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yamisnuffles · 5 years ago

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Love Like Yours

It’s 1967. Aziraphale grapples with his decision to give Crowley holy water and what it represents for them both.

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Aziraphale could barely hear what Crowley was saying- what he himself was thinking- for the blood that pounded in his ears. His heart’s terrified staccato was the sound of coming doom. He had to keep his hands folded in his lap to stop them from shaking. It was bad enough the way they’d quivered as he handed over the thermos, the way his voice quivered still over uneasy breaths, he didn’t need to fall apart completely.

Despite the sunglasses between them, he felt like he was unspooling under Crowley’s gaze. Perhaps because of them. Those particular spectacles, large and round, had an oddly emotive quality to them. Crowley was all eyes and protruding bottom lip and pleading eyebrows. Aziraphale suddenly understood what the demon meant when he complained about Aziraphale giving a particular look . It felt impossible to deny Crowley anything he wanted at that moment.

But Aziraphale had to deny him. To deny them both. As much as he wanted to take that final step over the edge and fall headfirst into whatever was to come, he couldn’t. Not yet.

He forced his voice over the growing lump in his throat. “You go too fast for me, Crowley.”

At that, Aziraphale got out of his seat and left the car. He took a few steps and then a few more. He felt less sure of his choice every moment. One step forward had him wishing he hadn’t given Crowley the holy water at all. The next, he wanted nothing more than to dive back into the car, take the demon up on his offer, and never look back. These opposing desires instead saw him rooted in place by indecision.

He watched the Bentley, listened as the engine rumbled to life, and then watched Crowley disappear into the night. Aziraphale waited until Crowley was well and truly gone before he miracled himself back into his shop. It was the definition of frivolous, given how close it was, but he couldn’t trust his feet to carry him there.

Indeed, the moment he was back in the shop, he collapsed back against the door. He slid downward. The sounds of the Soho night were as loud as ever. People laughed, shouted, and chattered in the streets. Strains of music drifted and mixed from different locales, each a siren song for some hedonistic diversion. Aziraphale had come to love it all for what it was- proof of human vitality and fallibility. It was all so very alive and at the moment, he couldn’t stand any of it. He couldn’t help but strain to hear the familiar purr of the Bentley, for proof that Crowley was still well. A snap of his fingers and silence fell over the shop.

It didn’t take long to realize what a mistake that was. Without any other sound, Aziraphale was left with his thoughts. He wondered if Crowley was home yet. Given how Crowley liked to speed down the road, it seemed likely he was at least well on his way. But there was a chance his recklessness had finally gotten the better of him and he’d crashed. No doubt Crowley wouldn’t have taken proper care with the thermos and it would have been jettisoned out of the seat, cracked open, and spilled.

Aziraphale bit his wobbling lip hard enough that he tasted blood. It was a much needed focus. He couldn’t think like that. He’d blessed every molecule of that thermos to protect it from breaking. He’d been tempted to ward it against being opened at all, but that would have been a show of bad faith. He had to trust Crowley. He needed to believe that it wasn’t a suicide pill. He also needed more than anything to believe that no matter Crowley’s original intent, that he hadn’t pushed the demon to use it as one. An angel could not despair.

Aziraphale had tried to offer hope. It had been a difficult thing to do, when he barely had any himself some days. But, demon or not, Crowley was often more optimistic than him. After all, he’d been nursing feelings for God only knew how long, while Aziraphale had only realized the depth of his own for a scant few decades and had found it nearly unbearable.

He tried to take a bracing breath. Instead it caught in his throat, stuttered and stuck and came back out as a sob. He tried so hard, so often to keep all such feelings stuffed safely out of sight but the more he tried to stifle them, the more insistent they became. He was too exhausted to keep up the facade and there was no one around to see, anyway, so he allowed himself to weep in earnest. He remained huddled against the door, shoulders shaking and tears flowing.

Aziraphale wasn’t sure how long he stayed that way, only that millenia old joints eventually protested his position on the floor. He hiccupped and wiped his face with the back of his hand. A tear caught on the tip of one of his fingers. He held it level to his eyes and stared at in a detached way. How strange the human body was, how odd that working out tear ducts a bit could be cathartic.

Light from the fluorescence outside caught on the tear and Aziraphale’s hand started to shake at the way it shone. The problem was, he wasn’t human. Was he with his human corporation full of so much liquid also full, by virtue of the celestial essence that enlivened it, of holy water? Was there any part of him that didn’t threaten Crowley’s existence?

It was a ridiculous thought. He knew it was instantly. He’d spilt blood, tears, and more in Crowley’s presence over the millenia without any trauma, beyond perhaps an emotional toll for some. But wasn’t there some truth to it? While he may not be a physical threat to Crowley, everything else about him was dangerous. He was an angel. His very presence in Crowley’s life was a threat. They were supposed to be hereditary enemies and instead they were…

He should have never let it get to this point. They should never have become friends let alone something… something… more. So much more. He should never have agreed to the Arrangement. He’d let the allure of regular companionship cloud his better sense. He’d known it was a terrible idea all along. If not for the Arrangement, Crowley never would have needed ‘insurance’ against Hell’s retribution. If not for the Arrangement, Aziraphale could have kept a safe distance and gone on pretending they were tied by nothing more than a shared enmity. He never would have found himself in the bombed out remains of a church without anything left to hide behind, just him and his books and the demon he loved.

Who was he kidding? Arrangement or not, they’d found each other again and again. Crowley had always been there when he most needed someone. Even without the Arrangement, that careless, ridiculous serpent probably would have braved consecrated ground to save him, risked destruction simply so Aziraphale wouldn’t be inconvenienced.

It was a wonder to Aziraphale that he’d been able to lie to himself for so long about his feelings because he loved Crowley so terribly that it often frightened him. Something electric had torn through him when their hands had met over that leather case of books. Standing in the dust of what had once been, his love for Crowley had been the only thing left in him. And it had been terrifying. It was terrifying still. He was made for love, yes, but love for Her first and for everything else in a much more general sense. But there was nothing wide and encompassing about this love beyond the way it consumed him.

Aziraphale found he could no longer breathe. Air came quick and shallow into his lungs and his chest ached for more but he could do nothing to right the situation. The more he fought against it, the shallower the breaths became. His heart raced in response and his vision swam. When he tried to pull himself off the ground to sit in a chair instead, his legs also gave way beneath him.

Tears fell again and he was left cursing the weakness of his corporation. It had made him too human. He didn’t even need to breathe and yet his entire body ached for want of it. Worse, his foolish, fragile heart was an agony of mixed desires. He wished Crowley would finally be sensible and stay away for good. He wished Crowley was there with him then, holding him and soothing him and saving him from himself once more.

Aziraphale let out a small, choked cry as he curled in on himself on the floor. He longed to pray that his suffering be taken away but who was he to ask God to relieve him of a love he was never meant to have? And if his prayers were actually answered, what would that mean for Crowley? He shuddered to think of what Heaven would do if his feelings were found out. He might be able to spin it, to say he had drawn a demon to the light. There was no way Crowley could do the same, not now that he bore a weapon as viciously destructive against his own kind as holy water. There was no plausible deniability. No slithering into the shadows if he was discovered. And Aziraphale had made it possible, so it was down to him to keep Crowley safe from the consequences of this impossible love.

Which meant, right now, he needed to pull himself together. He squeezed his eyes shut against scorching tears that still wanted to fall and focused only on breathing. His entire world was boiled down to the movement of his lungs. He forced them to slow, to really draw in the air that his body was at this point screaming for. It took some doing, but eventually he got to the point of being able to fill his lungs completely, hold the breath there, and then release it in a measured fashion. In turn, every other rogue function in his corporation fell in line. The beat of his heart returned to the rhythm he’d grown accustomed to and strength returned to enfeebled limbs.

Aziraphale unfurled aching joints and pushed himself back up to his feet. He smoothed his rumpled trousers with his palms but his comforting ritual was interrupted when he didn’t find the hem of his waistcoat nor the familiar shape of his bowtie. He’d traded both in for the night, his usual buttoned up exterior softened in an attempt to portray a calm he certainly didn’t feel. He’d even splashed on some cologne and done up his hair. All a bit of a masquerade, when he thought about it. A mask that said, “Here’s what we could be. What we could have, a fine night out on the town just you and I. Someday. Not today, but someday.”

A snap of his fingers, and the lot of it was replaced with fresh clothes. He clutched his soft housecoat close. It all smelled of books and dust, traces of his soap and whiffs of angelic ozone. The rich smell of leather, of smoke and spice and everything demonic, was gone. He felt its loss the way he felt the loss of his own wings when they were tucked away. Just as those wings were hidden for the sake of the humans, so too would this part of him be hidden away for the sake of another.

He would just have to believe that there would come a day when he wouldn’t have to play act or hint any longer, when he could stop lying to himself and everyone else. And if he doubted such a day would ever come, then he would believe in Crowley. Dear Crowley and his inexplicable ability to defy the odds at every turn. Not what an angel should be nor a demon, an impossible creature who made stars and then himself.

Someday their day would come. Someday.

Until then, Aziraphale thought a long, warm bath was in order. Perhaps a trip to the coast to clear his head. Maybe, just maybe, he’d also ponder what he’d like to take on a picnic or order at the Ritz.

#good omens #aziraphale #crowley #fic #ineffable husbands #my writing

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obaewankenope · 5 years ago

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I'm soft for recovery/bonding, so: those weeks/months immediately after crowley takes harry from the dursleys, when they're working on getting him healthy/getting him to trust them/etc. how does that go? at what point do crowley and aziraphale go from telling themselves "this is a kid we're trying to help" to "this is Our Kid now"

Hey nonnie! Thank you for giving me this prompt! I love it. This isn’t exactly what you asked for but it’s what my brain says is Right. Hope you like it!

[AO3]

Harry has problems, they all know it. Some of them are typical of a pre-teen but some of them aren’t. Disliking certain foods, not wanting to wear specific items of clothing: these are normal and you expect them of a child. Ducking their head when voices are raised, startling at sudden hand movements, shaking and hyperventilating at the thought of going into the supply cupboard at school: these aren’t normal.

One such time when Harry exhibits something that isn’t normal for a child, Aziraphale is the one who witnesses it. He doesn’t quite understand Harry’s reaction, what with him being an ethereal being, but he’s lived on earth since the start and has seen a lot of human suffering. The issue Aziraphale has with Harry’s reaction is that he doesn’t expect to see it in a child. Perhaps a little naive of him, but who can blame Aziraphale for thinking that people wouldn’t traumatise children so.

Children shouldn’t fear being denied food for being children.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says quietly, that evening, to the demon sprawled on his usual sofa. Crowley is lazing about, pretending to be asleep, but the angel is well-aware of when Crowley is sleeping. It creates an absence in his awareness—something Aziraphale doesn’t think about because it raises some very daunting questions—that is currently lacking.

“What is it, angel?”

Harry is reading a book that he was looking at earlier in the day, which Aziraphale took note of and thusly gifted Harry to read at the boys own pace. The child is engrossed in the contents of the life of Merlin—more the magical feats the warlock performed in his lifetime, Aziraphale guesses—and the distraction affords Aziraphale the opportunity to discuss certain things with Crowley.

“Have you noticed some… certain behaviours in our young ward?” The angel asks, hoping that Crowley is observant enough to have noticed the same things Aziraphale has. Of course, he’s well-aware that Crowley is observant,but he’s uncertain as to whether Harry has… slipped up infront of the demon.

“Angel.” Crowley’s voice is rather flat for the demon. It’s quite a tone that Aziraphale recalls from very pressing times where Crowley was… not necessarily disappointed in Aziraphale, no, something more like…trying to pretend he was unaffected by the circumstances they found themselves in.

Like during The Flood.

Oh.

“I wasn’t certain, dear,” Aziraphale says, placing a hand on Crowley’s arm, lightly. The demon doesn’t tense beneath his handwhich is good. That definitely means he’s not angry at Aziraphale only just noticing this. “I didn’t want to presume horrors.”

“Always the optimist.” Crowley shakes his head.

Not always, Aziraphale thinks, not when it comes to you.

“What are we going to do, Crowley? We’re not- we- he’s a human child, surely he should be with humans?” Aziraphale fumbles.

Crowley turns his head and looks at the angel from behind those sunglasses he always wears. Even with the lenses, Aziraphale can tell Crowley is looking at him with the closest the demon can come to disdain for him.

“Oh yeah, lets just give the kid with a Her-given prophecy floating all over them to some random humans, wash our hands of the problem,” Crowley says and there’s biting sarcasm in his voice. Enough that Aziraphale flinches. “Sounds like a real great idea, that. Not like Heaven or Hell will want us to check on him or anything. Nah. Just be another two people who screw him over, that’s a right good idea, angel. Can’t believe I didn’t think of it myself.”

“Oh, all right, there’s no need to be rude,” Aziraphale says and Crowley snorts. “I’m just- Crowley, when was the last time you spent any time with a child?” The angel bites his lip. “I haven't interacted with children since Egypt was two kingdoms!”

“So you’re nervous about dealing with a kid and- what- figured throwing said kid at whatever human you think suitable is the best solution?” Crowley shakes his head. “I didn’t take you for such an uncaring bastard, angel.”

“That isn’t fair, Crowley.” Aziraphale scowls. “I want Harry to be happy and well-cared-for, but we’re both immortal beings,” Aziraphale says, and he may sound a little sad now, because Crowley looks at him with his eyebrows drawn together. “I’m also- I don’t want to watch him grow and die. I’m- I’m afraid of how much it will hurt.”

“So you’re scared?”

Aziraphale hesitates. “Not just for myself,” he answers slowly. “I remember how you were with the flood, Crowley. The children in Egypt. I don’t want you to suffer needlessly, dear.”

