Aziraphale had always been able to feel when a place was loved. As an angel, love was very much in his remit. Often it was just a sense of warmth in a local coffee shop, or the infusion of countless weddings into the stone walls of a church keeping damp at bay. Tadfield had been a special case, Adam’s love for the place multiplying the feeling to almost unfathomable levels, but every close-knit village across the country hummed with a similar, albeit it far subtler, joy.
It was therefore not particularly strange to settle into the Bentley, reading himself for the drive to Edinburgh, and feel a wave of love from the vehicle. Crowley had loved the car for ninety years. That kind of attachment couldn’t possibly not leave a mark. Usually when Aziraphale was in the Bentley, he was sitting beside Crowley, whose terrible emotion processing skills worked hard to suppress the feelings, but now Aziraphale was alone he could tell the car was so clearly cherished. He couldn’t help but smile, running his hands over the leather of the steering wheel to reassure the car that he’d take good care of it, because it clearly mattered to Crowley so deeply.
It was thirty miles out of London that Aziraphale started to become aware that there was something slightly different about the love infused into the Bentley. Usually it went one way, a place was loved but it couldn’t really love back. The car, however, seemed almost fond of him. It played classical musical when Aziraphale asked it nicely, the horn honked merrily rather than with the aggression Crowley usually forced from it on the rare occasions he thought it worth using at all. The travel sweets and the new yellow detailing, the comfortable and warm leather seats, the safe driving speed – Aziraphale could feel the Bentley desperate to please him.
It was only after Crowley checked in through the radio that Aziraphale realised what was going on. It seemed mad to even think it, but it was the only logical answer. Crowley’s love, not just for the Bentley but for Aziraphale specifically, was laced into the fabric of the car, so strongly it was echoing back. He would never have believed it, but the same feeling he got from the car was threaded under Crowley’s words. He might have complained about the yellow paint and the travel sweets, but really he was checking in to make sure Aziraphale was alright. After millennia of existing together, Aziraphale had learnt to read between the lines. So when Crowley asked him to drive faster, he knew that didn’t mean put yourself in danger to get my car back to me quicker, it meant get yourself back to me as fast as possible, because I feel better when I know you’re safe. Aziraphale knew better than to point it out, but he also wasn’t going to protest – he loved a good caper, but he knew he’d also feel better when he was back at the bookshop. Back with Crowley.
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“Reality can be a dream. Even better sometimes, because it's something you can hold onto… but only if you surrender yourself to it.”
chapter 39 of l'éphémère has been posted!
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it's 7am and I didn't sleep last night playing through chapter 6 and finishing my fic for the April twst fic event that ended up being 3k+ words...
life is good.
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