leather jacket.

“God where do I start with Rick?” she scoffed. “He’s a leader, hardheaded, strong. He doesn’t take shit from anyone. He doesn’t always make the best choices, but his heart’s always in a good place when he does. He’s pissed me off more times than I can count, but he’s still a good guy.”

“What about that guy…Spencer?”

“Arrogant, entitled asshole not worth the air he breaths.” She answered quickly.

“Good to hear that, because I killed him yesterday.” Negan answered causing Kelly to sit up and look at him.

“Why?” she asked flatly.

“He was trying to weasel his way into my good graces…trying to play me and I saw right through it.” he answered.

“Stupid.” She said making Negan think she was calling him stupid for killing Spencer. He glared at her, making her realize how Negan took her word. “Spencer, not you.” she clarified. “So you’ve been inside Alexandria?” she asked and Negan nodded. “Have you met Judith, Rick’s daughter?”

“Yep, she’s a sweetheart. I made her and Carl dinner then rocked her to sleep while I waited for Rick the prick to come home. Speaking of home, you guys have it made there, electricity, running water…”

“I know I’m in no place to make requests, but can I ask that you don’t hurt Judith?” she asked quietly.

Negan stared at her for a second. “I’d never hurt a toddler.”

As he thought about Negan rocking Judith to sleep, she remembered that when she was brought to the doctor, one of Negan’s wives was leaving the office and the doctor threw away a negative pregnancy test as Kelly walked in. “Can I ask you something?” she asked and Negan motioned for her to talk. “Do you like kids?”

“I love kids, they’re the future. I worked with them before the turn.”

“Do you want kids?” she asked and Negan just stared at her for a second, trying to figure out what she was getting at.

He smiled a little, showing off his dimples before he finally answered. “I would love to have a kid one day.”

“Is that why you have all those wives? To try to have a kid before you bite the dust?” she pulled her knees to her chest again and wrapped her arms around them, thinking he was going to get mad or lash out at her.

“Hadn’t thought about it like that, but yeah, I guess that’s one of the perks.” He said with a smile on his face at the thought of having a kid. It didn’t matter which one of his wives was the mother. He just loved the idea of being a father.

After a while of sitting in silence, which was odd given that Negan was in the room, Kelly dropped her toned legs, clad in black yoga pants, from her chest and stood up. “Am I ever going to get to see what else is out there besides the doctor’s office and showers?” she asked as she walked over to the counter in the room and poured herself a glass of water. She took a drink as she turned and leaned her hips against the bar.

“The day you truly open up to me will be the day you see something other than these four walls.” He answered and she swallowed then nodded. “Oh, I almost fuckin’ forgot.” He said as he jumped up and walked over to her. “The doc. pointed something out to me today. Mentioned you might be needing these soon.” He took the glass out of her hand and replaced it with a stack of pink wrapped sanitary napkins. She wrapped her hand around the stack and dropped her hand as she looked up at him to see if he was embarrassed. Most men would be in this situation. The inner workings of the female body tended to make most men squeamish. Negan however looked amused. “Felt like a dumb ass walking around with those in my back pocket all day, just so you know.”

She smirked at him a little and simply said, “thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He gave her a small smile in return. “Lucille used to make me go get those things all the time. She always got really sick during that time of month.” He said as he turned his back on her and walked away a bit.

As she scanned his back, taking in his broad shoulders, covered with a white t-shirt, slim waist and his ass, clad in grey pants, she felt the urge to touch him. “Fuck. This isn’t happening.” She told herself as she started chewing on the inside of her lips again. “I’m not starting to feel something for him. I just…I find him attractive, that’s it, plain and simple. I don’t like him or want him.” She reassured herself.

“You hungry?” Negan asked getting Kelly’s attention. “I’m fuckin’ starvin’.”

“I could eat.” She answered with a numb nod, Negan noticed the distracted look on her face, but decided to drop it for now. “What time is it?”

Negan looked at his watch then answered, “Six twenty-five.”

She realized then that she was actually starving and had missed lunch. “Time flies.”

“I’m gonna go grab us some dinner.” He said as he put his jacket back on and walked out of the door without another word.