“Angel.” Crowley stands smoothly, facing Aziraphale and he removes his sunglasses. There’s a lot of emotion in those golden eyes—eyes that Aziraphale has always found to be ethereal and beautiful, though he may never admit it aloud—that Aziraphale is very familiar with. He’s seen Crowley react to horror and pain the way Aziraphale himself never could. He always argues that it’s all part of The Plan, that he’s just a footsoldier, there to perform a duty, not to care—not to blame. Crowley is different. The demon feels it all, lives with it.

Is it any wonder that Aziraphale’s fears with raising Harry have more to do with Crowley than they do the angel himself?

“It’s never needless,” Crowley says. “Never.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale probably sounds stupid to Crowley. He feels a little stupid too. “Well then.”

Crowley nods. “Yep.”

“Tally-ho, then.”

Crowley grimaces. “Never say that again, angel,” he says and Aziraphale smiles.

Harry, looks at the angel and demon who have taken him in, took him away from people who hated him for things he had no control over, for reasons that he cannot be blamed for. He looks at them, standing close together, smiling at each other, not realising Harry is aware of them. And he smiles.

He doesn’t know what they were talking about, but he certainly understands that they’ve made a decision regarding Harry’s future. It’s clear to see in the way they give him a kind look and are patient with him no matter the circumstances. It means more than he knows how to explain, can’t voice it aloud because he doesn’t have the words. Maybe one day… maybe he’ll be able to tell them both how much it meant that Crowley came and took him away the Dursleys.

Either way. It doesn’t matter.

He’s happy here and he has a feeling he’s here to stay.

Call it a prophetic sort of thing, maybe. Though he needs to look up what ‘prophetic’ means.

“Mister Fell,” Harry says, drawing Crowley and Aziraphale’s attention. “Do you have a dictionary?”

#Good Omens #GOmens #GO #Harry Potter #Absconding with Harry verse #prompt fill #ask prompt #kat answers #Aziraphale #Crowley #Anonymous #Kat answers #People talk to me!!!

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lady-divine-writes · 5 years ago

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Truth (Chapter 1 of 2)

(Warning for mild gore associated with the description of a demon.)

“Crowley? Where are you, dear?” Aziraphale hurries through Crowley’s flat in search of his demon, adjusting his cuffs and straightening his collar. He’s dressed to the nines, only he doesn’t know why. Crowley requested it. He claimed tonight was special, so Aziraphale broke out his finest suit. That still might mean his demon will dress in a thin black shirt and jeans but, in his defense, they will be his best jeans.

He rounds the corner to the master bathroom, humming an old hymn to himself. “Are you finished dressing? We’re going to be late for din---“

“Stop! Go away! Don’t look at me!”

Aziraphale stumbles to a halt, catching himself on one foot before he can suffer the misfortune of falling forward on his face. Once he regains his balance, he tries to abide by his demon’s wishes, the pain in Crowley’s voice compelling him to turn away, but it’s too late.

He’s already seen.

Crowley, naked, curled into a partial ball, shredded wings trembling as they try fruitlessly to shield his distorted form.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale cries, but out of respect, he doesn’t rush to help regardless of the voice in his head screaming for him to do exactly that. “What happened? Were you attacked? Did a … did a demon get in? Or an angel?” He looks around, searching for any sign of an intruder, but he detects nothing. This bathroom, the bedroom before it, the whole flat smells like Crowley, feels like Crowley. Aside from the touches of Aziraphale blossoming in small corners of every room, there’s no trace of anyone else.

“I’d hoped you’d never see me like this,” Crowley whispers.

“See you like what?” Aziraphale tiptoes closer, needing to be near his demon, to ease his suffering if he can. “What’s wrong, Crowley? What’s happened to you?”

Crowley sighs straight to his bones, defeated. His wings, bent at unnatural angles and nearly featherless, fall away, the strain of keeping them up pushing the boundaries of his strength. He rolls to his knees, bowed low to the floor, reminiscent of a child in prayer. Sparse strands of slate black hair cling to his hollow cheeks; skeletal fingers, sprouting jagged talons, cover his eyes. “This is who I am, Aziraphale. This is what I look like … when I’m not in human form.”

“I---I thought you were a serpent,” Aziraphale stutters, mind racing, attempting to make sense of this, to rectify the fact that this (he hates to think it) monstrosity lying on the floor at his feet is his Crowley.

Crowley shakes his head, the bones in his neck crackling loudly with the movement. “I wish it were that simple.”

Aziraphale takes a step, then another. Crowley turns his head toward him, void black eyes watching his slow progression forward, but he doesn’t object. Aziraphale accepts that as a sign, taking another step until he’s a foot away from Crowley’s mangled right wing.

‘My God,’ he thinks. He’d never thought, never realized …

For six thousand years, he’d seen Crowley in human form. A serpent a handful of times, but mostly human. But human Crowley is a façade. It’s how he imagines himself to be. His human form, and the fact that he maintains it during times when other demons wouldn’t see the need, are two of the most optimistic things about him.

Some might blame vanity, but Aziraphale chooses to believe otherwise.

In truth, Crowley is a demon.

And this is his demon form.

Scarred.

Deformed.

Decaying.

Aziraphale kneels beside him. “H-how … how did you get this way?”

“I … I changed for a moment.” Crowley sniffs. “I usually don’t because … I don’t want to forget ...”

“But why did you change?”

“I got anxious? And now … I---I can’t remember how to change back.”

Anxious? That strikes Aziraphale as odd. Why would Crowley get anxious over dinner? They’ve dined together dozens of times.

“Are you injured?” Aziraphale’s eyes follow Crowley’s spine where it runs between his wings, the bones protruding as if the greying flesh covering them were no thicker than onion skin. Cracks form before his eyes when Crowley breathes too deep. Oily gunk leaks from the wounds, searing everywhere it touches, and from the burns, maggots form, spilling onto the floor, squirming helplessly on the tile.

Aziraphale has been in the company of demons before during his stint in hell as Crowley. He’s seen them as they are – rotting flesh, black eyes, fetid wounds oozing pus and crusted over with coagulated blood, some with dagger sharp teeth, some with their teeth disintegrating out of their heads. He’s been told that, where the fallen are concerned, the punishment fits the crime. Hence, the worse they behaved, the more vile they appear.

As far as he knows, Hastur, who in his demon form is a conglomeration of maggots bound together by mucous and some sort of evil goop, holds the highest honor in hell. And whereas he definitely deserves it, in Aziraphale’s opinion, whoever created that system also has a penchant for overreaction.

For the sins Crowley committed that got him exiled from heaven – the handling of which, over time, Aziraphale himself has begun to question - he doesn’t deserve this.

Regardless of his own beliefs, Aziraphale must have realized that hiding underneath the glamour of Crowley’s human form, something ghastly lay beneath. If he had only known …

… it wouldn’t have changed a thing. Crowley’s human form – the handsome man with the serpent eyes and the exceptional sense of style - appeals to Aziraphale because Aziraphale has seen the heart of the being inside. He sees it now in this broken creature before him, turning himself nearly inside out to hide his shame.

“No. I’m not injured. I just need to get back … need to change back …”

“It’s all right,” Aziraphale says soothingly, reaching out to lay hands on his demon. “I can just …”

“No!” Crowley snaps, but his face crumbles immediately after. This isn’t Aziraphale’s fault. He shouldn’t be taking this out on him. But his first instinct is to push him away, bolt out of this room, jump in his car, and drive – leave and not return for at least a hundred years.

But that’s his pride talking. He needs Aziraphale now, in this horrible moment, more than ever.

“I don’t … I don’t want to be miracled. Please. I just want to remember … who I am.”

Who I choose to be, he means because this … this distasteful creature, covered in sores and pot-marked flesh, is his true form.

Aziraphale scoots closer, fitting himself beneath the remains of Crowley’s wing. Crowley shrinks away, but Aziraphale extends a hand.

“Please,” he whispers. “Please, let me help you.”

Crowley doesn’t. He can’t. He has so many regrets from his thousands of years on Earth, but this tops them all. But his biggest regret isn’t in letting Aziraphale see him this way. He would have eventually. Crowley is a demon. Lying is in his manifesto. But the way he feels for his angel, the way he knows his angel feels about him - keeping this a secret for too much longer would have been unforgivable, even for him.

No, his biggest regret is that he’s lived this lie so long, he almost convinced himself it was real.

When Crowley doesn’t move, Aziraphale takes the initiative and inches closer, hand still extended, pleading with his entire body for Crowley to take it.

“Please,” Aziraphale repeats. “We can do this. Together.”

With a slight nod, Crowley claws his way towards him, meets him half way, and hides his face in his angel’s lap. He doesn’t want Aziraphale to see more than he already has. If this doesn’t work and Crowley has to leave, descend into hell and stay there, he doesn’t want Aziraphale to remember him this way.

Aziraphale puts a hand on the crown of his demon’s head, silently praying for his strength. “What do you need, Crowley?”

“I need … to remember. That’s all. Just … remember …”

“You have wavy red hair down to your shoulders, like the soft parting rays of a summer sunset.” Aziraphale cards his fingers through Crowley’s thin hair the way he would any other time they’re together, touches his neck and spine with soft fingertips, lays kisses on his shattered wing. “You part it down the middle so it frames your face. You never fail to look ten years younger than me. I have a feeling you do that on purpose.”

“Maybe …” Crowley teases in a quiet voice and Aziraphale smiles.

He’s not gone. He hasn’t left me. Not yet.

“You have cunning yellow serpent eyes; a broad forehead; high cheekbones; a square, masculine chin …”

On and on, Aziraphale continues, describing his Crowley from heart, the way he sees him, from his all too kissable lips (which finally makes Crowley laugh) to the fact that, as hard as he tries to fight it, from time to time, he still has faith in the good and the beautiful and the wonderful things on Earth. Aziraphale feels Crowley shiver as he tries to re-form into the man he’s describing, watches scraggly black hair turn brown, then blond, then settle at last on a gorgeous fire red. The maggots disappear, absorbed into the breath of the universe. Sores heal. Pale, grey skin darkens, becomes thicker. Maps of veins and arteries form, then disappear beneath healthier, human flesh. Muscles grow and sculpt beneath Aziraphale’s fingers as his hand moves from Crowley’s head down his back.

His words create a path that Crowley’s magic follows, but his fingers seem to heal on contact with no miracling required.

Crowley’s shuddering slows as his body becomes familiar, more recognizable, and Aziraphale’s heart skips.

“Your wings are raven black,” he says, those words causing feathers to grow, “and shine like obsidian. You dress better than anyone I’ve ever known … (*clears his throat*) aside from me. You can charm the honey out of a bee hive, and you’re a fantastic dancer. A-and I know you don’t like to hear it, but when you want to be, you can be an incredibly kind and generous person.”

“Sh-shut up,” Crowley mutters, but lightly. His wings straighten and extend, full and unbent as the first time Aziraphale saw them. A ripple of red light travels the length of Crowley’s body from the top of his head to the soles of his feet, this sweep restoring the clothes he’d been wearing – a crisp black dress shirt with, of all things, a tartan collar, and black slacks.

Crowley breathes in deep, lets it out slowly, gathering his strength, and stealing a moment to swallow his wounded pride. He raises his head, then his hands to the level of his eyes. He looks them over, flexes them, laughing with relief. He chances a look into his angel’s eyes, Aziraphale’s expression all he needs to see to know that it worked.

And it did.

“I’m … I’m back!”

“You may have looked different, my dear, but you never left.”

“Wait …” Crowley runs a hand through his hair “… you told me my hair is long, but I just got it cut.”

“True, but that was a mistake. I’ve rectified that for you. I’ve always liked it this way better.”

“Is that right?”

“Mm-hmm.”

Crowley blinks his eyes, slowly sitting up, getting comfortable again in his human form. He catches a glimpse of the wall clock.

9:47.

How did two hours zip by so quickly?

“I’m sorry, love, but we may have missed our reservation,” he says. “I can miracle us up another if you’d like.”

“I …”

Their gazes land on it at the same time – Crowley’s on purpose and Aziraphale’s by accident. It sits not too far from Aziraphale’s hand, its shape unmistakable, its purpose undeniable, and Aziraphale thinks he may be starting to understand.

“It’s all right,” he says, picking up the little black box under his demon’s watchful gaze and handing it to him. “Actually, I think maybe it would be nice to stay in tonight, in case we’d like to do some celebrating. What do you say?”

Crowley wraps his fingers around the box, holds it over his heart, but he only has eyes for Aziraphale. “I do.”

#Good Omens #Good Omens Fanfic #ineffable husbands #crowley x aziraphale #aziraphale x crowley #frankie writes #angst

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tinylilemrys · 5 years ago

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Read it on AO3

Rating: T

Word count: 4,835

Tags: becoming human, fluff and angst, but like ninety percent fluff

Summary:

After avoiding the apocalypse and the punishments of heaven and hell, Crowley and Aziraphale are looking forward to their new, quieter lives. But then Crowley's eyes start changing and Aziraphale's hair starts growing darker. More than that, they're starting to feel new sensations like hunger and tiredness.

And even more than that, as unnerving as these new changes are, what Crowley wants more than anything else is just to tell Aziraphale how he feels about him.

It starts the morning after their meal at the Ritz. Slightly groggy, but nevertheless elated at having finally spent time with Aziraphale with no real talk of heaven or hell, just their interests, how bizarre their new acquaintances were, how Aziraphale hoped they would keep in touch, how charming Crowley found Tadfield and how he strangely found himself wanting to go back and visit without the impending threat of Armageddon. They had spoken well into the early hours of the morning, talking with an ease that neither of them had ever had the luxury of exploring before. For the first time in millennia, they could just exist. It was exhilarating.

