#10/10 spon get that coin kings

[personthattoleratesme]

Obsessed with how silly goofy they made the spon. Yes kings wear the dragon onesies and be a little weird about them that’s how you get our attention

Also the fact that even the spon was nostalgic…

[mostfacinorous]

GO Whumptober Day 20: Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore... [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]

They’d been on a stroll, like so many others, around the lake in St. James’, when it happened. 

It wasn’t the first time, exactly; Aziraphale knew of several other accounts, most of them dismissed as fiction or poppycock, but it had never happened to him before, and, judging by Crowley’s alarmed sounding squawk, which he would certainly not admit to emitting, later-- he was surprised as well. 

One moment, they had been in present day, Aziraphale’s hand in a bag of crumbs, on the lookout for any hungry or friendly looking wildlife, the next, they had taken a step forward and found themselves in a populated square, the grounds paved in wood and stone and dirt, the people decidedly confused by their appearances.

“Well!” Aziraphale exclaimed, albeit under his breath. 

Crowley took a step backwards, as though he expected to be able to reverse his way into the future. 

For the place they were was instantly familiar; they’d been here, only not for hundreds of years. Well, they’d been here the entire time, but the when was hundreds of years prior to the moment they’d just been in. 

Aziraphale couldn’t explain how he could tell. It was like a taste, almost. The Earth hadn’t aged yet. He couldn’t pin down the exact year, but the vintage was younger than the one he was used to. 

“It’s so long ago!” Aziraphale said, then clapped delightedly, bouncing on his toes. “Oh, Crowley, our own Moberly-Jourdain incident! Oh, we shall call it the Crowley-Fell Adventure.”

“Aziraphale.” Crowley said, and Aziraphale huffed. 

“Well it sounds better in alphabetical order, but if you insist we can call it the Fell-Crowley Incident. It does have a certain ring to it.”

“Aziraphale, one- Crowley-Fell sounds better, yeah. Two, you can’t write about this at all, we’re keeping a low profile, and three, which side do you suppose is responsible for this, and why do they want us now instead of back home?”

That did serve to deflate Aziraphale’s glee a bit. 

“Well.” He said. “I suppose perhaps to make a point. They mightn’t have succeeded in their hopes of killing us or forcing me to fall, but they still have power over our lives.” 

“Right. But why now, of all times? And when is now, anyway?” 

Aziraphale shrugged. “I imagine it was Heaven’s doing. They can’t conceive of a worse time than a dirty one. Let’s just hope we’ve landed between plagues.”

Aziraphale looked around. 

“Pardon me,” He said to the first person he saw who didn’t avert their eyes and hurry past. It was a boy, probably close to being thought of as a man in these days, likely only beginning to breach teen-hood. 

“Milord?” The boy asked, eyeing his clothing uncomfortably and doing a half bob of a bow, clearly unsure what to make of him. 

“Oh none of that,” Aziraphale said, waving off the formality. “My apologies, I think we’ve gotten a little lost. Ah-- our ship, you see, a rough voyage. What year is it? And who is King?” 

The boy looked a good deal more suspicious, of a sudden, and responded with the same incredulous snideness of teenagers everywhere. “It is 1204 in the year of our Lord, and King John rules England.” Aziraphale could almost hear the duh that would not be forthcoming for some time yet. 

“1204, Crowley!” He exclaimed. “We have been away far longer than I thought!” He shook his head. “Thank you, lad, and if you can, start saving grains for your family now. The… uh… church says it is to be an especially cold winter.” 

The boy looked, if anything, even more distrusting, but knuckled his brow and took off, glancing back at them as he went. 

“Come on Angel, let’s go get some clothes that won’t stand out so much. We need to blend in til we can figure out how to get back.”

“You know… it mightn’t be so bad, if we can’t ‘get back’.” Aziraphale said ponderously as they walked.

“What are you talking about?” Crowley sounded disgruntled, to say the least. 

“Well, you see, in all the fictitious accounts of time travel, the people doing the traveling have finite lifespans. They all want to go back for their families, their loved ones, to be with them. We don’t have that problem.” 

Crowley looked askance at him. 

“Sure, but do you really want to live through all this all over again? And isn’t there the fear of running into ourselves? I don’t know about you, but if I ran into me, I wouldn’t wait to ask questions.” 

“Oh!” Aziraphale brightened at that. “I should quite like to have a cup of tea with myself, actually-- what a grand way to catch up on the goings on of the time.” 

“Aziraphale, focus.” Crowley snapped. “There is a reason we have been sent back here and I suspect it’s to do with what’s coming in the future-- near to when we’re from. We need to find a way to get abc and stop whatever it is from happening.” 

“But if we don’t hurry the process, we’ll have an awful lot more time to stop whatever it is,” Aziraphale pointed out, sensibly, he thought. 

Crowley was silent for a long moment. 

“We won’t have your books to reference about it, though.” He said finally. “And no lovely takeout to eat while we work. No private plumbing, or gas lines, no central heating and cooling…” 

Aziraphale felt his face fall. 

“I have grown… accustomed, I suppose, to those little creature comforts.” 