When Negan was gone, Kelly pulled the sanitary napkins out of her pocket and looked at them, then around the room. She’d been there for almost a month now and in this world if you stayed in one place longer than that you started to call it home. Here felt nothing like home and as she looked at the napkins she realized they were the only things she could call her own here along with the necklace on her neck.

For the first time since she had gotten there she thought about Alexandria, about home. The old folded up photo of her kids that probably still sat on her night stand. The pictures they had drawn her that was still taped to the walls. Her clothes that hung in her closet. She missed having her own room and her own things. She didn’t think she ever would miss Alexandria.

With a sigh she tucked the napkins back into her pocket and took her necklace off of her neck. It had been so long since she opened it that she feared that it wouldn’t, but after sticking her thumbnail between the pieces, it popped open. The faces of her husband and children looked back at her. Her old life flashed before her eyes and before it could get to her, she clipped it shut and took a deep breath. She pushed back the tears before they could make it out of her eyes. Negan had really done a number on her when he pissed her off.

She was letting the breath out when Negan opened the door with a tray in his hand and a reusable shopping bag in the other. She hopped up and took the tray from him to place it on the table. “So what’s for dinner?” she asked as she turned back toward him.

“BLT’s and fresh fruit.” He answered and her mouth instantly watered. “But first I went shopping for you.”

“What?” she asked, a little confused.

“Here.” He handed her the shopping bag with a recycling symbol on the side of it and she hesitantly took it from him.

“What is this gonna cost me?” she asked still not looking in the bag.

“It’s on the house.” He answered causing her to glare at him. “It’s not a trap, I promise. I just figured you could use a few things of your own.”

“Okay…” she drawled as she set the bag on the bed and started taking things out. A hair brush with hair ties wrapped around the handle, bobby pins were hooked on the elastics, a notebook and a few different colors of pens, a Mac cosmetics lip balm that changed color depending on the ph of lips, a Too Faced black eyeliner and mascara set, deodorant, toothbrush, toothpaste, a compact mirror, tweezers, nail clippers, a nail file and a small tube of bath and body works hand cream. “Are you sure there’s not a catch? This is a lot of stuff and not cheap stuff I might add. The makeup alone is like, eighty bucks.” She knew she was making a good case for him to take the stuff back, but she didn’t want to owe him anything.

“Really, those three things are worth that much?” he asked disbelievingly and she nodded at him. “Well they’re worthless to me so take them.”

“Okay, if you insist.” She said with a nod.

While she put the things back into the bag, Negan started taking the lids off of their food. When she turned around she saw that he had found her necklace that she’d left on the table. She froze, as she saw that he had opened it and was looking at the pictures. When he looked up at her their eyes locked. “I’m guessing these are you kids.” He said as he looked back down at the pictures. “And this is your husband.” He pointed to the picture of Kell’s husband. “What are their names?” his tone told her that she had no choice but to answer the question.

“Darcy and Xavier were my kids. Markus is my ex husbands name.” she answered wondering why he cared what their names were.

“That’s what I thought.” He sighed making her cock her head at him in confusion.

“What?” she asked as he snapped the locket shut and handed it to her.

“Markus isn’t at Hilltop or The Kingdom.” She stared at him, wondering what he was getting at. “Markus is here. He's one of my men.” Negan said quietly.

Kelly just stared at him, a million thoughts flying through her head. Would he tell Markus that she was here? Would he use him to try to break her? She couldn't see Markus again, not when he was the cause if her shutting down in the first place. "Are you going to say something?"

"I don’t know what to say." She whispered as he took in the look of pure fear on her face.

"Do you want to see him?"

"NO!" Kelly answered louder than she meant to and Negan cocked his head to the side. "If I see him again I will not hesitate to kill him or at the very least re-break his nose."

"That is something I'd like to see." Negan told her with a smile then remembered that Markus's nose was broken when he first came to the sanctuary. "Wait, you broke his nose before he left Alexandria?"

"I told you things got ugly between us." She answered with a shrug.