It’s in this haze of giddiness and reminiscing that Crowley first encounters his reflection. He surveys his crop of red hair, wondering whether or not he should grow it out again. He misses being able to just throw it up into a bun whenever it annoyed him and he knows Aziraphale prefers it longer anyway. He’s never said as much, but the first time they met up after Crowley had cut it shorter the angel’s nose scrunched slightly as if trying to hold back a look of disappointment. Perhaps now that things between them were so open to possibility, it wouldn’t hurt to offer a bit of additional temptation.

His eyes drift down to meet their reflected counterparts and he jumps slightly. He’s seen his face in hundreds of different lights in hundreds of different reflective surfaces for hundreds and thousands of years. He has a pretty good idea of what his eyes should look like. Except that today they’re different. The slits of his pupils are smaller and far rounder than he’s ever seen them, and the yellow surrounding them has faded, not by much, but enough that Crowley is dumbstruck by the change.

He rushes through the rest of his morning routine so that he can get Aziraphale’s opinion too, because whatever was happening was undeniably strange. Pausing only briefly to try on a darker pair of sunglasses than the ones he usually wears, he darts out of the house and speeds his Bentley through the streets of London.

Upon arriving at the bookshop, Crowley sees that it’s closed. This isn’t the strangest thing as Aziraphale has been known to close the shop for days at a time to avoid customers, but usually, the angel has a sixth sense about when it’s Crowley popping by and makes sure that the door is open for him. Unbidden, his mind vindictively flashes to the smell of smoke and roar of burning paper, to that feeling of helplessness when only two days ago he thought he’d lost the only thing he’d ever truly cared about. But he takes a deep breath and the feeling passes, though his heart is still racing. Strangely, as if to set his mind at ease, it’s just then that he hears a key scraping in the lock and the bell above the shop door tinkle.

“Crowley, I wasn’t expecting you so early. Are you alright? You look like you’ve seen a ghost. It’s not your lot harassing you again, is it?”

“Nah, it was nothing. I narrowly avoided a cyclist and I’m still a bit jumpy after heaven yesterday, but nothing I can’t handle.”

Aziraphale’s nose does that scrunch again, the one that tells Crowley that he doesn’t believe him.

“Well then, you’d better get inside where it’s safe,” the angel replies and Crowley’s stomach does a small thrill at Aziraphale’s hand pressed to the small of his back as he’s let in. In fact, he’s so distracted by this new daring physical contact that it takes him a moment or two to realise that Aziraphale is wearing a hat. Which is strange – he hardly ever wears hats. The last time he had seen Aziraphale in a hat that wasn’t part of a costume or disguise was the nineteenth century, which leads Crowley to suspect that him wearing an ostentatious top hat here in the twenty-first century is, in fact, a disguise.

“Bad hair day?” Crowley asks and Aziraphale’s hand flies self-consciously up to the hat.

“Yes, you could say that.” He pops into his office to start boiling the kettle on his ancient two-ring hot plate and Crowley settles down into his favourite armchair, taking a moment to breathe in the comforting scent of the place. It’s been his unofficial second haunt for as long as Aziraphale’s had it, but for whatever reason, he’s never felt more connected to it than he does now. Home, he realises as he looks around him. It feels something like a home.

Aziraphale comes back a minute or two later with two teacups and a steaming teapot on top of an ornate silver tray. The sight makes Crowley smile. The angel never does anything by half. After allowing Aziraphale to pour a cup for him, Crowley reaches for it and sits back to survey him.

“So how bad is a bad hair day if it’s making you pull out your accessories from the eighteen-hundreds?”

“Rather bad, I’m afraid,” Aziraphale replies, taking a tentative sip of his tea. “Well, not so much bad, actually, as different. Now you know that I have barely changed what I do with my appearance in six thousand years, which is why I’m a tad upset that today it’s a completely different colour.”

“Show me,” says Crowley, and realising that his demands could come off as rude, he adds, “Only if you’re comfortable with it, mind.”

“Alright, but please don’t laugh. I couldn’t even miracle it back to normal and I’ve already made an appointment with a hair salon to see what they can do about fixing it.”

“On my demonic honour,” says Crowley, smirking and placing a hand over his heart which makes Aziraphale let out a little huff of amusement. Slowly, as if trying to remove the lid on a vat of some volatile substance, Aziraphale removes his hat and Crowley has to bite back a gasp. His hair, stark white the day before, is now a dirty blonde colour.

“Oh shit,” is all Crowley can manage. It’s certainly more immediately noticeable than his eyes – after all, he only sees his eyes a few times every day. But Aziraphale… he’s always made a point to see Aziraphale as often as he can. And even when not around him, he’s all Crowley thinks about. Apart from the costume changes, the way Aziraphale looks is a constant in an ever-changing world and to see him so different, the hair so much darker, framing his face in a new way, is startling, but not altogether unwelcome.

“Is it really that bad?” He’s looking at Crowley now with a look of pleading and Crowley notices the tears forming in his eyes. Aziraphale is scared. Crowley can feel it radiating from him in waves and he realises he needs to do something about it.

“Hey, no, it’s not bad at all,” he says, setting his tea down so that he can scramble closer to the angel. “I personally think it looks great on you, but I can understand how it would be a bit of a shock to wake up like this. Want me to take a shot at a miracle?”

“Oh, would you?” Aziraphale almost whispers, relief flooding his face. “I really don’t know about such a drastic change. There’s already been so much of it this week.”

“Of course. Hold still.”

Gently, so gently it’s almost reverent, Crowley places his hands on either side of Aziraphale’s face and tries to summon up as much energy as he can, but it feels like there’s some sort of force around his hair preventing him from changing it back. He lingers for a moment, no longer trying to perform the miracle, just allowing himself a moment to feel the warmth of the angel’s flushed cheeks beneath his palms.

“Any luck?” Aziraphale asks after a moment or two, far more optimistically than Crowley would have dared ask. Crowley shakes his head and the effect is immediate. Aziraphale’s cheeks, flushed just a moment before, drain of all colour, a contrast made all the more intense by his new darker hair. He reaches up shaky hands to take Crowley’s and Crowley takes this as a sign that Aziraphale wants him to take his hands off his face and begins pulling them away. Instead, Aziraphale’s hands wrap tighter around his as he stares him.

“Crowley, you don’t think… it couldn’t be that I’ve fallen, could it?”

The thought had crossed his mind, but with the fear he sees in Aziraphale’s eyes, he knows now is not the time to voice it.

“Let’s not jump to any conclusions – it’s been a crazy few days. In any case, something weird happened to my appearance too, so if that’s the case I don’t know why it would affect both of us.”

“Oh?” says Aziraphale, still pale, but now with concern that Crowley realises is aimed at him. He pulls one of his hands free to pull off his sunglasses and Aziraphale gasps. “Crowley, your pupils are round.”

“Completely?” he asks, panicked.

“No, not quite, but they’re certainly looking far less demonic. What do you think this means? Did something perhaps go wrong while we were switching yesterday?”

“I don’t think so. Your hair would probably be redder if that was the case. I don’t know what this is and we can’t seem to miracle our way out of it. Perhaps we just try to get by for the time being and see what happens. Nothing else has changed as far as I’ve noticed.”

“No, you’re right, of course. No sense worrying about something that seems to be purely aesthetic anyway. Would you… would you come with me to the salon later, though? I so rarely let people touch my hair, let alone work with it and frankly, I’m terrified.”

“Of course,” says Crowley, giving Aziraphale’s hand a quick squeeze before jumping to his feet, collecting his tea and using a miracle to snap his armchair next to Aziraphale’s. Aziraphale looks for a moment like he might say something about this impromptu furniture rearrangement, but the moment passes and as soon as Crowley is sitting and has reached for Aziraphale’s hand again, he’s wearing that soft, contented smile that Crowley finds so beautiful. “Now, Angel, yesterday you were telling me an anecdote about borrowing Oscar Wilde’s scarf and accidentally never giving it back and we were interrupted by the bill. I definitely need to hear how this one ends. You wouldn’t actually steal something, would you? And here I thought you were beyond reproach.”

“Not on purpose!” says Aziraphale defensively. “Though I will admit there was a part of me that was glad he never asked for it again.”

Crowley laughs, listening to Aziraphale talk. It’s fun reminiscing with the angel. They alone are the only two beings in the entire universe who know what it’s been like to live on Earth from its beginning to its (happily avoided) end. Crowley wonders how he would have endured it without him – probably with much wailing and gnashing of teeth. The fact that he’s sitting here, in Aziraphale’s cosy little shop, holding his hand and tracing small circles with his thumb is a miracle he didn’t think he deserved and thus was immensely grateful for.

Having largely grown accustomed to holding Aziraphale’s hand by now, he doesn’t let go of it as they get ready to walk the few blocks to the upmarket beauty salon where Aziraphale has booked his hair appointment. After a bit of a back-and-forth, Crowley has convinced the angel to leave without the hat (“Honestly, Angel, it’s going to draw far more attention than your hair will.”) and the two of them set off down the busy London street.

Upon arriving, Aziraphale is almost immediately whisked away to have his hair shampooed and conditioned and he watches with curiosity as the angel’s expression moves from sheer terror to complete bliss. He wonders what it would be like to do that for him – to run his fingers through his hair, to pull that look of sheer relaxation and comfort from him. There’s a lot that would have to happen between them before that and he’s still not even entirely sure that Aziraphale wants that, but Crowley wants him to want that. After yesterday, the hope has become almost impossible to suppress. There had to be some significance to the soft way Aziraphale had toasted and the delighted look on his face when Crowley called him a bastard. And hadn’t they just been holding hands? Even if this was friendship, they were far past whatever the average for friendship was.

“He’s well fit, your man,” says a lady in a thick cockney accent next to Crowley, only barely startling him. Crowley briefly debates whether or not he should set the record straight, but then decides it’s not exactly lying. If anyone in the world was his man, it was Aziraphale.

“Yeah, he is,” Crowley agrees, trying and failing to stifle the smile spilling across his features.

“I don’t suppose you’ll be wanting anything done while you’re waiting? Hair bleaching is quite the process. A trim perhaps? A little manicure?”

Crowley looks down at his nails. It’s been far too long since he last painted them. The thought of a manicure sounds pretty great at this point.

“Yeah, go on,” he says, stretching out his nails. “Where do you want these?”

The nail technician, Paige, leads him over to a table with a perfect view of Aziraphale and an even better view once he’s seated in the hair stylist’s chair. Crowley locks eyes with Aziraphale’s reflection in the mirror and offers him an encouraging smile. It returns, still nervous, but with the corners of his eyes crinkled in that way that makes Crowley weak at the knees.

“Sure we can’t tempt you into getting that trim too?” Paige asks, but Crowley shakes his head.

“Planning to grow it out,” he explains and Paige nods as she sticks Crowley’s fingers in a bowl of warm water. In the mirror opposite, Aziraphale is blushing.

–

They decide to dine at another of Aziraphale’s favourite haunts that night and, for the first time in history, Crowley opens the menu.

“Crowley, you don’t mean to actually order something other than a glass of wine tonight do you?” he looks both shocked and elated. Truth be told, Crowley isn’t sure what exactly it was that prompted him to look at the meals on offer, but now that he has there is a deep pang in his stomach that seems to insist he commits to following through. The smells coming from the kitchen are amazing in a way that they haven’t ever been before and it suddenly dawns on him what must be happening.

“I think I’m hungry,” says Crowley, just as surprised as Aziraphale. “I’ve never been hungry before.”

“I think I am too, though I don’t think we’re supposed to be able to,” says Aziraphale, frowning. “I mean, of course, these assigned bodies look and feel like real bodies, but they shouldn’t behave like real bodies – at least not in terms of needs like food and rest. I don’t know what it is that’s happening to us today, Crowley, but it’s frightfully unnerving.”

Crowley glances to Aziraphale’s hair which had been almost back to his usual shade of white blonde mere hours ago but is now already starting to darken. He hopes Aziraphale doesn’t catch a glimpse of his reflection at any point tonight. He doesn’t want him to panic more than Crowley can already feel he is. He, himself, has been determined to not look at his eyes until he absolutely has to.

No, the plan for tonight is to make Aziraphale forget that anything weird is actually happening to them and to just enjoy their new freedom. No reporting back, no worries about being caught fraternising with the enemy, just the two of them, the delicious-looking steak special and the excellent bottle of wine that Aziraphale picked out. He tells Aziraphale as much and is rewarded with a room-brightening grin as a reward. Though he doesn’t know for sure yet what it is that’s going on between them, he knows enough to be sure that he’s the luckiest bastard in this restaurant.

“You know, I haven’t yet had the chance to have a good look at what they did with your nails,” says Aziraphale, and Crowley immediately offers his right hand for closer inspection. Aziraphale takes it and smiles approvingly. “Scarlet was an excellent colour choice. They look gorgeous.”

He runs his thumb gently over Crowley’s knuckles and then just… doesn’t let go. Instead, he lowers their hands to rest on the table between them while he picks up his wine with his other hand.

“Ha, nicely played, Angel,” laughs Crowley, adjusting his hand to thread his fingers through Aziraphale’s, and it’s then that Crowley realises that if he doesn’t just ask for clarification right now, he’s not going to make it through this dinner. He has to know if this is actually happening. “Look, it’s taking every bit of courage I have for me to ask this, but all the handholding, dinner at the Ritz yesterday… what are we doing here? What do you want us to be doing here? Because it’s getting to the point where there’s no going back for me. I’ve put too much of my heart into this.”

“You love me,” says Aziraphale and Crowley can’t infer anything from it. It was stated as pure fact in the same way he might point out that the sky is blue or that ducks swim.