“Like you said, that cold winter’s coming… food shortages and famine to follow. And all the sickness that’s to come-- 1204, we were at war with France, weren’t we? And England will be re-seizing church land soon, when John fights with the pope. You want to go through all of that nonsense again? You remember how conflicted you were about all of it, the first go round.” 

Aziraphale sighed. 

“Yes, of course, you’re right. The romance of it really is all in the nostalgia, isn’t it?” 

“It really is.” Crowley agreed. “Now come on, if I recall there’s a tailor up here somewhere.” 

It was odd, the echoes of familiarity and the utter strangeness existing together in this place. They found the tailor that Crowley remembered-- and he was, as Crowley remembered, really rather good. They left looking much more with the times, though Crowley insisted on keeping their other clothes with them, just in case. 

“So what’s next?” Aziraphale asked, actually privately enjoying letting Crowley be the hero of this little misadventure. 

“Next, we find somewhere to stay; a home base.” Crowley spoke authoritatively, as if he’d had a plan for a while now. And, given how long it’d taken to get hose made for his incredibly long legs, perhaps he’d done his planning then. 

“Did you make enough money for it?” Aziraphale asked, more than willing to pull his own weight, but Crowley reached down and nudged his coin purse, the currency within clinking softly together. 

“We’ll have enough for a while. Don’t want to attract too much attention.”

He’d said that frequently at the tailor’s, even as Aziraphale recalled the fashions of a mere few hundred years into the future with great fondness. 

He’d ended up with a loose fitting long tabard-like-thing over a longer linen robe-- comfortable enough, and stylish enough, though he couldn’t for the life of him recall the actual names of this style. No matter; it did its job well enough. 

They found an inn, fortunately located near several food stalls and a proper bar, insomuch as such a thing existed these days.

But there was wine, and ale, and water that looked mostly clear, and Aziraphale counted himself grateful. 

“So, what is your plan from here?” Aziraphale asked Crowley, once they were settled in their single shared room. Wouldn’t want to attract attention by spending too much, nor risk being separated into different lodgings. And so they had their wine bottle and the honeyed figs Crowley had bought, despite his admonitions of being careful with their coin, for Aziraphale to enjoy. 

“Now… we figure out how we got here, and why, if possible, and most importantly, how to get back.” 

“It’s been a very long time since I was lost.” Aziraphale mused, speaking to the fig he was considering in his hand. “In fact, when I have been, usually I would simply pop up to heaven, and come back down where I intended to be.” 

He bit into the treat, and Crowley stared at him. 

“You mean we’ve spent the entire day in 1204, and we could have just… gone home at any time?” 

Aziraphale shrugged and swallowed his mouthful. 

“Well, I don’t know that it will work, based on your fear that it’s heaven who’s sent us here-- and if it does, then we can do it at any time. Think of it as a… a work sponsored holiday.”

“A work spons-- Aziraphale are you mad? We’re in the medieval times! One look at my eyes, and I’m up on a flaming stake or off with my head, or--”

Aziraphale blotted at his mouth with a napkin. 

“Do you honestly think I’d let them do that to you?” 

“Well you sure didn’t stop Gabriel doing it, did you?” Crowley snapped back, and then his expression shifted, and Aziraphale could tell he regretted it as soon as it was said. Even so, he recoiled. 

“Alright. I’m sorry. Let’s… let’s go home.” He stood and made his way to a clear spot on the floor to begin drawing the correct sigils he’d need for transport. 

“Aziraphale, I’m sorry.” Crowley had stood and followed him, but Aziraphale ignored him in favor of his work. 

“So what, you aren’t talking to me now?” 

“I am trying to concentrate, Crowley. Certainly wouldn’t want to keep you where you don’t feel safe any longer than necessary.” He kept his tone even and his eyes on the symbols on the floor. 

“It’s not that-- I-- I have been so scared, all day, that they did this as a way to try and force us apart, or keep us away, and you… I don’t know how you can be so calm about all of this.” 

At that, Aziraphale did look up at him. “I can be calm because you seemed to have a plan, and I trust you and feel safe around you. I’m sorry that I can’t do the same for you, but I understand.” 

Crowley stared down at him for a moment. “That’s not what you mean to say at all, is it?” He asked. “You sound like them, shifting the blame, making it about-- about loyalty and faith. Why didn’t you tell me about your plan til just now?”

Aziraphale stopped drawing and sat back on his heels, dropping his head til his chin hit his chest. “Ever since the arrangement began…” He started, then paused to lick his lips. “I have been growing more and more afraid to use miracles for the things that matter. Useless miracles, frivolous ones-- making tea and the like? That’s not a problem, but… The important ones. I’m always afraid they’ll find out, about us, about me, and they’ll find a way to cut me off, with or without me falling, and… and so I avoid it.” 

Crowley tilted his head, then looked down at the floor, at Aziraphale’s half finished sigil. 

“But you would, because you realized how scared I am. You care about me more than you care about your own fear.” 

“Well, at least I can do one tiny angelic thing right.” Aziraphale spat back bitterly. “Now please-- let me finish this, and we will be on our way.” 

Crowley opened his mouth, seemed to think better of it, and sat back down to wait. 

Aziraphale nodded and got back to work. 

It was several silent minutes later when he heard, faintly, Crowley say, “Thank you.” 

He pretended he hadn’t.