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sushiburritonoms · 3 years ago

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28. knocking on the wrong door au Qui & Obi or QuiObi, dealer's choice...

Happy Birthday, Dark! I finally finished this one! It's been 5000 years since I last saw the Prequels and even longer since I took a Philosophy course, but I hope this still works for you.

28. Knocking on the wrong door

The soft pacing footsteps outside of his door, followed by the hesitant knock made Professor Qui-Gon Jinn immediately think, ‘lower-division undergrad, come to bargain’. Probably someone from his Existentialist Philosophy course. He usually starts to receive visitors to his tiny corner of the basement of the Amidala Humanities Center when they’re forced to grapple with Kierkegaard in the midterm essay. It’s not office hours, but he’s never been able to turn a pathetic first year away.

“Come in.”

Instead of a nervous-looking 19-year-old, he is surprised to see a strikingly handsome man dressed impeccably in a navy pinstripe suit with a tasteful lavender tie cautiously peeking into his messy office. The man has auburn hair, brushed neatly across his forehead, and a well-maintained beard. The beard made Qui-Gon think ‘university administrator’, aided by the lost look of his blue eyes.

“Hello there,” said the man, “I hope I’m not disturbing you.” The man had a soft voice with an accent--British perhaps?

“Not at all,” he replied as he carefully placed his worn leather bookmark to save his place in his book.

“I hate to barge in like this,” said the other man, even if he’s doing the very opposite of it, with most of his body politely behind the frame of Qui-Gon’s door. “But I’m looking for the Chair of Philosophy, Professor Windu? I was told his office was on this floor?”

“Ah! Mace is just down the hallway, four doors from here,” Qui-Gon said, sitting back in his chair. “Take a right, another right at the water fountain, then the corridor narrows, and at Professor Mundi’s office, turn left. Mind you don’t go too far or you’ll reach Theological Studies and you’ll never be seen again.”

The man chuckles. “My word, this building is a maze. I should have brought breadcrumbs so I could find my way out again. Thank you, Professor...ah…” the man leaned back and checked his door. “Dooku?”

“That would be my former esteemed colleague,” Qui-Gon corrected. “Administration failed to change the doorplate when I moved in and I have no compunction to correct them.”

“I see.” Qui-Gon could see the wheels turning in the young man’s head as he took in Qui-Gon’s crowded and messy office, crammed packed with books, his many office plants, and other odds and ends he’s collected over the years. “And when did Professor Dooku retire exactly?”

“Hmmm about 13 years ago now, I should say,” he replied thoughtfully. Ah his old mentor, he missed the irritable Master. Always threatening to take over the department in the name of Schopenhauerian pessimism.

“And you’ve never changed the name on the door?” The man looked amused now, crossing his hands over his chest. The navy of his suit made his eyes sparkle. Even the ghastly light of the basement corridor failed to dim their splendor. In front of Qui-Gon was a perfect simulacrum of the traditional British gentleman, and he did have quite the fondness for the old country. Qui-Gon suddenly found himself almost wishing he had a modern phone with a camera so he could capture the beauty of the moment. Almost.

“And make it easy for the first years to find me? I should think not,” Qui-Gon said with a real smile. “Finding my office is a rite of passage in the department and it helps weed out the uncommitted.”

The man laughed openly now, a wonderful sound that reminded him of the University Tower bells. “Well then, I dare say I’ve passed as well.”

“Ah, you weren’t looking for me and you don’t know who I am,” Qui-Gon said with a shake of his finger. “It's not a true experience.”

“Perhaps, but I would have searched for you eventually. My name is Obi-Wan Kenobi.” He finally introduced himself and stepped past Qui-Gon’s threshold to hold out his hand. “I’m the Visiting Professor from King’s.”

Qui-Gon rose and shook Obi-Wan’s hand. “Qui-Gon Jinn. I didn’t know we had an open position,” he admitted. “My apologies, Professor Kenobi.”

“Just Obi-Wan is fine. I didn’t think I saw you at my presentation.”

Obi-Wan had soft hands but a surprisingly strong, confident handshake. Qui-Gon’s own hand was slow to withdraw. “I’m afraid I’m notoriously absent at department events.”