“Yes,” Crowley agrees. “And you know that because of your love radar senses?”

“Among other things,” says Aziraphale, squeezing Crowley’s hand. “You do also go to quite extraordinary lengths to show it at times.”

“Yes well…” Crowley mumbles, feeling a blush creeping into his neck.

“I realise that demons don’t sense love the same way we do, but you must be able to sense other emotions.”

“Disgust, anger, envy, fear – basically all of your garden variety negative emotions.”

“Well, take fear for example. What is the most afraid you can ever remember me being?” He’s looking at Crowley expectantly and Crowley’s memories immediately flashback to a tartan thermos and the absolute terror in Aziraphale’s eyes as he handed it over.

“The Holy Water heist – when you got the water for me instead. You were angry too.”

“Of course I was,” says Aziraphale. “You, a demon, had made an asinine plan to go after the one thing that could properly hurt you. Even a small amount of it could have dissolved you completely. That’s not just discorporation, Crowley. That’s non-existence. That’s your last moments filled with pain and agony beyond imagining and then just you no longer being there, with no way to get to you, no way to ever see you again. The thought terrified me. It still terrifies me.”

Aziraphale’s grip around Crowley’s hand is so tight that his knuckles are turning white, but Crowley barely notices it because it’s suddenly all falling into place.

“Why, Crowley, do you think that the most terrifying moment of my life would be handing you that thermos full of pure holy water?”

“Because you love me,” says Crowley, his mind struggling to come to terms with the words he’s hearing. “Holy shit, Aziraphale, you love me?”

A warmth unlike any he’s ever known spreads through his chest as the meaning of what Aziraphale just said fully sinks in. Aziraphale is smiling, beaming at Crowley now and it only serves to make Crowley’s heart race faster.

“With all my heart.”

“That’s… wow,” Crowley replies, completely at a loss for words. “That’s good then.”

“I’d say so. And I’d also say that if two people felt romantical about each other, it would be rather silly for them to not pursue that, not so?”

“Truly idiotic,” says Crowley, lifting Aziraphale’s hand slowly, hesitantly before pressing the softest kiss to each knuckle and it’s unfortunately right at that moment that the waiter arrives with their starter course, somewhat cutting through the intensity of the moment.

Crowley has a proper three-course meal for the first time in his life, and though it’s as delicious as Aziraphale has been loudly raving all these years, it has nothing on the angel’s smile and knowing that it was Crowley that put it there.

–

Both Crowley and Aziraphale are exhausted by the time dinner is over, which is a completely new experience for them. Though Crowley chooses to sleep at night, it’s only ever because he finds it pleasant. Their bodies aren’t supposed to feel fatigued. After all, the forces of good and evil never slept – their respective bureaus couldn’t afford them to either.

Unless that’s what heaven and hell were trying to do now – weaken them so that they would be easier to capture again. Best not to think about that until morning.

“We’ll take a cab to my flat,” says Crowley. “I’ve at least got a bed.”

“Good thinking,” says Aziraphale, yawning loudly as Crowley hails one down.

After giving the cab driver the address, he settles back into his seat and tries not to melt too much when Aziraphale rests his head on Crowley’s shoulder.

“Love you,” he says

“Love you too,” Crowley replies, his heart overflowing.

“It’s nice to be able to finally say it in words.”

“Agreed.”

As Crowley begins drifting off, he glances at the eyes of the cabbie in the rear-view mirror and, for a moment, is filled with a flash of gut-punching familiarity though he can’t quite place who they belong to. A heartbeat later, he finds himself in the wide-open expanse where, days before, time had stopped long enough for Aziraphale and him to speak to Adam. It looked the same except that now it was just the two of them.

“Crowley, you’re here too,” says Aziraphale, sounding relieved. “Did you do something? The last thing I remember is you saying ‘I love you’ and then the next I was here. What do you think it means?”

“I have no idea, but I’m glad you’re here too.” He reaches for Aziraphale’s hand and the two of them begin making their way slowly through the powdery white sand. They manage to make it about ten meters before a loud voice rings out over the landscape.

“Aziraphale, Crowley, where are you going?”

Crowley’s heart plummets. The last time he had heard that voice was when he was being cast out of heaven. Perhaps Aziraphale had fallen after all then. He glances at Aziraphale, who is sheet white and completely motionless.

“Relax, Crowley,” says God, gently. “No one is falling today – at least not in the traditional sense. You’re probably wondering why I’ve brought you here.”

“Yes, the thought had crossed my mind,” says Aziraphale with bravado that Crowley knows he’s borrowing. Aziraphale’s fear is so overwhelming, it’s making Crowley forget to feel his own.

“Look, Your Lordship, if it’s all the same to you, I’d prefer if you got the punishment over with quickly. It’s been a long, strange day for us.”

“That’s precisely what I brought you here to talk to you about. Had it not been for you two, our final, decisive war would be underway as we speak. As it stands, it would appear we are still in a time of peace. Now, both sides are noticeably put out by this, as I’m sure you picked up on while cleverly evading their punishments. I, however, do not share these same frustrations.”

“You don’t?” asks Aziraphale carefully and the voice of God laughs softly.

“No, I don’t. It means that I will have to wait a bit longer to wrap everything up, but time has never worked quite the same for me, so this is hardly a problem. More than anything, I am not angry because I understand why you did it. You love this planet as you love each other and love that pure, love that all-consuming that it would lead you to face down the powers of heaven and hell to preserve it, deserves a reward, not punishment. So I’m giving you what you want. What you’ve both secretly desired all these years.”

Crowley and Aziraphale exchange a glance as they squeeze each other’s hands.

“I’m giving you the chance to be human.”

The gravity of these words takes a moment to sink in, but as they do Crowley’s heart swells. He won’t be a demon anymore. He won’t be particularly good, sure, but he won’t be expected to be being of pure evil anymore either. He could just be. The thought is overwhelming.

God laughs again.

“I see that I have no objections to this plan. It is decided then. When you leave this place, both of you will be completely human and neither heaven nor hell will be able to stake a claim on your existence more than they would with any other human. You will be free from scrutiny on both sides, free to carry on with your lives as normal.”

Crowley feels like he’s floating. This all seems too good to be true, and yet he feels no need to doubt it. Aziraphale still looks like he has his misgivings, however.

“Is something the matter, Aziraphale?” God asks.

“Well, Lord, it’s not so much that something is the matter as much as it is confusion. You see, I can’t seem to sense Crowley’s love anymore. I could up until a second ago, but now there’s nothing. Yet somehow, I still feel heaven’s power flowing through me. Are we… are we still going to be able to perform miracles as humans?”

There’s a sudden crash of thunder, despite the sky being clear and when Crowley and Aziraphale recover from their shock, they see before them a flaming sword, identical to the one Aziraphale used to have.

“Many years ago, I entrusted one of these to an angel without much thought or hesitation. Barely a few months later, that angel had given it away to two brand-new humans so that they might have a way to protect and provide for themselves as they navigated the world and learned what it was to be alive. That’s precisely what I am doing now. Your miracles will help you as you navigate the world as new humans. All I ask is that in addition to using this power as an aid for yourselves, you will try to do good with it too.”

“We’ll try our utmost, won’t we, Crowley?”

Crowley is just staring at the ground, overwhelmed with emotion.

“Thank you,” he finally manages to say.

“You’re welcome, Crowley. Now, go in peace and enjoy your freedom.”

For a moment, nothing happens as they stare out along the barren landscape, but then the vision fades to black and Crowley is warm and more comfortable than he’s ever been before. He’s asleep, he knows it, but it has never felt so good, so perfect and so all-consuming. He’s not sure he ever wants to wake up again. But then he realises that the unfamiliar weight around his waist is Aziraphale’s arm and his heart surges. Slowly, trying his hardest not to disturb the angel, he turns to face him and is surprised to find that the Aziraphale looking back at him has dark hair.

Completely human, just like she promised.

He reaches out to stroke some of the soft hair away from his forehead and as he does, Aziraphale’s eyes flutter open.

“Good morning,” says Aziraphale. “I do believe this is my first time waking up.”

“It suits you.” Crowley is grinning. He can’t help it. He can’t believe how lucky he is.

“You’re very sweet,” says Aziraphale, then, with a small start, he opens his eyes fully. “Crowley, goodness, your eyes are human. And brown.”

“Really?” he asks. “Do they look alright? I mean, do I suit them? Should I just keep on wearing the sunglasses?”

“They’re beautiful,” he says, pressing a kiss to the tip of Crowley’s nose.

“Your hair is dark brown too,” says Crowley and seeing the panic on Aziraphale’s face, he grins. “It makes you look devastatingly handsome.”

“Well, I suppose I’ll have to take your word for it,” laughs Aziraphale. “What is the time anyway?”

Crowley reaches over to his bedside table for his phone.

“It’s quarter past six.”

“Well, that’s far too early to be awake.” And, snuggling closer to Crowley, he falls asleep again.

Crowley lies there, listening to Aziraphale’s deep breathing, intoxicated by the scent of the shampoo the salon used on him the day before. He has no idea what he did to deserve this, how after all the years of pain and torment, this is how things have turned out, but he will never stop being grateful for it.

Not even five minutes later, Crowley falls asleep in Aziraphale’s arms.

#ineffable husbands #ineffable husbands fic #ineffable husbands fanfic #aziraphale x crowley #crowley x aziraphale #good omens #yay I wrote another thing #I'm on a roll #long post

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luckyspike · 5 years ago

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Adventures in America, Ch. 10 - Haunted Doll Watch

In which Adam and Lucky have an unexpected encounter with the supernatural, and two more immortal idiots enter the playing field in spite of the ref’s strict no-interference declaration

Start with chapter 1 here (not on AO3 yet!)

Refresh on chapter 9

or check out my fanfic tag for all your fanfic needs

As with most such places, the first several haunted locations Adam and Lucky wandered through the next day, after rolling out of bed at the crack of eleven, were not actually haunted. Adam had a knack for picking up on that kind of thing, in spite of never having seen a ghost, and although he stepped into every place with an open mind and a hopeful heart, for the most part he only found dust and tourist traps. By the fourth stop on the walking tour, he was starting to despair, although Lucky was convinced they’d already encountered about five ghosts, and was trying to explain to Adam why a creaky door on mis-matched hinges meant the old house they’d just left was definitely haunted.

He knew, based on his similar experiences around England, that most places that were purportedly haunted actually weren’t, but still, he’d been hoping America would be different. A part of him - a part of him that was still a kid playing with the Them in Hogback wood - thought maybe after all those gangsters and cowboys had died in this country, a few of them had stuck around.

Still, Lucky was having a good time, and in spite of the disappointing lack of ghosts, Adam was having a good time tagging along behind. Some of the places had free wifi too - after days out in the Great Plains, where cell service was sparse, much less wifi, this was a welcome development that he was taking full advantage of to message his family and friends. Brian had been shocked to hear there wasn’t a tornado in America every day, and once they hit the free wifi at the next haunted house, Adam read through ten more messages with increasingly-dramatic expressions of disbelief. He read them aloud, too, to Lucky and the two of them laughed, before sending the other boy a picture of the awkward-looking wax sculpture in the entryway of a home that declared itself “Actually haunted!”

“Put money on it?” Lucky offered, picking a tri-fold brochure up off of the desk in the entryway. “I bet it’s actually haunted.”

“I’ll give you two dollars if it is,” Adam wagered. “And if not, I get two dollars.”

“Deal.” Lucky looked thoughtful. “How will we know if it’s haunted?”

Adam raised his eyebrows and asked, mildly, “How have we known with any of the other places?”

“... You have a point.” He thought further. “Maybe something more indisputable? Not just creaks but like, an EVP or an apparition or … ?”

“You have something to record EVPs?”

Lucky shrugged and brandished his phone. “Just this. Could be worth a shot.”

Around them, the old house creaked as tourists moved through it, and outside there was the sound of traffic and pedestrians and general city life. The boys exchanged a look. “Could be tough,” Adam said, unnecessarily.

“I still wanna try it.”

“Okay.”

The house was a late-1800s Victorian-inspired monstrosity; a rabbits’ warren of small rooms and narrow hallways strung together in such a way that you really could only see bits and pieces of the house at a time, with the exception of whatever room you happened to be standing in. The furniture, too, was authentic to the period. Aziraphale, Adam thought as he looked around, probably would have loved it. He pulled out his phone and snapped a few pictures, making a mental note that once he’s on wifi, he should send them to Crowley for Aziraphale to look at.

Maybe he could even video call them later, he thought, tapping the back of a chintz wingback chair, before the hideous pattern called to him, and he took a close-up photo of that as well.

“Looking for orbs?” Lucky asked, as he wandered by, looking around the room like he wasn’t sure what to examine first. Which, Adam figured, he probably wasn’t. “Good idea.”

“Oh, yeah. Totally.” And then, to confirm the story, he looked to the phone’s screen and flipped back through the photos he’d just taken. Chintz furniture, glass-front cabinets, and out-of-style curtains, nothing more. No orbs, no shadow people, no ghosts. He told Lucky so, and the other boy sighed.

“Let’s try another room. It’ll be quieter in the basement, maybe we can even get some EVPs down there.”

“Lead the way.”

The did not have better luck in the basement, although had either Adam or Lucky been Foley artists they would probably have been fairly well-pleased with the ‘footsteps crunching in old basement’ recording they managed to get while waiting for some kind of ghostly reply. His enthusiasm waning, Lucky led the way back upstairs, all the way upstairs, to the top floor. Adam poked around in the bedrooms while Lucky explored the maid’s quarters in the attic, theoretically trying to get some EVPs up there while Adam photographed the rooms below for orbs. Neither had much luck, and, discouraged, they re-united in one of the child’s bedrooms.