"Elaborate." He told her as he picked up his sandwich, but when she didn't answer he looked her over a little closer and noticed her hand on her stomach. Seeing that she was so upset she couldn't eat he changed his mind. "Never mind. Calm down, eat your supper and well cover that topic in the morning."

Eventually her nerves untangled enough that she could eat and as soon as she was done she crawled into bed before Negan then quickly went to sleep.

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shipaholic · 3 years

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Omens Universe, Chapter 12 Part 1

This chapter was too long for one update but lacked an obvious mid-chapter break, so excuse the cutting off mid-scene that happened here :/

gonna break into a bookshop~

Link to next part at the end.

(From the beginning)

(last part)

(chrono)

---

Chapter 12

Aziraphale had not missed Crowley’s driving.

“Crowley, please! There’s a child in the backseat!”

“I didn’t want him here!”

Crowley took a corner on one wheel.

“Why doesn’t your car have seatbelts?” Adam called.

Aziraphale miracled him a seatbelt. He gave it a tartan pattern, to spite Crowley.

They had barrelled through central London and were just entering SoHo. They would be at the bookshop ahead of schedule. This was because Aziraphale had made the schedule naively banking on Crowley driving within the speed limit.

“So, uh.” Crowley coughed. “It’s definitely the bookshop we need, right?”

A tiny alarm bell of suspicion went off in Aziraphale’s mind. He glanced at Crowley. The demon’s face was studiously casual.

“There’s nowhere else you can… what are you planning to do, exactly?”

“Yes, it has to be the bookshop.” Aziraphale narrowed his eyes. “Why, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

Aziraphale stared at Crowley as if trying to x-ray him.

“It’s still there, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Crowley said quickly. “It is absolutely still there. Very… existent.”

Aziraphale left a suspicious pause, knowing Crowley would blurt something out to fill it.

“Michael runs it now. You know Michael. Tall, stern, loves a pompadour. We’ll have to get past her, that’s what I’m saying. She’s, ah. She and I have… had a few clashes. Over the years. Loves to thwart, does Michael.”

Aziraphale relaxed. He knew Michael had replaced him as Heaven’s agent on Earth. It made sense that Crowley would want to avoid her. She had always been exceptionally smitey.

“Well, don’t worry. I think we can evade Michael. We’ll have to be pretty speedy, but this shouldn’t take long.”

Crowley still looked tense. Aziraphale’s demeanor softened. “You’re frightened of her, eh?”

“Not as frightened as she’s about to be,” Crowley muttered.

Crowley found a set of double yellow lines on a back street and parked the Bentley on top of them. They shifted up one parking space to accommodate him, making the Jaguar at the end of the row retroactively illegally parked.

“Is there a reason we’re still five blocks away?” Aziraphale enquired.

Crowley pretended not to hear. He waved the other two out of the car. Assembled on the pavement, he and Aziraphale looked like they were overseeing a poorly attended field trip.

“OK, people. It’s breaking and entering time. Delicate operation ahead. If you see books, you’re in the right place, if you see an angel with a business-casual sort of vibe, hide behind a shelf or something.”

“Are you quite alright, Crowley?”

“Never better!” Crowley beckoned the other two closer. “Er, reckon we should go in with a miracle. The stockroom ok with you?”

Without waiting for an answer, he snapped his fingers.

They all got to enjoy the short-range teleport sensation of their insides arriving at their new location shortly after their outsides.[1] Aziraphale stumbled and clutched Crowley’s shoulder. Crowley felt as though he’d come to the end of the night, glanced at the wine label and realised he’d accidentally miracled the good stuff into cheap plonk rather than vice versa. Adam looked green. He held something in his arms. It was the old book the woman from earlier had left on the back seat. Crowley supposed it would work as camouflage or something.

He looked around.

This area of the bookshop was new to him. In Aziraphale’s day, the stockroom had been a carefully collated jumble sale, full of everything too precious or secret to allow anywhere near a customer. Aziraphale had jealously hoarded his books of prophecy and his Bible misprints here.

Now, it was… a void.

A white, featureless void.