“Is that so?” A smirk tugged at Obi-Wan’s mouth. “A hidden office, absent at hiring. I don’t suppose you attend the required department meetings I was told about?”

“Not since I received Full Professorship,” he admitted.

“Hmm, a pity. I was hoping I’d get the chance to meet my new colleagues. I’ve nothing else to do at the moment since I’ve arrived mid-semester.”

Was the man fluttering his eyelashes at him? Qui-Gon was so very out of practice at flirting but he was sure he never felt such heat from any of their other new hires before (not that he remembered them). There was a magnetism to Professor Kenobi, he couldn’t deny that. The suit, the accent, and the way he looked at Qui-Gon like he was the most fascinating thing in the room (and he had quite the impressive collection of bromeliads and fiddle leaf figs in his office!). It was quite flattering...and it had been too long since he’d enjoyed the company of his fellow faculty. He was content to ignore them all, especially Mace, but perhaps this young professor would be more tolerant of his eccentricities? After all, a visiting position was just a year or two, it wasn’t like this man was going to interrupt his life too badly.

“Perhaps after you’ve checked in with the Chair, you’ll have time for some lunch?”

Obi-Wan tilted an eyebrow at him. “It’s 3:30 pm.”

Ah. Not like he got much light in the basement. “Early Dinner? Actually, by the time Mace has finished detailing your contact, it’ll be almost breakfast time. ”

“I should hope not,” Obi-Wan laughed. “I’m still on London time--”

Was that a no? “Then I shan’t keep you any longer,” he said with a sigh. Perhaps he had misread the younger man.

“You didn’t let me finish, Professor,” said Obi-Wan with a shy smile. “I was going to say, my body clock is so out of sync, I could eat at any time.”

“...Well then, that’s settled,” Qui-Gon said slowly. “Please feel free to come back when Mace is finished with you. I look forward to hearing your perspective on his unique outlook on Academia.”

“Oh dear, I’m beginning to think I’m in over my head,” Obi-Wan laughed.

‘Me too,’ thought Qui-Gon with a tiny flutter stirring his chest.

Previous responses to the AU Ficlet List

38.cop/person getting a speeding ticket au (Din/Luke)

30: tourist/knowledgeable local au (Din/Luke)

19. parents meeting when they take their kids to class au (Din/Luke)

15: meeting in the E.R/A&E au (Din/Luke/Boba)

40: Soul destroying exes meeting again after not speaking for years au (Din/Luke)

25: Library/Avid Reader AU Part I (Din/Luke)

Library AU part II (Din/Luke, Obi-Wan/Qui-Gon)

#Qui-Gon is the professor that you'd love to spent more time with if only you could ever find him #The only one who can find Qui is professor emeritus Yoda who just won't fucking leave #He's outlasted four University Presidents and is determined to outlast President Mon Mothma #If he can survive President Palpatine's dissemination of the Arts and Letters College he can survive whatever trend Mothma jumps on #They don't need a diversity counsel #nobody even knows what race Professor Yoda is #He is immortal and will lecture your children's children #qui gon/obi wan #sbficlets

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elsanna-shenanigans · 3 years ago

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August Contest Submission #2: Frogs

Words: ca. 1,600 Setting: mAU Lemon: No CW: Brief mention of bullying

June

Anna Sommers adjusts her bangs and checks her teeth in the reflection of her phone’s camera before pressing down on the button to start her video. “Hi y’all, it’s been a minute. I’m all moved in and my new neighbor just told me about an art market a couple of blocks away. I thought I might take y’all there to see what’s up. Let’s go!”

The new Apartment Therapy blogger and wannabe social media influencer walks down the street as she speaks to her phone about her new house and all of the ideas she has for it.

Upon arriving at a park, she is surprised to see that there are at least a hundred tents set up with various wares for sale. Art, homemade soaps, textiles, and food all line designated pathways, and Anna takes no time getting lost in it all.

As she walks, she puts her phone away, wanting to enjoy the moment for a bit. The market is crowded with families with mischievous children, young adults, old folks, and all sorts of people looking for things to buy. It’s Anna’s element, and she grins as she tells herself that moving to this neighborhood was the best idea she’s ever had. She walks down the path and stops to chat with the vendors, looking for her next story but also looking for inspiration for her new home.