“I think it’s a bust,” Lucky sighed, obviously disappointed. “Maybe it’s that it’s daylight, you think? Not that we’ll be able to be in any of these places at night, but I wonder if we’d have better luck then, like, when the spirits are more active, maybe?”

“Maybe,” Adam said, sympathetically. “Probably, yeah?” The bed was old, and the quilt covering it looked fairly ancient as well, visible as it was beneath a mass of dolls that looked like they’d been plucked from the nearest antique store with the primary intention of being as unsettling as possible. He picked up his phone to photograph it. “Maybe one of the next few houses? We could stop for lunch, then hit a couple more -”

Lucky made a noise that might have been agreement, and turned to leave. And then both boys froze, because one of the dolls spoke in a tight, squeaky voice. “Antichrist!”

Lucky was the first to recover, mostly because Adam had gone very, very still and very, very pale. He was still and pale even while Lucky shouldered past him, the better to get closer to the bed, and lean in to the dolls. “You heard that, right? You heard it talk?”

“Oh, yeah.” Adam swallowed. “Yep, for sure.” He took a step backwards.

“It said ‘antichrist’ I think.” He looked over the assembled dolls. “Is that right? Which one of you said that?”

When the dolls answered, it was in unison, a heavy buzz coursing through them and coalescing into a word. “Us.”

“Okay, I’m out.” Adam stumbled backwards, his shoulders bumping into the doorframe. He made to spin, to duck out of the room, but the door swung shut in his face and he yelped, scrambling backwards into Lucky, who had frozen in front of the bed, eyes wide, fixed on the dolls. Several of them - not all, which made it more horrifying, somehow - were now hovering a foot or so above the bed.

“Antichrist,” they repeated, in the same awful sound that made Adam’s eardrums tremble. “Antichrist. Beware, Antichrist.” Lucky was backing up, shoving Adam with him, until Adam felt the old door at his back. Not taking his eyes off the dolls, he started to fumble for the knob, even as they continued to speak. “Beware the Duke. Beware the Warrior.”

“I can’t find the doorknob,” Adam whispered to Lucky, frantically. “I can’t find it, I can’t look to -”

“You hear us, kid? Beware!”

Several things happened at once. The dolls, as one, throbbed with a single pulse of hot, orange light, and the room, for a brief second, stank of sulfur and, interestingly, Adam thought distantly, given as he was to unique insider knowledge about the infernal and divine, warm printer paper. A warm breeze blew through the room as well, ruffling the boys’ hair. Instinctively, they both closed their eyes, Lucky with a whimper, until the breeze died down. And then everything grew very still and quiet and Adam, fully expecting to see a demon or an angel, cracked his eyes open a fraction of a millimeter.

The dolls were sitting neatly on the bed as though they had never been disturbed. Sunlight shone through the window, and, if possible, the room looked just a little cleaner, less dusty than it had before.

The door opened at his back.

They didn’t talk as they left the house. Adam just grabbed Lucky’s shirt by the collar and pulled him back, out of the room, until they were in a wider part of the house. Adam looped his arm around the taller boy’s shoulder then, and they walked outside into the daylight, pale and quiet and walking in lock-step.

The old house was near to a little green space, not a park exactly, but just a handful of square feet that was tended and allowed to grow grass and two anemic-looking trees. Optimistically, someone had once set a bench between them. It was vacant now, and Adam and Lucky sat on it, Lucky slouched back, loose-limbed and vacant, while Adam curled forward, elbows on his knees and hands folded in his lap. He stared at the grass, focused.

They didn’t really keep track of time. Some cars drove by, people walked past, and the shadows grew a little longer, though not much. Eventually, Adam sat back, and Lucky sat up straighter and then, with a quiet rustle just audible over the hustle of the city around them, two dollar bills emerged from Adam’s pocket, and found their way into Lucky’s line of sight.

Lucky looked slowly from the bills, to Adam, and, delicately, raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

It felt good to laugh. It wasn’t really a ‘ha-ha-funny’ kind of laugh, more like a laugh that comes when you’ve escaped death, when you’ve skirted around a pit and come sliding onto solid ground on the other side. A laugh that’s just to the up-side of crying, there when the dam breaks and there’s not enough restraint in the world to hold back the bubbling of relief and joy and residual horror. They laughed, and Lucky snatched the dollar bills and tucked them away into his jeans pocket.

“That was,” Lucky said slowly, after they were done laughing and had settled down to breathe together, “super fucked-up.”

“Yep,” Adam agreed, sitting back against the bench and scrubbing his face with his hands. “Yeah, it was.”

“What was all that about the Antichrist?” Lucky frowned, staring into some empty middle-distance. “Antichrist, the Duke, the Warrior …” He waved a hand. “Like, beware the Antichrist is a pretty solid piece of advice, but it was more like, like …” He made a face and cocked his head. “Like the ghost was warning the Antichrist to beware, instead of the other way around. Beware of the Duke, and the Warrior.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“No,” Adam lied. He shifted on the bench, uncomfortable and quiet. “No, it wouldn’t. Antichrist is supposed to be the biggest bad guy around, right?”

“Yeah. So why would he need a warning?” He put his head to the side again, another thought occurring to him. “And also, why would they warn us?”

Adam forced a laugh. “Beats me.” He looked at his phone - extended network, no wifi. He wondered how soon they could get somewhere with wifi so he could call someone, Crowley, yeah, and Aziraphale, he needed to call them in the worst way, but he didn’t have service, couldn’t talk to them about all this in front of Lucky right now -

“Maybe it’s referencing tarot,” Lucky murmured. “Are there warrior and duke cards in tarot? The Antichrist would be The Devil …”

“Don’t think there’s a duke or a warrior,” Adam said, knowing full well that this was the case. He’d never really been interested in tarot, but Anathema was adept at it, and he’d hung around her enough to pick up on the basics. “Nothing really makes sense in tarot for those.”

“Guess not.” He stood, and stretched, and then hunched back down, hands in his pockets. “Think I’ve had my fill of haunted houses for today, what about you?”

Adam raised his eyebrows and looked up to Lucky. “If you were looking for proof ghosts exist, I think you found it, huh? Don’t really need to go wading around looking for more.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I got … well, more than I wanted, honestly.” He sighed, and whatever slouch he could still muster up came out. “I could go for some barbecue. You?”

“Yeah.” He stood up, following Lucky through the city - they very definitely skirted the haunted house, staying clear on the other side of the block - toward a place that Google assured them was a very well-reviewed barbecue spot. “You don’t think it’ll follow us, do you?” Adam asked. It had been bothering him, and he found himself glancing around, looking for a warrior, or a duke, or an angel or a demon. He frowned, and his fingers brushed the edges of his phone in his pocket.

“It probably can’t.” Lucky forced a little wry laugh. “I mean, okay, not like I’m an expert on ghosts or anything, but if a ghost has been in the same place for like, a hundred years, it probably can’t leave.” He rubbed his eye. “Man, I have a headache. Did that all really happen? I didn’t … maybe I was just hungry.”

“Oh, no, no, it really happened. Definitely happened.”

“And then it said ‘kid’, right? What was that about?” He spread his hands. “All that ‘beware’ and cryptic stuff like you expect from ghosts, like in the movies, right, and then ‘you hear us, kid’. Like, what was that about? Weirdly personal.”

“Very weird,” Adam agreed. Indeed, though the entire brief event had been terrifying, and all the stuff at the beginning that did sound like it came straight out of a movie chilled him, the most frightening part had been at the end. Because the voice had sounded … weirdly familiar, under the warping of the dolls and the buzz of whatever energy the thing had been drawing on to speak. He couldn’t place it, but he’d heard it before, or at least he thought he had, but then again at its core it was just a man’s voice, with an American accent, and certainly that wasn’t that rare.

“You know,” Lucky said, as they turned a corner and the strong scent of barbecue hit them both square in the face. Adam, lost in his thoughts though he was, started salivating. “You know it’s super weird, my nanny -”

“The Satanist?”

“Yeah, her. She used to call me ‘the little Antichrist’. Plus other weird stuff, Hellspawn, little demon, you know. Pet names but like, from a Satanist.You think it knew?”

Adam blinked. “Um, weird.”

“And she’d go on about like, me rising up and commanding the legions of Hell or whatever, but I figured she was just being motivational? In a weird way.” He snorted. “Listen, I know I make her sound crazy when I talk about her, and she was kind of crazy - okay, yeah, really crazy - but like she was actually really nice? But either way, for the ghost to -”

“What’d she look like?” Adam jogged around to face Lucky and stopped, blue eyes fixed on the other boy’s dark brown ones. “Sorry, I know, weird question, but what’d she look like? I swear this is relevant.”

Lucky looked confused. “Uh, I … how’s this relevant?” Adam didn’t answer, and he shrugged. “Uh, I dunno. Tall, always wore black, always wore sunglasses, Scottish -”

“Red hair?”

“Yeah. How’d you know that?”

Adam looked down, tapped a few things on his phone, and then turned the screen to the other boy. Lucky’s mouth dropped open. “Familiar?”

“I didn’t …” He looked at the picture, which showed Adam maybe a few years younger, smiling, holding the camera for the photo at arm’s length, and a woman with dark hair and round glasses holding up three tickets to a movie or something, and, most importantly, a man all in black, with red hair and dark glasses, who looked like he was trying very hard to be serious, failing miserably, and also flashing a sign of the horns behind Adam’s head. “I never knew Nanny had a brother,” Lucky concluded, finally, taking the phone and studying the photo.

“Don’t think she does. Here.” He pulled the phone back, flipped through a few more photos, and then displayed another one for Lucky. “How about that guy? Is he familiar? Like the gardener, maybe?”

This one showed a gathering on a beach, although it was definitely British because beach or no, everyone had jackets on. There were other kids in this one, trying gamely to start a fire by the looks of it, and there was the woman with the round glasses again, sitting in the sand and leaned up comfortably against a dark-haired man, also in glasses. And there, toward the edge of the picture, was the man that could have been Nanny’s twin brother, still all in black and wearing sunglasses, a thermos in one hand and his other linked with another man, white-blond and all in shades of dun. Lucky angled for a better look - Adam was clearly indicating the blonde man with Nanny’s brother - and then frowned and shook his head back and forth. “Nah, Brother Frances was way older. Same hair color, though.” He shook his head. “So weird, he could be Nanny’s twin.”

“I think he is Nanny, Lucky.” Adam grabbed the phone back one more time, flipped through a few more photos, and settled on one. “Did your Nanny drive a big, black, really old car?”

He looked perturbed. “I … don’t remember? I was little, but Nanny …” He looked at the picture that Adam held up then, of an old, black car, the blonde man leaning over the hood and pointing toward a map, scowling at the other one - Nanny, Nanny’s twin brother, whatever - gesturing in clear frustration toward something outside of the shot.

But it was the car. The car growled in the back of Lucky’s memory, deep in the recesses of his hippocampus, and suddenly he was six years old and sitting on the wide bench seat, Nanny driving while Queen - she always listened to Queen, how did he forget that? - was blasting through speakers that Lucky never really saw. She always let him have a pain au chocolate in the morning when she would take him with her into London, “for being so infernally well-behaved and gluing those coins down so securely”, and every time when they drove home she would tell him, “Now, mind the crumbs, little devil, or no biscuits in bed tonight.” And sometimes, on occasion, she would smile, and tap him on the nose, never taking her eyes off the road.

It was the car.

“Oh, my God.” He looked up to Adam. “Who - how do you know her - him? Who are they?”

“He’s my godfather. Sort of.” Adam sighed, and looked from Lucky, into the street, his expression absolutely wretched. “I think we ought to talk about some stuff. I’ll buy the barbecue.”

The boys, slowly, stepped into the barbecue restaurant. Across the street, perched on the low stone wall fronting a bank building, two figures watched them. One was dressed all in gray, a light linen suit in deference to the heat, his hands tucked into his coat pockets. The other was in black head-to-toe, save for a sheer red scarf draped around their shoulders and a red knit beanie. The black-clad figure was eating an ice cream cone.

“Do you think,” the gray-clad figure asked, after the door swung closed behind the boys, “we did the right thing?”

“Self-reflection, from you?” the shorter one drawled. Their tongue - black as tar - licked at the ice cream cone. Had a casual observer paused to take notice, they would have noted that the little black sprinkles all over the cone were not actually sprinkles and were, in fact, flies. A few flew off. “Heat’s getting to you, Gabe.”

Gabriel frowned, and stuck his feet out, making a show of studying his shoes. “Raziel did say we weren’t to interfere. But then Sandalphon said he talked to Metatron -”

“Ugh, spare me.” The short one rolled their eyes. “Falling wasn’t enough, you have to keep talking about Sandalphon? My torture will last for eternity.”

“He said,” Gabriel went on, “that, you know, the Great Plan just had a little hiccup, we need to go forward, and Metatron talks to God, and Sandalphon is his twin, so …”

“You never considered that Sandalphon might have lied? The great smiter? He really loves smiting.”

Gabriel scoffed. “Of course I did, Beelz, why did you think I called you? But Raziel said no interference, and if anyone’s still in touch with Her, it’s him. So maybe we really shouldn’t have.”

Beelzebub licked the ice cream again, chasing a melting rivulet down the outside of the cone. “We’re barely interfering. All we did was make some dolls spooky and tell the kiddo to watch his back. End of story.”

“I don’t know.” He sighed. “It’s definitely something, though. What’s to say -”

“For an archangel you sure do doubt a lot,” Beelzebub pointed out. “Watch you don’t trip. It’s quite a fall.”

