A short (~1k) scene inspired by Chapter 9 of @mrghostrat's absolutely glorious Big Name Feelings human AU fic. Hope you like arms?
"C'mon, angel, not even gonna crack a smile at that one? Whales, get it? Whales."
Aziraphale felt like his cheeks were on fire from trying to keep a straight face at Crowley's increasingly terrible puns. "I would hate to tacitly encourage this behavior."
"Pfft, you love it." Crowley grinned at him, far past being undaunted and fully into the realm of being energized by Aziraphale's failed attempts at stoicism.
"You're utterly ridiculous." Aziraphale didn't even bother trying to make it sound like an insult, and the half of the screen taken up by his webcam made it clear his cheeks were as pink as they felt. "And I can't help but feel like you're stalling. Hadn't we agreed to be actually productive today?" Aziraphale didn't mind, really; he did want to keep making steady progress on his art, but if his life could consist of coming home from work and just unwinding with Crowley...
...but, well, that wasn't the purpose of this call.
Crowley groaned. "Yeah, yeah. What a taskmaster."
"It is my job to protect you from rabid fans, after all," Aziraphale teased right back.
"O Brave Guardian, protect me from procrastination!"
"That sounds rather harder than a dragon, I'm afraid. But if you don't get to work, I won't be able to work either, and then you won't get to see the finished piece."
"Urk—" Crowley made a strangled noise and finally reached for his mouse. "You'll actually be working on it?"
Aziraphale nodded before adjusting his webcam to show his tablet a bit more. "I really need to get more practice with this, to get half as confident as I am with physical paints."
"I've seen the drawings you've done! They're fucking brilliant."
Aziraphale laughed. "You've said that about everything I've shown you. I'm starting to think I should send you some stick figures as a test."
"Those would be the most adorable fucking stick figures ever. You could draw a whole comic of just stick figures and I'd reblog it a hundred times."
"That's about what I'd expect you to say, yes." Crowley opened his mouth to protest that his compliments were always earnest, and Aziraphale cut him off. "Weren't you going to start writing?"
"Ngghh, right, yeah. Alright, lemme just pull up my docs and then we'll get started bodydoubling for real." Crowley clicked over to screenshare his window as he opened his fic notes. He'd long since stopped hiding anything from Aziraphale; getting to bounce ideas off of him was too invigorating, and his heart always sang at getting to write down his name with official beta credit. (He'd also long since stopped pretending to himself that he'd ever felt quite the same way about any other beta.)
"Good lord." Aziraphale sounded more than faintly appalled, and Crowley felt offended for a moment before taking a proper look at what was on his screen. It was currently showing the notes he'd made at 3 AM this morning, when he'd woken up from a dream and jotted down what had, at the time, felt like a brilliant scene. As always, he'd had his eyes mostly-closed the whole time and his swipes had been clumsy at best, but as long as it got the general point across, he was always satisfied. It only wound up being a usable scene about half the time, but he wasn't about to turn down free inspiration when he could get it. He quickly read through the imagery he'd written down.
They switch rolled over and opened their eyes. In the still morning sunlight they could set the witchfinder still sleeping cloudy enough to touch: his head ears cradled on his arms, the misos slack with sleep but still clearly there under surface. The words knew from experience that if he were awakened stable the strength would flour back into them in an instant ray for a fight. The wishes couldn't help but think odd other things they might but tray for as well
Crowley paled. "I— that—"
"I mean, it's. Well. It's rather avant-garde."
Crowley froze. "I, uh—"
"'The misos?' And 'flour?'"
Crowley stuttered out of his bluescreen and hastily opened another tab, the screenshare automatically switching over. Aziraphale had read it, but he clearly hadn't actually understood it. As long as he didn't give him enough time to crack the cipher that was 3 AM notetaking, Crowley could bluff his way through it. "Zuh. Yeah. Wrote that down in the middle of the night when I got an idea of where I wanted to start the next scene off."
"And you could recognize any of that?" The camera jostled a little as Aziraphale shook his head. "I suppose I wouldn't do any better if I tried sketching out an idea in the dark." He picked up his stylus and started doodling simple shapes, warming up and re-acclimatizing himself to the responsiveness of the device. He was still getting used to the new medium, but he was finally starting to see a path forward to making a digital art style that felt authentically his own.
"Yessss." Crowley bit his tongue to cut off the guilty hissing. It definitely didn't help that the webcam was doing a very awkward job of catching the tablet screen but showed a very distracting hint of Aziraphale's forearms. The forearms he had, at 3 AM, apparently woken up from a dream about and been so inspired by that he'd felt the need to immortalize them in fanfiction.
"Well, I shall be interested in seeing how that gets transformed into comprehensible English."