Crowley couldn’t tell if they were in a room, or on some kind of astral plane. The whiteness was so absolute that he could distinguish no edges or corners. There seemed to be a floor and walls, but who knew where one joined up to the other. He rarely needed his sunglasses for their intended purpose, but right now he was glad of some relief from the blinding whiteness.

At intervals around the room(?) were towers of books. Someone had stacked them with mathematical neatness rather than the higgledy-piggledy effect that would arise despite best efforts if placed by human hands. They seemed to extend forever, passing through the point where the walls should be, stretching out like infinite reflections in two mirrors positioned face to face. Aziraphale’s books had been a treasure trove, lovingly curated. These books were a sterile display, assembled for their geometry rather than contents. Crowley wondered if the pages even had writing on them.

Aziraphale stared around and shuddered.

“I’ve had quite enough of that for one lifetime,” he said.

“Where are we?” said Adam.

“A pocket of Heaven.”

Aziraphale spotted the exit at the same time as Crowley. A short staircase - white - led up to a door that was also white. It was hard to spot when nothing cast a shadow. Aziraphale started towards it.

Crowley’s pulse leapt. It was still early in the evening, well within normal opening hours. He had a half-baked notion that if they could wait until the lights upstairs were off, he could hustle Aziraphale through this part of their journey without him noticing… well.

Aziraphale stopped, suddenly arrested by something.

“Oh, Crowley! It’s my books!”

Hidden behind a stack was a battered cardboard box. It was large enough to fit about eight paperbacks. Crowley came over and stood over it besides Aziraphale. When he looked down, he saw that the bottom of the box stretched down into a cavernous space. It was like a trapdoor to an entire hollowed-out mountain. Inside were heaps upon heaps of books.

Aziraphale looked dismayed. “Has she just dumped them all in here? No care at all, honestly. Some of these need to be in temperature-controlled cases. I don’t know what she’s playing at.”

Crowley suspected this bubble of liminal space was about as temperature-controlled as you could possibly get. If one were to distill the concept of neutrality, this room would be the result. He didn’t want to start an argument, so kept his thought to himself.

“The poor things. It’s so disrespectful.” Aziraphale tutted. “Maybe I should sneak a few with me…”

“Focus, angel.” Crowley couldn’t help grinning.

Adam ambled over. He wasn’t paying attention to his surroundings, which had exhausted their interest for him after five minutes. His nose was in the book he was lugging around. Crowley frowned at it. Aziraphale’s attention was still on the cardboard box. He slipped out a few books from the top of the pile. His gem glowed, and the books vanished inside it. Crowley spotted Mrs Beeton’s Guide to Household Management.

It seemed they were just hanging around, then. Crowley stuck his hands in his pockets.

“Mind letting me know the plan?” he said to Aziraphale. “Just to pass the time.”

“Oh! Certainly.”

Aziraphale fished out the watch on a chain from his waistcoat pocket and looked at it. Crowley rolled his eyes, indulgently. The watch had regenerated along with the rest of Aziraphale’s body. Presumably, it was for show and did not keep time.

“Right. The plan is to wait until closing time, and head on out to the main shop -”

“I was afraid you were going to say that,” Crowley sighed.

Aziraphale gave Crowley an eagle-eyed stare. “You’re being very peculiar. What’s the matter?”

“It’s nothing, honestly,” Crowley said hastily.

Aziraphale glared. His gaze slid from Crowley to Adam. “And what is that you’re reading?”

“Nothing,” said Adam.

“Will everyone please stop saying ‘nothing’?”

Adam was used to ignoring adults. He continued to read. He wasn’t normally a big reader, but this book was his favourite kind: a lot of it seemed to be about him.[2] He turned a page.

Aziraphale sighed. He turned towards the door. He listened intently.

“I don’t sense Michael in the other room…”

He tiptoed up the steps and pressed his ear to the door. He slowly turned the knob. The door opened, soundlessly.

It was surreal to see a window to a real place open up from inside the Heavenly void. A normal-looking bookshop lay beyond, dim and empty.

“She’s closed up early,” Aziraphale whispered.

Before Crowley could stop him, he stepped through and into the main shop.

“Oh Chr - crumbs,” he muttered, and followed.