Gabriel scowled at zir. “I don’t doubt Her,” he snapped, defensive. “But, you know, the Great Plan all turned out to be what? A joke? Or just the end of the first installment? She’s playing a game, Crowley was right, but I want to do my part, help out, do the right thing, but -”

Beelzebub smirked up at him, mocking. “What a good little angel you are.” Ze licked the ice cream again, and smiled serenely as the flies scattered. “For my money, Crowley and Aziraphale had it right all along: the whole thing’s fucking ineffable, and we can just sing along as we go.” Ze sighed, slouched back on a braced arm, and studied the remains of the cone, covered as it was in flies. “Either way, fuck it, right? Whatever keeps me from having to organize everybody again. Ugh.” Ze licked zir ice cream. “What a nightmare.”

“Hm.” A thought occurred to him. “You sing?”

“Not literally, no. Don’t be stupid. Demons don’t sing. Might as well ask you if you dance.”

“You dance?”

“Not with you.”

“Hm.” Gabriel studied his shoes again, and leaned back as well, his elbows propped on the wall as he scowled at his feet. “I don’t like these shoes.”

“Get a new pair, then.” Beelzebub considered the shoes, and then, delicately, smushed zir ice cream cone onto Gabriel’s left toe. “Now you have to.”

Gabriel flicked the cone off, irritated but not angry. “You didn’t have to do that, now my sock’s going to be sticky.”

“Make it miraculously not sticky.”

“I’ll know it was sticky. It’s sticky on a spiritual level.”

“Life is suffering, Gabe.” Ze sighed, a deep, soulful sigh that seemed to bubble up from the pits of Hell, carrying with it all the boredom, despair, and frustration of middle-management. “Speaking of, I should get back to work. When the boss is away …”

“The ducks will play,” Gabriel finished, solemnly. Beelzebub stared at him for a minute.

“That’s not how that phrase goes. Not at all.”

“I could never get the hang of mortal phrases.” He heaved a sigh, a more ethereal match to Beelzebub’s, warm and worried and, yes, filled with the frustration of middle-management. “You think we should do a little more? We’ve already done this much -”

Beelzebub raised an eyebrow. “In for a penny, eh?” Ze hopped off the wall, and brushed zir jacket sleeves off. “I’m against it.”

“Why?”

The look the Prince of Hell gave Gabriel could have best been described as ‘withering’, although that would not have done it justice. Considering Beelzebub’s astonishing power, crammed as it was into a five-foot-nothing human corporation, there had to be somewhere for the excess energy to vent out. Gabriel had often figured that the vent of choice was condescending facial expressions. “It’s one thing to skirt the rules of whatever Her plan is,” Beelzebub said slowly, as if speaking to a particularly stupid child, “but it’s quite another to go directly against it. Trust me. I speak from experience.” Ze waved a hand. “We did our part, gave the kid a heads-up, now we’re out. No interference.”

Gabriel made a face. “Aziraphale and Crowley did it and they’re … not … whatever they are.”

“They went against the Great Plan, which clearly was different than the Ineffable Plan. Did you talk to Raziel about Armageddon beforehand?”

“Not really. Didn’t think there was a need to, since it was written,” he intoned, a little bitterly. “Wonder what he’d actually had written for all that.”

“You’ll probably never know.” Beelzebub took a step away from Gabriel. “Keep me posted.”

“Will do.”

“Have fun with your sock.”

“I won’t,” he replied, annoyed. He’d been trying not to think about it. “Damn you.”

Beelzebub shot him a very small, nearly imperceptible, smile over zir shoulder. “Already checked off the list, Gabe. See you Sunday. Bring your notes.”

“Yeah, alright.” He watched the Prince go, and then glared at his sock, until it realized the error in its ways and stopped, on the physical level, being sticky.

It still felt sticky anyway.

---

Now with Chapter 11!

#good omens #good omens fanfiction #good omens fanfic #the one where they go to america #i wish i didn't enjoy fanfiction so much #adam young #warlock dowling #beelzebub #gabriel

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auroral-melody · 7 years ago

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I can't wait to see Crowley's eyes, either! Part of me, though, really hopes we DON'T see them until his glasses are knocked off in the burning bookstore. I think this was when they were revealed for the first time in the book, and it's super dramatic and badass. (I'm sending this as an ask bc the post you mentioned his eyes in was already pretty long)

I agree!! That scene is incredibly important and quite a bit of a reveal. I’ve actually been meaning to talk about this. Here’s a sketch to help visualize:

Poor kiddo.

I wouldn’t say he’s exactly badass here; actually I rather feel the exact opposite, but it’s an incredibly powerful scene. I have a lot of Thoughts on this, so more under the cut.

Throughout the entirety of the book, Crowley is hyped up to be ~super cool~ and suave, anxious at times but usually under control. Similarly, Aziraphale is shown to never swear. The points when these characters break that trend means heightened emotions - for Aziraphale, it’s a bit of comedy; for Crowley, it shows how truly scared he is, because the buildup is slight things throughout the book (Aziraphale’s “oh dear,” not swearing with the practiced ease of someone who has spent six millennia not swearing, and wasn’t going to start now).

Crowley is doing okay - stressed, scared, yes, but he’s getting somewhere when he runs out of his flat. After that, he doesn’t know what to do, so he goes straight to Aziraphale’s place and runs inside, shouting for his friend like never before. Let’s look at this scene.

“Then he pushed open the door, and stepped into an inferno.

The whole bookshop was ablaze. Aziraphale!’ he called. ‘Aziraphale, you - you stupid - Aziraphale? Are you here?’

No answer. Just the crackle of burning paper, the splintering of glass as fire reached the upstairs rooms, the crash of lapsing timbers.”

The imagery here is intense and sets up the drama. His repetition of the angel’s name goes through several emotions. First, it’s just calling. After that, he’s frightened. He sort of half-insults Aziraphale, not knowing what to do, and asks if he’s here. At this point, he’s just trying to hear the angel’s voice in response, and he would immediately rush to help if he heard it. [I’m definitely writing that, heck.]

He scanned the shop urgently, desperately, looking for the angel, looking for help.

In the far corner a bookshelf toppled over, cascading flaming books across the floor. The fire was all around him, and Crowley ignored it. His left trouser leg began to smolder; he stopped it with a glance.

“Hello? Aziraphale! For Go - for Sa - for somebody’s sake! Aziraphale!”

Repetition in sentences, I’ve found, helps heighten the emotions, because it’s all the character can think of. In the first bit, he’s equating Aziraphale to help. After all, he did rush here to see if they could stop the Apocalypse; he did call him immediately post-delivering Adam. Crowley is very clever. He’s killed Ligur and evaded Hastur, and he can get to Tadfield on his own with ease. He invented many things. It’s a rare time when he’s out of ideas. Even when he’s confronted by Hastur, he’s thinking fast and manages to get out of it. But now, he’s hunted and scared and has way more problems than he started with.

He’s basically here because he’s scared out of his mind, and having Aziraphale around is comforting to him. He thinks Aziraphale will know what to do, because he sure doesn’t.

He’s not particularly afraid of fire - he’s afraid of facing all of this alone.

So he calls out a few more times, nearly swearing to two deities/lords he doesn’t generally go for, as has been done a few times (blessi - windfall / that time when Hastur and Ligur called “hail satan” and Crowley started talking about traffic). He’s still trying to get Aziraphale, just desperately aware of how useless he is at this point.

The shop window was smashed from outside. Crowley turned, startled, and an unexpected jet of water struck him full in the chest, knocking him to the ground.

His shades flew to the far corner of the room, and became a puddle of burning plastic. Yellow eyes with slitted vertical pupils were revealed. Wet and steaming, face ash-blackened, as far from cool as it was possible for him to be, on all fours in the blazing bookshop, Crowley cursed Aziraphale, and the ineffable plan, and Above, and Below.”

This is his breaking point. Physically, he’s shocked. Mentally, he’s terrified. The glasses are somewhat symbolic of his cool dude façade, and now they’re on fire. He’s probably landed on broken glass and it’s hard to see or breathe.

Seeing his eyes means vulnerability.

It’s like writing his name. He doesn’t like to do it - it associates him with what he tries to hide. He’s somewhat ashamed of it. He’s somewhat ashamed of being who he’s supposed to be - a demon, without freedom or any spark of decency. He’s vulnerable now and to a demon that’s fatal. He’s on the floor, afraid, probably looks like a wet rat, is also probably on fire. It’s his lowest point.

Back to how his being cool has been played up the whole book, the line “as far as cool as it was possible for him to be” is important. Five minutes after he loses Aziraphale, he’s lost everything he feels is him. Aziraphale grounds him. Aziraphale is important because he can perform, he can think faster when he can bounce his ideas off someone else and build them with support (think of how he and Aziraphale go back and forth against the Metatron and Beelzebub; think of how he leads Aziraphale to his point of view while also convincing himself).

The angel is someone he holds very close, and losing him feels like losing himself. Think of how you feel when a friendship ends: it’s heartbreaking and so scary. While he figures Aziraphale is probably okay, it still feels like he’s been abandoned, intentionally or not. He’s sort of felt this before, when Aziraphale leaves with the book (”Right,” mumbled Crowley, suddenly feeling very alone), but this time it’s more impactful because he needs Aziraphale for other reasons besides just being lonely.

Kinda interestingly, Crowley seems to just lose it here and curse everyone he can think of. He doesn’t want it to be his fault, and arguably it’s not. He feels thrown into this.

This sort of theme continues for his next few scenes:

“He reached into the glove compartment for his spare pair of sunglasses, and found only cassettes. Irritably he grabbed one at random and pushed it into the slot.He wanted Bach, but would settle for The Traveling Wilburys.All we need is, Radio Gaga, sang Freddie Mercury.All I need is out, thought Crowley.”

He keeps spare sunglasses in the car, haha, but finds only music. Oh, well - he associates music with him being cool too.

He buys a lot of classical cassettes, which evidently Aziraphale enjoys a lot. The angel knows he keeps his cassettes in the glove compartment, so they’ve probably listened to things before. I kind of wonder if he’s subconsciously wanting classical because it reminds him of Aziraphale, and maybe that gives him comfort.

Again, Crowley doesn’t want to be in this situation at all. He’s just really scared.

“Whee. Whizz. Pop. Static drowned out the rest of the program.

Crowley turned off the radio and bit his lower lip. Beneath the ash and soot that flaked his face, he looked very tired, and very pale, and very scared.”

The gardening bit is interrupted by the demons. Back and forth throughout these, when Crowley is stressed, his conflict is his identity. Who is he really - a demon who’s just incompetent and useless and frightened, or a Cool Dude who knows what he’s doing and can casually listen to gardening tips at the end of the world? Is he truly evil, or does he have a spark of goodness? Does Aziraphale only care for him because of that spark? Does being vulnerable and scared and lashing out - does being a demon with yellow eyes mean he’s less to the angel? Does being vulnerable mean he’s kinder, or is his aloof and cool sunglasses persona the better one?

Not to mention, all the stress around him. How is he going to die?

When he gets his sunglasses back, he recovers. He decides he’s going to do his best, and he’s going to stay optimistic. That’s who he’s going to be - he’s going to be him right until the end. Anthony Crowley. After all - and this is a sentence that’s repeated a couple times - what the hell? What else does he have to lose?

In the end, here, Crowley manages to gather himself up. I’m proud of him. These scenes are a height in his arc: deciding to do what’s right and keep going no matter what, and hoping against hope. He’s powerfully optimistic (perhaps an undemonic feature) and it gives him strength to carry on. That’s admirable.

I feel like seeing Crowley’s eyes means seeing him unveiled. I think, acceptably, if he were to get other scenes without the glasses on, they could be around Aziraphale. Trusting Aziraphale with that could be monumental. You know how often in fic, wings are intimate? I think that’s a great headcanon, but maybe for Crowley, seeing his eyes means he’s letting his guard down too (or, in this case, it’s been thrown off him and stamped into the ground like a steamroller).

#crowley #good omens #aj crowley #anthony j. crowley #oops this got. long #good omens meta #asks #answers #my art #maniacalmole #wow if only i could write these essays for school

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caveartfair · 7 years ago

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The Radical, 600-Year Evolution of Tarot Card Art

John Elisle, The Star, from the reimagined female Tarot cards. Courtesy of the artist.

John Elisle, The Magician, from the reimagined female Tarot cards. Courtesy of the artist.

John Elisle, The Fool, from the reimagined female Tarot cards. Courtesy of the artist.

What would Antoine Court de Gébelin think of the Happy Squirrel?

De Gébelin was a Protestant minister born in the 18th century. He authored the multi-volume tome Le Monde primitif, which insisted that the tarot deck contained secrets of the ancient Egyptians, whose priests had distilled their occult wisdom into the cards’ illustrations, imbuing them with great mystical power. Before that point, tarot was primarily a card game—meant for fun, not prophecy.

It was a bold and somewhat absurd assertion, given that de Gébelin could not read Egyptian hieroglyphics (no one could at the time, since they weren’t deciphered until the 19th century). Despite a total lack of historical evidence to back his claim, the theory stuck: Tarot decks, once a novelty, became popular tools for divination after the publication of de Gébelin’s book.

Which brings us back to the Happy Squirrel, a relatively recent addition to the tarot’s Major Arcana, and one whose provenance is less hazy: it originated on season six of The Simpsons. Lisa visits a fortune teller who is unconcerned when Lisa picks Death, but gasps in horror when the next card she draws is the Happy Squirrel. (When Lisa asks if the fuzzy rodent is a bad sign, the fortune teller demurs, saying that “the cards are vague and mysterious.”) Although it began as a cartoon joke, the Happy Squirrel card has made its way into over a dozen commercially available tarot decks.