When she spots a tent with a table of several brightly colored flowers, she lights up. “Perfect,” she says to herself as she walks over.

Though the plants drew her in, it’s the woman that stops Anna in her tracks. “Gorgeous,” she says a little dazedly.

A dark brow arches and a pink lip quirks. “Excuse me?”

Anna shakes her head and blinks. “Uh, you are- your flowers are gorgeous.”

The woman- with the most beautiful pale blonde hair Anna has ever seen- smiles. “Thank you. Are you familiar with bromeliads?”

“Bro what now?”

Anna’s ignorance illicites a light laugh from the woman. “I suppose not then.”

“No,” Anna says, her cheeks turning a dark shade of pink. “I’m what you’d call a plant murderer. I’ve killed succulents.”

“Succulents are actually not as easy to care for as people think,” the woman cocks her head.

“That doesn’t reassure me,” Anna says with a self-deprecating scoff. “I’m more of an appreciator of plants though. Experience has taught me to love them from afar.”

“I bet you’d be a good plant mom if you had the right tools.”

Wishing to know more about this woman, Anna steps further under the tent. “Thank you for the confidence…” She lingers to see if the woman will take the bait.

“Elsa,” the woman smiles.

Anna grins. Hook, line, and sinker. “Thank you, Elsa. My name’s Anna; I just moved a few blocks down.” She turns and vaguely waves her hand in the direction of her house.

Elsa turns around but continues. “It’s nice to meet you, Anna.” Anna watches as she picks up a plastic pot with a small bromeliad in it. When she turns and holds out the plant to Anna, Anna’s eyes widen.

“I bet you can keep this little guy alive for a month,” Elsa says.

Anna holds her hands up defensively. “Oh, no, I don’t think-” The plant is thrust into her hands.

“I believe in you,” Elsa smiles again.

Anna nearly melts at her sudden infatuation with Elsa. Never before has she fallen so hard so fast; but, Elsa’s words have struck a chord deep inside Anna, and she wants to know Elsa more.

“Anna?” Elsa’s mouth quirks up again.

“Huh?” Anna’s eyes focus on the blonde. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. I was just saying that I’m here every month so you can bring it back and let me inspect it to see how you’re doing.”

“Wait, really? You’re giving me a plant? Shouldn’t I, like, pay you for it?”

Elsa shakes her head, and Anna wishes she could play with her hair. “Consider it a housewarming gift.”

July

Anna practically runs from her house to the market, excited to show Elsa that her bromeliad hasn’t died yet.

“I’m proud of you,” Elsa grins when Anna arrives at her tent, red-faced and out of breath. “I told you you could do it.”

Anna puts the plant down on the table. “It’s all thanks to you. After I downloaded that app you showed me, I made a plan to keep Olaf alive.”

“Olaf?”

“I had to name him, Elsa.”

Elsa’s laughter makes Anna grin, and she thinks that all she ever wants to do is make Elsa laugh.

“So, I forgot to ask you last time: why bromeliads?”

Elsa walks over to her table and grabs a book to hand to Anna. “Have you ever heard of Terry Pratchett?”

Anna takes it as she says, “Didn’t he write Good Omens with the Neil dude? I forgot his last name.”

“Gaiman; and, yes, they did write that together. But Terry Pratchett also wrote tons of books on his own. This is my favorite.”

Anna looks down at the book. “Wings,” she read aloud.

“I learned about bromeliads from it. My grandmother bought it for me when I started to read chapter books. I especially loved that it talked about how frogs live inside bromeliads in the rainforest. I was the weird little girl that loved frogs, lizards, salamanders, and anything slimy.”

“That’s not weird at all. That’s so cool!”

August

Anna has to wait until an older couple finishes purchasing a bromeliad from Elsa before she can ask her question. As soon as they turn to leave and she acknowledges them with a soft “hello,” she steps up to where Elsa is sitting behind the table.

“Elsa, will you help me on my journey to be a plant mom?”

Elsa smiles up at her. “Sure. I know a few places that have hardy plants that even you can’t kill.”