He was hot on Aziraphale’s heels when the angel twigged something was very, very wrong. Crowley nearly ran into the back of him between the neatly arranged shelves.

Aziraphale revolved, slowly. His uncomprehending gaze flitted from the shelves of books set out in logical order, to the displays of mascot-friendly soft toys, to the table of board games all priced at £55 each.

“What,” he said.

“Er,” Crowley said, desperately.

Aziraphale turned to him. His face was full of distant, dawning horror. It was the face of a person who has just discovered a loved one has been body snatched.

“Crowley, what has happened to my shop?”

“It’saWaterstones,” Crowley garbled, ripping off the bandaid.

A distressed sound came from Aziraphale’s open mouth.

“Waterstones are all right,” said Adam, utterly failing to read the room. “They’ve got a café upstairs.” He looked wistful. It had been a long time since his birthday cake.

Something in the air turned. It smelled sickly sweet and made the back of Crowley’s throat tight and cold.

“Aziraphale,” he said, urgently.

Aziraphale’s eyes were lost and bewildered.

“D’you think the café’s open?” Adam asked.

Footsteps sounded on the stairs to the first floor. Calm, measured steps, with a sensible heel.

“I wasn’t aware I should be expecting guests,” came a managerial sort of voice.

Crowley looked up. The Archangel Michael stood on the staircase. She was holding a muffin.

“I rather assumed your side was making preparations for the oncoming destruction of the Earth.” The blue of Michael’s eyes cut through the dimness of the shop. “I take it this is not a social call?”

She’d eaten a few bites of the muffin without spilling a single crumb on her suit jacket, cravat, or enormous lace sleeves. She snapped her fingers to miracle the rest of it away.

Crowley was getting desperate. Aziraphale seemed to be in a kind of fugue state, which meant getting out of here with their skins intact would be down to him. His track record versus Michael was not good.

“Let’s see what we have here. The demon Crowley. How’s the arm?”

A pinprick of wriggling discomfort ran all along Crowley’s arm, under the glove. He resisted the urge to grip it with his left hand.

“The Principality Aziraphale. I was not aware you had clearance to return to Earth. Can you explain this unauthorised visit?”

Aziraphale was silent. Crowley’s eyes hunted for an escape.

Michael took in Adam from a distance. Her eyes flicked from his trainers to his t-shirt to his shorn head. Her eyes went very wide when she saw the horn jutting out through his close-cropped hair.

“Oh Lord, it’s the Antichrist.”

The aura of smugness vanished. If Michael had still been holding the muffin, she would have dropped it. Her head jerked back to Crowley.

“What are you doing here?” Wariness crept into her voice.

Crowley felt Aziraphale stir. He turned towards Michael by inches. There was a hum in the surrounding air. Crowley thought he heard wind whistling.

He looked at the being he loved most in the world and gulped.

The slightly foxed, kindly bookseller facade had fallen away. There were tempests in Aziraphale’s eyes. He looked like an occult entity with a berserk button that had been decisively pressed. Phrases Crowley would never have thought to apply, like ‘eldritch abomination’, now seemed exceedingly applicable. A black glow suffused him, as though light didn’t work properly in his vicinity any more. The shop’s lights flickered above his head. On a metaphysical plane, hundreds of eyes flicked open.

“Michael. I believe you’ve been responsible for my shop.”

---

[1] Which is preferable to the other way around. It’s also tidier.

[2] The part he was on heavily referred to his companions, a ‘devil’ and ‘angel’. Adam assumed this was Agnes Nutter’s 17th century conception of aliens: devils because they were scary, angels because they came from space. Had he explained his reasoning, Aziraphale would have been waspish in the extreme towards whoever had been in charge of the boy’s religious education.

(link to next part)

#omens universe fic #omens universe #good omens #good omens fic #ineffable husbands #steven universe #*popcorn .gif*#Michael is imo underused as an antagonist #as far as Aziraphale's concerned this is a fate worse than fire #this is when Aziraphale truly renounced Heaven #I would just like to say that I have nothing against this particular chain #and will probably buy most of my Christmas presents from them this year

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