So what would de Gébelin’s reaction be? The answer depends on whether tarot is a collection of timeless, mystical wisdom—or a flexible framework that has endured by changing with the times. Although tarot imagery employs supposedly universal archetypes, new decks are constantly being invented, and old decks altered. The art of tarot cards can never fully transcend its milieu. Which begs a second question: How do the cards’ art and design relate to the social changes, technological advances, and aesthetic sensibilities of their particular eras?

A Wealthy Family’s Trick-Taking Game

Bembo Bonifacio, Female Knight (Swords), 1428-1447. Visconti Tarot from the Cary Collection of Playing Cards. Courtesy of the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University.

Bembo Bonifacio, Empress of Swords, 1428-1447. Visconti Tarot from the Cary Collection of Playing Cards. Courtesy of the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University.

Bembo Bonifacio, The King of Swords, 1428-1447. Visconti Tarot from the Cary Collection of Playing Cards. Courtesy of the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University.

Despite their aura of mystery, medieval tarot cards were not used for divination, and were probably not created by ancient Egyptian magicians. The earliest surviving tarot decks—now preserved in various museum collections—are Italian, and were commissioned by wealthy patrons, the same way one might have hired an artist to paint a portrait or illuminated prayerbook.

The Visconti-Sforza Tarot is a collection of decks, none complete, commissioned by the Visconti and Sforza families from the workshop of Milanese court painter Bonifacio Bembo. Cards such as Death, who rides a horse and swings a giant scythe like a player in the world’s most high-stakes polo match, will seem familiar to contemporary enthusiasts. So will the Pope, who sits on a golden throne; and the Lovers, who hold hands beneath a string of heraldic flags. Rather than looking to these cards for mystic guidance, the Visconti and Sforza families would have used them to play a trick-taking card game similar to modern-day Bridge. (Although it’s unlikely—given the good condition of the decks—that they were ever handled with much frequency).

The cards each have intricately tooled gold backgrounds that glow like the luxury items that they were. Bembo is believed to have included portraits of the families in many of the cards, as well as adding the Visconti family motto here and there for good measure. Akin to the work of Fra Angelico and other early-Renaissance artists, the cards are opulent but pictorially flat, although the bodies appear in naturalistic perspective and their clothing billows around them, suggesting volume and form.

The 18th-Century Conver Classic

Nicolas Conver, Tarot card from Tarot de Marseille, ca. 1760. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Nicolas Conver, Queen of Clubs. Tarot card from Tarot de Marseille, ca. 1760. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Nicolas Conver, Tarot card from Tarot de Marseille, ca. 1760. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Produced in 1760, French engraver Nicolas Conver’s deck of delicate woodcuts, the Tarot de Marseille, is the template on which many contemporary decks are based. Like the Visconti-Sforza Tarot, the deck’s design likely originated in 15th-century Italy before traveling north to France. It’s a favorite of many tarot enthusiasts, most notably the cult film director Alejandro Jodorowsky, who designed his own deck based on the style. While the Conver deck wasn’t the first to be called the Tarot de Marseille, it’s highly prized by collectors for its delicate color palette of sky blues and minty greens. The graphic black outlines and blunt shading of the prints give the cards a simple and rough-hewn appearance, which adds to the ambience of ancient wisdom. The popularity of the tarot grew due to advances in printing technology and via the writings of 19th-century French occultists such as Éliphas Lévi and Etteilla, which popularized the use of tarot as a method of fortune-telling and assigned additional divinatory meaning to the cards.

The New Mystics

Pamela Colman Smith, The Empress, c. 1937. Courtesy of the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University.

Pamela Colman Smith, The Star, c. 1937. Courtesy of the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University.

Pamela Colman Smith, Queen of Cups, c. 1937. Courtesy of the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University.

The Rider-Waite Smith deck, which debuted in 1909, remains the most recognizable and popular today. Designed by artist Pamela Colman Smith under the direction of the mystic A.E. Waite, it was the first to be mass-produced in English, and was intended for divination rather than gameplay. Smith and Waite were both active members of the Order of the Golden Dawn, a secretive organization devoted to the exploration of the paranormal and occult (allegedly Bram Stoker, Aleister Crowley, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle were also members).

In addition to Smith’s occult bonafides, she was also an accomplished artist, championed by Alfred Stieglitz, who collected her work and showed it at his gallery. Smith created fully-realized illustrations of all 78 cards that made the deck a treasure-trove for cartomancers, who now had a much richer store of images to work with. (Previously, only the 22 Major Arcana cards such as the Fool, the Magician, and the Lovers had been elaborately illustrated—traditionally, the Minor Arcana cards, which are roughly analogous to the suits in a deck of modern playing cards, were not.) The Major Arcana were based on the Tarot de Marseille drawings, but rendered in an illustrative Art Nouveau style rich with patterns. Even the Fool looks debonaire; he carelessly approaches the cliff, a feather in his cap and a blooming rose in his elegant fingers, wearing a floral tunic that looks straight out of William Morris’s workshop.

An Occultist’s Pure Geometry

Frida Harris, tarot card from The Thoth deck. Photo by @cugeltje, via Instagram.

The Thoth deck, named for the Ibis-faced Egyptian god more commonly known as Horus, was painted by the artist Frieda Harris based on direction from the infamous occultist-about-town Aleister Crowley. Completed in the early 1940s, but not widely available until 1969, it features Art Deco borders resembling the pattern of a butterfly wing.

The deck is an aesthetic departure from the Rider-Waite’s homey Arts and Crafts aesthetic. Shaped by Harris’s interest in pure geometry, the cards are reminiscent of the work of Swedish painter Hilma af Klint (a visionary artist who shared Harris’s interest in spiritualism and the writings of Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner, both popular subjects of study among the middle and upper classes in the early 20th century). Harris’s shaded orbs and compass-inscribed curves that fill the background of each card bear more than a passing resemblance to Klint’s highly-saturated geometries. Klint, considered by some to be Europe’s first abstract painter, believed that her luminous compositions were the created under the influence of spirits. (The same could easily be said of Harris because she was taking direction from Crowley, who was believed to be a medium, able to channel ancient and magical forces.)

It’s no coincidence that Klint’s paintings and Harris’s Thoth illustrations were shown in the same pavilion at the 2013 Venice Biennale, which was intended to amplify voices that had previously been excluded and “cover 100 years of dreams and visions,” according to curator Massimiliano Gioni.

Sex & Self-Help, ’70s Style

Bill Greer and Lloyd Morgan, card from Morgan-Greer Tarot, 1979.

Created by the artist Bill Greer under the direction of Lloyd Morgan, the Morgan-Greer deck is, like the 1970s themselves, both opulent and optimistic. The Magician sports a mustache that would make Tom Selleck blush, and the naked and embracing Lovers would fit right in with the hirsute and curvaceous illustrations in the original 1972 edition of The Joy of Sex.

The ‘70s enthusiasm for all things New Age created a renewed interest in tarot as a tool for self-discovery, and the Morgan Greer deck was there to greet it. The cards’ colors are lush and the lines are fluid. Greer chose to crop his figures tightly and removed the borders, allowing the illustrations to extend to the edges. The effect is fresh and personal. Formally, the Morgan-Greer illustrations have more in common with Jefferson Starship’s Spitfire (1976) album cover than with contemporary painting of the same period—the pendulum had swung away from figuration and would take a few years longer to swing back—but it’s possible to find a resonance between this deck’s art and a work like Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party (1979), with its powerful goddess and blooming flowers. Greer’s strong women and frank sexuality make the deck very much of its time.

Minimalism & Identity in the Present Day

King Khan, card from the Black Power Tarot.

Created by graphic designer Kati Forner for a Los Angeles-based fashion retailer, the Dreslyn tarot is the epitome of techno-minimalism. Although the deck is lovingly printed with high-gloss embossing, its illustrations are simple enough to be mistaken for the icon of an elegant iPhone app. It’s a radical departure from the historical approach, where each card is full to bursting with details, signs, and symbols—instead, each card has been paired down the bare minimum. The Dreslyn’s Lovers image is just two slender circles bisecting a line; its Eight of Wands is simply eight diagonal rules. The deck’s aesthetic mirrors the contemporary fear of clutter, as well as the increasing simplicity of the interfaces we use every day.

Tarot decks have also increasingly become more personal, and occasionally political, while reflecting a greater diversity. Illustrator John Elisle, in a commission for Missy Magazine, created seven all-women tarot cards, a chic sci-fi universe that includes a dominatrix Devil and a psychedelic High Priestess.

The Black Power Tarot was conceived by musician King Khan in consultation with Alejandro Jodorowsky, and designed by illustrator Michael Eaton in 2015. The deck celebrates the strength and achievements of Black musicians, artists, and activists while staying faithful to the imagery and composition of the classic Tarot de Marseilles. The familiar faces of Malcolm X, James Brown, Tina Turner, Howlin’ Wolf, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and others emerge from the Major Arcana. Sun Ra is there too, appropriately imagined as the Sun card. At a time when Black Americans are at a high risk of being the victims of state-sponsored violence, the Black Power Tarot feels especially urgent. By situating these figures within a centuries-old framework of esoteric wisdom, Khan affirms their value and influence, the importance of their legacy. By placing them on cards used for fortune-telling, he extends their power into the future.

—Ariela Gittlen

from Artsy News

#Artsy News

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lady-divine-writes · 5 years ago

Text

The Sins We Wear (Chapter 2)

(AO3)

“I just took the kettle off the stove. Would you like a cup of tea?” Aziraphale walks past Crowley, heading to the table that held their bottle of Jim Bean and two shot glasses earlier. But those have been cleared away, and now the table is perfectly appointed with cream-colored crocheted doilies, a porcelain tea pot and matching cups, a bowl of sugar, honey, cream, and a plate of biscuits.

Two cups, Crowley notes.

It touches Crowley that Aziraphale set a place for him though it seemed, at first, he wasn’t going to let him in.

“That would be lovely. Thank you,” Crowley says, accepting this olive branch since Aziraphale was in no way obligated to open his door.

Aziraphale motions to a chair and Crowley sits. He watches Aziraphale serve the tea, pouring Crowley’s and adding cream and sugar on autopilot. Aziraphale has served Crowley tea dozens of times. Crowley has taken the fact that Aziraphale knows how he drinks it for granted till now. Crowley waits till Aziraphale has his own cup prepared, sitting heavily into the chair opposite and stirring in a questionable amount of honey, before he speaks.

“I am so sorry, Aziraphale.”

Aziraphale shakes his head, staring sadly into his cup. “Crowley, my dear, you don’t have a thing to be sorry for. Perhaps you were right all along. This is a mistake.”

“No! No, it isn’t a mistake!” Crowley reaches across the table for Aziraphale’s hand, but it falls into the angel’s lap before he can touch it. “I feel awful! I feel so awful! I don’t want you to think this has anything to do with me not wanting to be with you because it doesn’t! And you did nothing wrong! It’s not you at all!”

“So what you’re saying is it’s not me, it’s you?” Aziraphale raises his cup to his lips. “How original.”

“I know what you’re implying. But I’m not trying to blow you off.”

“Then what are you trying to do?”

“I’m trying to win you back. I can’t lose you, Aziraphale! Not after I finally have you!”

A reserved smile dances across Aziraphale’s lips as he silently accepts those words as Crowley’s official apology. “You didn’t lose me. You just … bruised my ego a little. That’s all. I’ll get over it.”

“I don’t want you to get over it! I want you to hold me accountable! I …” Crowley takes a deep breath, trying to get the words coming out of his mouth to match up with the ones swirling around his head. But they’re steadily swirling faster, preparing to flush down the drain of his brain into his mouth. What will come out at that point is anyone’s guess. There’s simply too much to explain. Combine that with his complicated feelings and trying not to hurt Aziraphale’s, and he can already foresee disaster.

Crowley has never been the most tactful of demons.

So he decides instead to take a leap of faith, continue on where they left off, and show Aziraphale.

He’ll explain afterwards.

Crowley pulls aside the collar of his shirt to reveal the name Aziraphale already saw. The angel rolls his eyes. He’d wanted to forget about this drama for tonight. But he puts down his cup and slides closer, curiosity getting the better of him.

“Heather Manson-Pride,” the angel reads. “And who is that, might I ask? Old girlfriend, perhaps? Is she a demon, too?”

Crowley’s eyes pop and he bites his lower lip hard. Jealous! His angel is jealous! Oh, dear Lord in Heaven above, why did this have to come out now, when he can’t do a thing about it? What he wouldn’t give for the opportunity to rib his angel over this, preferably while cozily submerged in another bottle of Jim Bean, but this definitely isn’t the time.

Five minutes.

That’s all he was given.

And he’s already wasted three.

“No. Just Heather Manson. Pride isn’t part of her name. It’s the sin she committed that got her damned.” Crowley lets those words hit. He watches Aziraphale, reaching for his cup, stop with his fingers centimeters from the handle. “The sin I exploited that got her damned.”

Aziraphale’s hands return to his lap, discomfort straightening his back; his eyes, glossed over with emotion, locked on that name.

“Are there others?” he asks.

“You might say that.” Crowley pushes his shirt off his shoulders and lets it billow to the floor. Aziraphale can’t help staring. All over Crowley’s chest are names.

Hundreds of names.

Names written in languages ancient, languages Aziraphale can’t read, languages he doesn’t recognize.

“There’re so many of them!”

“That’s not all.” Crowley stands up and turns around, reaching for the button fly to his jeans. As he pulls the buttons open, Aziraphale sees more names scrawled over Crowley’s back. Only this time does he realize that they’re each written in a different hand – more than likely the individual signatures of the people whose names they are.

Signatures used to secure the contracts for the deals Crowley made with them.

Crowley pushes his jeans down his legs to his ankles. The names continue on in their various scripts, traveling beneath the denim to spots Aziraphale can’t see.

“But … why? Why are they on your skin?”