“Ha ha, you’re hilarious,” Anna deadpans as she pulls out her phone. “Do you have plans tomorrow? I could get your number, and we can meet up to go together.”

“I’d love that.”

September

Anna takes a few calming breaths. She’s outside Elsa’s front door and working up the courage to knock. They’ve been spending more time together outside of the art market, but this is the first time Elsa’s invited her to her home.

Just as she psychs herself up, the door opens and Elsa is there grinning. “I was wondering if you’d ever knock.”

“For your information, I was admiring your door knocker,” Anna hedges.

Elsa just laughs. “Well, if you’ve finished, I want to show you my greenhouse.”

Anna nods. Her own plant collection is growing rapidly thanks to Elsa’s encouragement and advice, but she’s ready to see Elsa’s.

They walk through the house, and Anna is excited to see bits of Elsa’s life. It’s as clean and organized as she imagined. The den has a cobalt sofa. There’s a kettle on her stove and pristine tea towels hanging from her oven door in her kitchen. Plants are everywhere- hanging from macraméd planters, in otherwise empty corners, trailing along walls. In short, Elsa’s house is Anna’s dream house.

Elsa opens the back door and leads Anna through her garden. It’s small but brightly colored, with butterflies and bees pollinating all around them.

A pot of dirt and a bag of bulbs outside the greenhouse catches Anna’s attention. “What are you planting?”

Elsa turns to the pot. “Crocuses. They’re one of my favorites. They bloom in the spring and are beautiful shades of purple, white, and yellow.”

“Purple’s my favorite color,” Anna grins.

Elsa returns her smile. “Mine too.”

October

Fall has finally arrived, and with it, Anna’s favorite holiday. The market is decorated for Halloween, and Anna is a little relieved to see a few other adults dressed in costumes. Her own costume isn’t so much a costume as it is an adult onesie, but she doesn’t care. She’s on a mission to ask Elsa out, and she’s opted to do it as a frog.

When she arrives at the table, Elsa’s looking down at her phone.

“Hi,” Anna holds her arms out joyfully. “Are you hoppy to see me?”

Elsa looks up with a smile that’s quickly replaced with a frown.

Anna lowers her arms. “What’s wrong, Elsa?”

“Are you making fun of me?” Elsa’s brows furrow.

“Wait what?”

“I told you I like frogs, and now you’re dressed up like one. Are you making fun of me?”

“What? No, Elsa, I,” Anna pushes back the hoodie on her onesie. “I’m sorry. It was supposed to make you smile.”

Elsa’s blue eyes soften. “Oh, I’m sorry, Anna. I was made fun of for liking frogs as a child, and I get a little defensive of it. I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”

Anna feels terrible and embarrassed and shifts from foot to foot. “No, it’s my fault.”

“It really isn’t. It’s just me and my stuff. Please stay.” Elsa pats a chair next to her’s.

Anna nods but never does get to fulfill her mission.

November

“Okay, Anna, do it. Do the thing,” Anna pumps herself up to finally ask Elsa out. She’s even found purple tulips to give Elsa because they resemble crocuses. She walks up to Elsa’s door with a purpose. Only to falter. “What if she says no? No, Anna, she won’t.”

The door opens as she squares her shoulders.

“Are those for me?” Elsa smiles.

“They are,” Anna hands them to her. “Elsa, will you go out with me?”

Elsa grins. “I’d love to.”

Epilogue

Anna adjusts her bangs and checks her teeth in the reflection of her phone’s camera before pressing down on the button to start her video. “Hi y’all, it’s been a minute. Today I’m finally moving into my girlfriend’s house and I can’t wait to show y’all. She’s perfect, our home is perfect, and our new pet frog is perfect. His name is Sven by the way.”

#elsanna #submission #august 2021 contest #prompt: flowers #cw: mentions of bullying

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andy-the-8th · 3 years ago

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Day Of and Day After - Sam (Part 5)

Part 5 of Creatures That Defy Logic

Read on AO3

That feel when you're 14 and your boyfriend turns out to be a merman, but you've still got things to get done this summer.

Sam's perspective at the end of the movie.