"Right, definitely." Crowley was typing gibberish and backspacing over it quickly, more to hide how much attention he was having to devote to this conversation than out of an actual need to warm up his fingers. "Right, definitely focusing on writing now!"
Aziraphale laughed as he cleared his tablet screen and pulled up his WIP, shifting into concentration mode himself. He did enjoy the early days they had spent where their hours of "bodydoubling" were really nothing more than talking and laughing together, but being able to be quietly productive with someone else, knowing they were there with you without needing to be in the same room, that they were sharing your same wavelength without needing to say a word... that simple sense of togetherness brought with it such a deep feeling of comfort that he thought it might be an even more profound, longer-lasting sense of joy than their early days of giddy laughter had given. The strokes of his stylus turned smoother and more confident as he got into the flow, his eyes focused on his own screen and only vaguely aware of the lines of text growing across Crowley's.
Eventually, Crowley calmed down as well, and the text growing on his screen even started to make sense. And he made sure it had absolutely nothing to do with forearms.
--
Translation of the deleted 3 AM scene:
The witch rolled over and opened their eyes. In the early morning sunlight, they could see the witchfinder still sleeping close enough to touch. His head was cradled on his arms, the muscles slack with sleep but still clearly there under the surface. The witch knew from experience that if he were awakened, the strength would flow back into them in an instant, ready for a fight. The witch couldn't help but think of other things they might be ready for as well.
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Two Sides to Every Story
Just a little modern AU E/R fluff for a Sunday night.
The Musain
August 18, 2023 10:15am
“God, I don’t think I’ve ever been this hungover,” Bossuet groaned as he pulled open the door to the Musain, automatically taking a step back to let Joly in first.
Joly just laughed. “You say that every weekend,” he pointed out. “Which means there’s probably a lesson in there about hanging out with Grantaire and its long-term effect on our livers.”
Bossuet just grunted an acknowledgement. “Right, so, you get the drinks, and I’ll find Grantaire?” he suggested.
“Perfect.”
It wasn’t like Grantaire was hard to spot by any stretch of the imagination, but there was a greater than passing chance that he hadn’t made it in yet, or had fallen asleep in the back room, or was emptying his stomach in the bathroom.
But worse, to Bossuet’s immediate irritation, Grantaire was awake, seemingly hangover-free, and on the phone. He gave Bossuet a wave when he saw him, but didn’t hang up. “Yeah, no, I totally get it,” he said, his tone making it entirely obvious who he was talking to, which only made Bossuet’s irritation grow. “Takeout’s fine, you know me, I’m flexible.” He winked at Bossuet, who rolled his eyes. “In more ways than one.”
“No, no, don’t mind me, I’ll just sit here listening to you badly propositioning your boyfriend,” Bossuet grumbled, though despite his irritation and raging hangover, he didn’t quite sound as sour as he had intended. Probably because he had been wanting this for Grantaire for, like, ever, and at the end of the day, he was a bit of a softie. “Tell Enjolras I say hi.”
“Bossuet says hi,” Grantaire said dutifully, his smile widening at whatever Enjolras said in response. Then he straightened, his smile fading, just slightly. “Oh, sure. Love you.”
He paused, and Bossuet glanced at him, wondering what Enjolras was saying in response to that. After all, it’s not like the man was renowned for his sentimental side—
“Nuh-uh,” Grantaire said, his grin back in full force. “I love you more.”
Turns out when Bossuet was wrong, he was really wrong.
“No, I love you more.”
Bossuet rolled his eyes again, glancing around to see if Joly was on his way with the drinks to rescue him from having to listen to this.
“No, you hang up first.” Grantaire laughed at whatever Enjolras said. “I love you, talk to you tonight.”
He hung up and grinned that same stupid, dopey grin at Bossuet, who just gave him a withering look. “You two are revolting. You know that, right?”
“And here I thought you believed in true love,” Grantaire said innocently, snickering and dodging Bossuet’s half-hearted attempt to sock him in the arm.
His phone buzzed on the table and he reached for it, but Bossuet beat him to it, picking it up and glancing down at the screen to read the text. “From Enjolras,” he read out loud. “I love you the most.”
He mimed throwing up while Grantaire wrestled his phone back from him, laughing. Joly arched an eyebrow as he carried their drinks over to the table. “Do I even want to know?”
“No,” Bossuet and Grantaire said at the same time.
City Hall
10:15am
“Anyway, this is our third meeting with the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, and needless to say, we’re getting nowhere,” Enjolras said with a sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose as he glanced down the hallway. “And I know tonight’s supposed to be date night, but I was hoping I could talk you into takeout at my place instead.”