“It’s hell’s way of keeping track. Keeping score, more like, which is why most demons show theirs off.”

Aziraphale reaches out a trembling hand to touch, but he can’t. Each of these names, representing a real person who lives or has lived on this planet, is steeped in agony, in despair. He doesn’t have to touch them to feel it.

They radiate.

“Can’t you miracle them away?”

“It doesn’t work. I’ve tried. I can glamour them for short periods of time, but it doesn’t last long.” Crowley catches the hopeful glimmer in his angel’s eyes dim and grins slightly. “It wouldn’t last long enough for that, if that’s what you’re thinking. Not for what I have planned.”

Aziraphale gazes off to the side, hiding his glowing cheeks in the low, golden light. Crowley sees hints of a smile fighting to bloom, but in a blink, Aziraphale returns to the issue at hand.

“Why didn’t I see them in Hell? When I was lying in that tub of Holy Water? I could see my reflection … uh, your reflection … in the glass. There were no names then.”

“Because they’re attached to me. Not my body but my spirit. Since it was you inside my body, they didn’t appear.”

“And the other demons didn’t suspect because …?”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, angel, but I try not to look like other demons when I can help it. I keep the names glamoured when I’m down below. That way no one sees them.”

“Why do you do that? Wouldn’t it help your reputation if everyone could see?”

“Mostly because it drives Hastur bonkers,” Crowley admits with a laugh. “He feels wearing Earthly disguises in Hell is unnecessary. And disrespectful. He wants to see them, wants proof of what I’ve done up here. It’s a power play. And I don’t play well with others.”

“May I look a little closer?”

“Oh. Yeah. Go ahead. Be my guest.” Crowley turns around, waddling so as not to trip over his trousers, and sits back down in his chair. Aziraphale grabs his glasses and slides them on. Peering closely at Crowley’s skin, he begins to read the names and sins out loud.

“Thomas Decourt – sloth. Hazel Porter – envy. Kevin Smelt – lust.” Aziraphale peeks up at Crowley, eyebrow raised, but Crowley isn’t looking at him - eyes closed, patiently waiting in the darkness behind his eyelids for Aziraphale to finish. “Martin Marlin … well, if that isn’t an unfortunate name … gluttony. Katrina Meltzer – pride. Corbin Brenn – wrath. Shawn Meyers – wrath.” There are so many names, he decides to stick to the sins instead. “Pride, greed, gluttony, lust, envy, wrath, lust, lust, lust, lust, lust …” Aziraphale swallows so hard, he nearly chokes. “Crowley?”

“Yes, angel?”

“There’s an awful lot of lust listed here.”

“Is there?”

“Yes. And I can’t help but wonder … does that mean …? Did you … you know … with all these people?”

“No. Not at all. Not with anyone.”

“But you made them want you.”

“Yes.” Crowley pauses, triple thinking every word before it comes out his mouth. “And some of them … I made believe we had. It helped. A necessary evil, one might say.”

“All evils are necessary when you’re a demon, I imagine.”

Without looking, Crowley feels Aziraphale shrink away, sliding back to his seat without a sound.

“Why didn’t you tell me about this before?”

“You and I never really talk shop. Not the specifics, anyway. Besides, I didn’t know how.”

“You’ve had 6000 years to figure it out.”

“To be honest … I forgot.”

Aziraphale clicks his tongue in disgust. “Crowley!”

“It’s true! I know it’s difficult to believe, but it’s true! I don’t look at them, Aziraphale! I don’t look at me because of them! In each one I can see the person it belonged to, clear as day. What I did to push them over. A lot of them deserved it, angel! Don’t get me wrong. A lot of them did. But some …” His hand comes up, finding Heather’s name and covering it. “Some of them could have been redeemed if it had been in my nature to help them. If I’d been you instead of me.”

“So these names show up on your body after you’ve convinced them to commit their deadly sin?”

“Yes.”

“And if you and I make love, and my name ends up on your body …”

“It means you’re damned, angel. Nothing can mend that.”

“Not even divine intervention?”

“Don’t know.” Crowley shrugs. “The divine have never intervened on anyone’s behalf before. But I don’t see you getting damned. I really don’t.”

“Really?” Aziraphale huffs. “When did you suddenly become the optimistic one, hmm?”

“Aziraphale” – Crowley smirks – “you may not have noticed, but you skirt the rules, some pretty serious ones, all the time and you haven’t been damned yet.”

Aziraphale glares at Crowley, aghast. “I do not!”

“Yes, you do! What about our arrangement? That was a huge skirting of the rules right there!”

“I like to think of it as a necessary evil,” Aziraphale says, mimicking Crowley’s earlier tone. “Regardless, I figure that slate is more or less clear. Don’t you?”

“No matter how you want to look at it, angel, we exploited a loophole, but that didn’t necessarily make it right!”

“It’s a grey area.”

“But angels aren’t supposed to have grey areas, are they?”

Aziraphale gasps, thoroughly betrayed. “Are you calling me a bad angel!?”

“Not at all! In fact, you are, hands down, the best angel I’ve ever met! What I’m saying is those grey areas you play around in? They don’t just exist for you! That ass sack you work for and his lackeys straddle grey areas all the time, and nothing has ever happened to them!” Crowley slides forward and kneels on the floor, resting his hands on Aziraphale’s knees as he continues. “Listen … do you want me?”

Aziraphale jerks back, but not away from Crowley’s touch. “Crowley! I really don’t think now’s the time …!”

“It’s just a question, angel. I’m trying to prove a point.” Crowley looks up at his angel earnestly through dark lashes. “Do you want me?”

Aziraphale looks positively done in by that question, but he answers it truthfully nonetheless. “Y-yes.”

“Do you want me … physically?”

Nope. Aziraphale was wrong. That’s the question with the power to discorporate him. “Y-yes.”

“Have you thought about it? About us together? What that would be like?”

Aziraphale crosses his arms protectively over his chest and hugs tight. “Maybe once. Could be twice.”

Crowley grins. “Of course you have. I know you have.”

Aziraphale sticks his nose defiantly in the air. “What makes you so confident?”

Crowley leans in, the answer to this one question, though cheeky, too tempting to resist. “You talk in your sleep.”

Aziraphale holds his breath. He’d better do since it’s the last breath he’ll ever take in his entire existence.

“Yes, all right. But thinking and doing are two very different things.”

“But doesn’t thinking about having sex fall under the umbrella of impure thoughts? And don’t impure thoughts keep you out of heaven?”

“That’s not how it works! Impure thoughts won’t condemn a true believer!”

Crowley smiles triumphantly. “Exactly! And you are, without a doubt, a true believer, even after everything you’ve been through. Gabriel conspired with agents of Hell to start a war! Doesn’t that fall into the category of Wrath, even if only by a smidgen? He also tiptoed into Pride, didn’t he, with that preening he did over how Heaven would win? And yet, he still has his job, his title, his corner office, and his Divinity.”

“I … I don’t think you can compare the two.”

“Why? A sin is a sin, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but … but Gabriel is an Archangel! And I’m … well, I’m a Principality. That’s like comparing apples and oranges. Huge difference,” Aziraphale counters, but he doesn’t sound much like he believes it.

“How? Apples and oranges are both fruit. Just like you and that festering codswallop are both angels.” Crowley stops, chews on the inside of his cheek as something occurs to him. “But, on second thought, you know what is frowned upon that might be difficult to work around?”

“What?”

“Sex before marriage.”

Aziraphale sighs, in relief and disappointment. “So you’re admitting that attempting it was a mistake.”

“No, I’m not admitting that. I’m saying we should perhaps go about it a different way. Do something to ensure that no matter what, you can’t be punished for us choosing to be together. For exercising your God given free will.”

Aziraphale’s eyelids narrow. “What are you proposing?”

“I am.”

Aziraphale’s face goes blank, then it scrunches. “No. Not What? Are you proposing? I’m asking you …” He pinches the bridge of his nose in frustration “… what are you saying!?”

“I was thinking that maybe the way around that is for us to get married.”

And in that moment, even with the light traffic outside, a sparse few voices calling to one another from across the street, the rain starting, the night birds singing, and all other evidence to the contrary, the world, for Aziraphale, stops spinning.

“Married?” he echoes.

“Yes, married!” Crowley grabs Aziraphale’s arms, a look of genuine excitement on his face. “We’ll do it up proper! A courtship, a wedding, in a church even … for as long as I can stand it. We’ll send out invites, have a reception catered by any restaurant you’d like. Just say the word, Aziraphale!”

Aziraphale doesn’t answer. He’s stunned. It’s too much for him to unpack. A wedding? Aziraphale hadn’t ever dreamt of having a wedding. He never thought it could be in the cards for him. But now that Crowley has brought it up, he’s thinking about it. Really thinking about it.

They don’t have many in the way of friends, but they do have a handful. Anathema and Newt for a start. Then there’s Adam and his friends. They could have the wedding in Tadfield so there’d be no problems with them attending. It would be lovely in the spring - an outdoor wedding so Crowley wouldn’t be forced to play hot potato on consecrated ground. They could use his plants to decorate! Wouldn’t it be nice for the poor things to get a day out of doors? And the cake! Heaven’s above! He can see it now - a five-tiered angel food cake with raspberry filling and white chocolate icing, with a devil’s food cake topper. It comes together rather quickly, the image Aziraphale has started constructing in his head ethereal, to say the least.

Though one detail – the one that launched this thought experiment – stands out like a sore thumb.

“You want the two of us to get married just so we can consummate without repercussions?”

“No,” Crowley whimpers, hurt that his angel would assume the worst. “I want to marry you because I love you, and I want to keep you safe.”

“But wouldn’t my falling and becoming a demon make things easier for you?”

“Oh, angel.” Crowley cups Aziraphale’s cheek with his hand, running his thumb over his soft skin. “It would destroy you. You don’t have what it takes to be a demon. You’re too kind, too pure. You see the good in everything, and no matter how hard you landed, I don’t see that ever leaving you. It would tear you apart every day. I couldn’t bear to see that happen to you.”

“Might I remind you that you’re the one who called me a bastard?”

“But I meant it as a compliment.”

“And if we got married and I decided I shouldn’t have sex? For the sake of keeping me safe?”

“Then I’ll still have married my best friend in the universe, and I’ll never regret it. Not a single solitary day.”

Aziraphale relaxes the arms wrapped around his torso and puts a hand over Crowley’s against his cheek. The other Crowley takes, brings it to his lips and kisses it knuckle by knuckle. Aziraphale had thought Crowley’s explanation might take a weight off his shoulders, relieve the anxiety he’d had that he’d frightened Crowley off with his inexperience, with his anxiety …

… with his overall him-ness.

He feels burdened now more than before with the enormity of Crowley’s suffering. But if he could lighten the yoke Crowley has been carrying by exchanging it for his own, then he’ll accept it.

It’ll be worth it.

“I’ll … I’ll have to think about it,” he says.

Crowley sighs. “Okay. I understand,” he says, nodding for comfort, with no guarantee he hasn’t lost some part of the relationship they’d had before – a relationship he’s relied on for 6000 years. “But now that everything’s out in the open, may I ask for a favor?”

“Anything. Well, almost anything.”

That gives Crowley a chuckle … and hope. Maybe he hasn’t lost anything after all. “Would it be all right with you if I stayed the night? I’ll … I’ll sleep on the sofa, if that makes you feel more comfortable. Just please. I don’t want to be away from you right now.”

“Of course.” Aziraphale smiles softly. “And don’t be ridiculous. I’m not going to have you sleeping on the sofa.”

“The floor then, I take it?” Crowley teases, rising to his feet when Aziraphale does, not wanting to be too far from him.

“More like the cupboard under the stairs. Oh, and you can sleep with your shirt off if you’d like. I know you do when you’re home alone.” Aziraphale snaps at the teacups, reheating the cold tea.

Crowley takes Aziraphale’s left hand and holds it in both of his over the bare skin of his heart. “Would you like it if I did?”

“I would,” Aziraphale admits, clenching his teeth lightly to keep his voice from shaking. “Unless there’s something else you haven’t told me? Do tentacles shoot out your back while you sleep?”

“I think you’d know by now if they did.”

“Well,” Aziraphale hands Crowley his cup of tea. “Here’s hoping.”

***

It’s close to three in the morning by the time Aziraphale is certain Crowley is asleep. As with eating, angels and demons don’t need to sleep, but they do enjoy it from time to time. The stress of the evening must have taken its toll on Crowley. It took him a while to fall asleep, but once he did, he fell asleep hard.

He’s even snoring.

Aziraphale moves slowly, one eye on Crowley as he grabs a sheaf of papers from his bedside table. He has a plan. Admittedly, it’s not one of his best, and as with his theories on angels and physical intimacy, he has no idea whether or not it will work, but he has to try.

And as to why he’s not discussing it with Crowley?

Plausible deniability, in case someone in Hell gets wind of what Aziraphale’s planning.

Or if this backfires disastrously.

He puts a hand on Crowley’s arm. His touch, though light, causes Crowley to mumble and toss in his sleep. He murmurs the word angel, then don’t, but settles back into a comfortable rhythm of cleansing breaths and drifts back to his dreaming. Aziraphale holds his breath, waiting for the all clear, then presses his other hand flat to the empty top page. It’s a simple miracle and not a major one, so it should fly under the radar of anyone who wants to check up on him upstairs. But should anyone delve deeper, it comes with a rock solid alibi.

Aziraphale hopes, considering the way he chooses to play it.

He thinks on that more, mentally practicing every excuse he’d give in every conceivable situation, as he watches the names on Crowley’s body flow through his hand and fill up the pages.

#Good Omens #Good Omens Fanfic #ineffable husbands #crowley x aziraphale #aziraphale x crowley #frankie writes

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