A/N: Sam was perhaps the least-developed character in the whole movie, so writing from her perspective was kind of a fun blank slate. I've given her a last name, individual background interests and information, and invented (mostly - Jennifer is Sam's friend who had like 2 lines) a whole supporting group of original characters for the chapters from her perspective - maybe they'll also be connected to other stories?

Sam got home about an hour after leaving the marina and Cody's parents behind. Hot from the long walk and summer air, she went immediately to the kitchen and downed two glasses of water, letting the coolness spread throughout her body as she sat and calmed down at the kitchen table.

It had been a good plan to walk back. Sam was as much an athlete as Cody or Sean or any of the boys they hung out with - her mind and muscles were connected, and one always worked better when the other was engaged.

With the open air and time to walk with purpose, she had managed to calm her emotions about losing Cody. She hung on to the mermaid's silent promise to have him back before school started, somehow communicated to Cody's mom via telepathy. God, telepathy. Another ontological thing to adjust to. Would Cody have telepathy when he returned?

She'd managed to stop crying about halfway through her walk. She knew it would come again that night, and probably the next several nights. She could hear her friend Jennifer laughing at how silly she would look crying over a boy going away for the summer, even a boy as socially desirable as Cody Griffin. Sam and Jen connected on a lot, but in the boys department she sometimes wished Jen could be a little less shallow. As far as Jen was concerned, a boyfriend only needed to be cute and popular - emotional depth, socializing, deepest-darkest secret keeping was for girl friends. Sam agreed on all the latter, but had always thought romance could be about something more.

She hadn't been attracted to Cody for his popularity. If anything, she was drawn to his drive, his energy when he would compete, the charisma he had among his teammates and with his friends. The way being one of the popular guys hadn't turned him into a cocky prick like Sean and some of the other boys on the team.

Sam felt like they were meant for each other, even if they'd only been going out since spring break. She thought Cody felt the same - Cody was like an open book, which was something she'd always loved about him. He was terrible at lying, and you could always see every emotion on his face. She had never doubted his feelings for her.

Which was part of why she was still not over him not telling her about this sooner.

Sam's older sister Jackie had come home from college last summer, talking about all the drama of dating in college with her high school friends once they were all back in town. The new thing she kept talking about was love languages - the way people show each other they care. Sam honestly thought most of her sister's talk was needlessly dramatic, and hoped that the boys she knew would grow up to be a bit less vapid and out of touch than all the boys Jackie seemed to encounter. Regardless, Sam took the little checkmarked quiz in the back of Jackie's magazine, and which said her love language was trust - being able to tell each other anything.

When she'd told Cody on the beach that she wanted him to be able to tell her anything, she could even hear Jackie's or her mom's voices in her head, saying that she was being a bit demanding for a three-month relationship in 8th grade. She didn't care. She knew she loved him, and to Sam that meant complete honestly.

So having to find out after Cody sprouted fins, apparently blew up the scoreboard (?), and ran away from the meet was justifiably infuriating. To be fair, she didn't really expect this to be what Cody was keeping from her. Part of her was relieved that it wasn't him seeing some other girl. She didn't think he would do that, but this was junior high after all. She only now slightly regretted storming out that day - she may have been sad to lose Cody, but he had hurt her too with his lack of trust and uneven expectations.

The fact that she had to learn about the details from that Josh kid only exacerbated the issue. Apparently they were close friends or something now? Then again, he looked at Cody like a science project - like he was something to study. Still, she could tell that he was important to Cody, and had clearly helped him out when the problems had started - even if she would rather have been the one to do it, the kid's science background probably helped a lot more. Even if Josh insisted they weren't problems, they were steps of Cody's metamorphosis, it sure still turned into a lot of problems for everyone else involved.

Josh's - no, Jess's - weird-ass comment about her "kissing" him after performing mouth-to-mouth was probably the part of the day she least wanted to remember. Like, sorry for trying to save your life. Thank God for junior lifeguard training and boyfriends who can apparently shoot lightning out of their hands.

Still, as she was thinking about school the next day, Sam realized it was going to be weird to not be able to talk about where Cody was with anyone. She was his girlfriend, after all - "the most popular girl in school" as Jen naggingly kept reminding her - and had always been an extrovert, wanting to talk things over with people she cared about to make them all make sense. Jess was now in the weird position of being her only peer she could be fully truthful with about what was going on her life.