“Yeah, no, I totally get it,” Grantaire said immediately, and Enjolras let out a breath he didn’t even realize he’d been holding. Of course, he’d really had no reason to be worried – this thing with Grantaire was easy in a way that Enjolras had never allowed himself to believe a relationship could be. As easy and as perfect as Enjolras had hoped it would be when he finally let himself admit what seemingly everyone else had already put together on their own. “Takeout’s fine, you know me, I’m flexible.” Enjolras preemptively rolled his eyes, already knowing what was coming by the smirk he heard in Grantaire’s voice. “In more ways than one.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Enjolras said dryly.
Grantaire’s grin sounded particularly self-satisfied when he said, “Bossuet says hi.”
“And Combeferre’s on his way here, so once he arrives, we’ll have ourselves a quorum.” The secretary poked her head out into the hallway and gestured at him, and Enjolras sighed. “Shit, I gotta go. Honestly, I’m tempted to just offer to withdraw the complaint against the department as a whole if it mean they’d actually do fuck all about the officers involved. Anyway, I’ll talk to you later.”
“Oh, sure,” Grantaire said, much more seriously than before. “I love you.”
Enjolras glanced over as the elevator doors dinged and Combeferre got off. “Uh-huh, you as well,” he said, a little distractedly, because Combeferre looked particularly grim, and Enjolras had a feeling he wasn’t going to like where this conversation was headed.
“Nuh-uh, I love you more.”
“Right,” Enjolras said blankly, tempted to ask if Grantaire was having a stroke. “Anyway—”
“No, I love you more.”
Enjolras’s eyes narrowed at Grantaire’s slightly gleeful tone. He might not have the slightest idea what Grantaire was doing, but judging by his tone, Grantaire sure did. “We’ll continue this conversation later—” he started warningly.
“No, you hang up first.”
“—no matter how fascinating this display of justification for homicide may be.”
Grantaire had the nerve to laugh. “I love you. Talk to you tonight.”
Enjolras hung up and forced a grimace masquerading as a smile at Combeferre. “You look like you have good news,” he said.
Combeferre just shook his head. “Dare I ask what that was?” he said mildly.
“Absolutely not,” Enjolras said firmly, typing a quick text to Grantaire: I love you the most. “So what’s going on that makes you look like someone’s died?”
“The mayor picked a new police superintendent,” Combeferre said, and Enjolras paused in the middle of composing his follow-up text.
“Well, that’s…” He trailed off, realization hitting. “Meaning COPA’s going to want to delay this until the superintendent gets approved by the Council and sworn in.”
Combeferre nodded. “Most likely.”
Something I want you to remember when I kill you with my bare hands tonight.
Enjolras clicked send on the second text before looking back at Combeferre. “Then in that case, fuck ‘em.”
Combeferre blinked. “Fuck ‘em?” he repeated, more intrigued than concerned. “Dare I ask what precisely you mean by that?”
“I mean fuck ‘em,” Enjolras said. “They’ve been trying to keep this quiet but if all they want to do is obfuscate and delay, let them. They’re not allowed to speak to the press about ongoing investigations, but we sure as fuck can.”
Combeferre nodded slowly. “You want to threaten to go to the press if they won’t move the investigation along.”
Enjolras’s phone dinged and he glanced down at it automatically. You said you were tempted to withdraw the complaint, the text from Grantaire said. Bet you’re not nearly so tempted now.
Enjolras felt a sharp smile stretch across his face. “Well played,” he murmured, so that Combeferre couldn’t quite hear him. “And no, I don’t want to threaten. I want us to do it. We’ll hold a press conference this afternoon, share everything we have. Should make for a nice little mess for the newly minted superintendent to deal with when he starts.”
The hint of a smile played at the corners of Combeferre’s mouth. “Burn it all to the ground,” he said.
Enjolras just shrugged. “Well, since Courfeyrac couldn’t make this meeting, someone’s gotta do it.”
Combeferre’s smile widened, and he gestured for Enjolras to lead the way. “By all means, don’t let me stop you.”
Enjolras grinned as he glanced down at his phone and another text from Grantaire: You still going to kill me?
Jury’s still out, Enjolras sent back, hesitating before adding, But we’ve landed on a strategy of fuck ‘em and burn it all to the ground, so the odds look in your favor.
You’re welcome, Grantaire sent back, and Enjolras rolled his eyes.
If that’s your way of fishing for gratitude, good luck with that. He paused before adding, I love you.
A moment later, just as the secretary was letting them into the office for their meeting, Grantaire responded: Uh-huh, you as well ;)
Enjolras just rolled his eyes as he slipped his phone into his pocket, though he couldn’t help but smile.
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