That would make for an interesting summer.

God, and Sean would no doubt have a million questions after whatever he might have seen at the swim meet. It was bad enough that he still attempted to flirt with her whenever possible - him getting into a fight with Cody that had to be broken up by Josh Jess of all people surely was going to make him all the more insufferable.

Getting up from her chair, Sam tied her hair back and got up for another glass of water. She was reminded of Cody's weird sudden thirstiness at all times over the last several weeks, and how that finally made sense, and (thankfully, maybe) wasn't diabetes, as she'd repeatedly warned him. He'd insisted it wasn't, with the excuse that his mom wouldn't want him to go to regular doctors to get tested anyway. That part at least was true, even if only half of the story. Diabetes would have been a bit more normal, but imagining Mrs. Griffin dealing with insulin shots was almost scarier than her dealing with merpeople.

Merpeople of all things. She didn't doubt Cody's promise to her this time, but still: there'd better not be any mer-girls to hear about come the end of the summer.

Putting her glass in the sink, she stretched back and decided to put all the drama of middle school girls and boys - human and otherwise - behind her for the rest of the afternoon. She slid open the glass door next to kitchen table and stepped out onto the small porch in the backyard, lined with shelves of potted plants all sorts of colors and shapes. Sam had always loved her plants - succulents, aloe, bromeliads, spider plants, dracaena trees - things tied to the earth. Her room and the back porch had become her container gardens, where she'd retreat to care for them and decompress. She gathered up her watering cans - large spouts for rainlike streams, small bottles to directly water the soil - and the various pump bottles of plant food for each variety. As it was the beginning of June, it would be time to refresh the fertilizer in all of the soil. She filled the watering cans at the sink and moved smoothly and slowly from plant to plant, dabbing drops of liquid plant food to the soil, carefully parting leaves and stems, watering just the right amount for each species. The work was perfect, slow and relaxing - Sam focused on the diverse needs of each individual plant as well as appreciating its beauty and growth progress.

Sam was actually quite a good biology student herself, though she had always been more inclined to studying plants, both aesthetically and via agriculture, than anything to do with the oceans. Land management and endangered species conservation were at the top of her extracurricular interests - she had been president of the middle school environmental club the last two years, organizing recycling drives, local beach cleanups, and nature walk days for the elementary school.

This summer she had managed to get a part time job at one of the local greenhouses, which served both the florist shop and a few of the garden centers around town. Her job would start two weeks from the end of school. The prospect of spending the summer caring for things of the earth was far more comforting and appealing than tomorrow and dealing with people again.

Sam mentally noted the irony of her caring so much for things of the land, with her boyfriend turning out to be a literal sea creature.

She finished all of the care and cleaning for the plants on the back porch, then carefully went upstairs with the smallest of the watering cans and repeated the process with the small collection of indoor plants in her room.

After finishing up, she laid back on her bed, staring at the musician posters on her ceiling - Backstreet Boys, TLC, and Destiny's Child - trying to let her mind zone out. She reached into the bottom drawer of the dresser next to her bed for her CDs, finding what she had been looking for: TLC's FanMail, new just last winter. She popped the CD into her small player and put her headphones on, closed her eyes, and focused on following the rhythms of the drums and harmonies in the voices. The music worked - she found herself drifting off to sleep, exhausted physically and mentally from the rest of the afternoon.

It was almost dark outside when she woke to her mom coming in the front door downstairs. Sam quickly got up, taking a few seconds to reorient herself in space and time. Quickly trying to pull herself out of the weird fog of falling asleep midday, she made her way downstairs.

"Oh hey! Were you asleep?" Her mom rarely missed anything. Like Sam, she had long red hair, pulled back into a bun over her black dress shirt and blue blazer. Her mom was a lawyer, one of the only ones in their town who worked in environmental protection policy. Most of her days were spent with documents and plans from the various touristy planners, boat charters, and other industrialists looking to exploit the town's oceanside location, circumventing whatever environmental protection laws as they could. Ms. Lindsey Brathwaite was the main champion of the environment standing in their way.

Sam consciously widened her eyes and slightly shook her head to wake herself up. "Only a bit. Had a busy day earlier, lots going on with tomorrow the last day of school."

"Oooh, any plans for tomorrow night? Two weeks still til you start work, anything going on in the meantime with ze boyfriend?" Her mom always had a good sense of humor when discussing Sam's social life, even if it got a little annoying sometimes with not taking things quite as seriously as her daughter would like. If only she knew this one.

"Actually I was just going to maybe hang out with Jen and the girls tomorrow. Cody's, uh, Cody's going to be going away for the summer."

"Oh really? Family vacation? I would have thought they'd stay around, tourist season and all." Lindsey never missed a thing.

"Uh, no, he's going away by himself. Swim training thing, out in Australia." At that Lindsey turned right around from where she was busy taking plates out of the cabinets. "Australia? Really?"

Sam did her best to nod nonchalantly. "I think he has something going on there for like, potential Olympic training maybe? And Mrs. Griffin's sister lives there too." Sam turned away, slightly bit her lip, worrying she might be laying it on too thick. Best to avoid too many details with the story, in case she or Jess or anyone else couldn't remember them all if they had to. That said, a training camp for the Olympics wouldn't be too out of the ordinary to be in Australia - the next actual games were in Sydney next year anyway, and as she said, Mrs. Griffin had a sister who lived somewhere on the north eastern coast.

Lindsey was still no less surprised but at least seemed to buy the story, frowning at her daughter slightly. "Aw, I'm sorry to hear that, I'd imagine you'll miss him, especially with such little notice!"

"You have no idea." Sam's tone accurately indicated to her mom that she was annoyed but also wanted to drop the subject for right now.

"Well we can get on making dinner right now, then if you want to call Jen later tonight you can set up your plans and talk things over? I won't be needing the computer tonight so the phone'll be all yours." Sam really loved her mom, especially how she knew when to give her space to work things out socially. "Jackie will be coming back next week too!"

The thought of her sister showing up again for the summer made Sam even more glad to be out of the house at her greenhouse job. Jackie was alright, but ever since Sam had grown up enough to be dating, her sister was only too interested in being helpful - and prying - in that department. There were only so many details Sam would be able to give about the boyfriend she'd already told Jackie about.

"OK, thanks Mom! I'll call Jen after dinner." Sam walked over to the salad bowl Lindsey had already put out on the table, and began carefully mixing in croutons and putting the dressings out from inside the fridge. After the day she just had, something as simple as making dinner was an appealingly normal event.

#the thirteenth year #dcom #disney channel original movies #mermen #mermaid #TLC #backstreet boys #destiny's child

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moiraineswife · 5 years ago

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Snitten - A Crowley Fic

Ty to my discord goblin squad for helping me get through this!!! <3 And esp to @flootzavut for helping me beta/giving me a lil confidence boost when I needed it. Who knows if the footnotes will work #ITried

Title: Snitten

Summary: A cat starts hanging out outside Crowley's London flat, he takes a bit of an interest in. But he doesn't care about it. Absolutely not. (spoiler: he does).

Teaser:

Link: Ao3

Yawning, Crowley slouched towards his flat, not bothering to grope in his jacket for his keys. Fumbling was for mortals, not for demons who could just use a simple miracle to achieve the same thing.

With a casual wave of his hand, he unlocked the door –then promptly ricocheted off it, having tried to push into the wrong one.

Glancing around to see if anyone had spotted him, he caught sight of a pair of small yellow eyes fixed on him, judging his mess up.

He hissed threateningly at it, intending to terrify it directly into Hell.

The eyes blinked back at him.

He frowned slightly and took a step back to better view the ballsiest little fucker he’d come across since leaving Aziraphale’s place earlier.

It shrunk back slightly into the shadows, but he managed to clap eyes on a tiny scrap of fur and bones that somewhat resembled a cat. It wasn’t any particular colour or pattern. It looked like a white cat that had rolled around in a patch of cat-coloured paint.

He stared at if for a minute longer, then flicked a scrap of chicken from the wrap Aziraphale had bought him at the park at it. He figured it had earned that much. It darted out, seized it in its mouth, then launched itself back to the shadows, chewing it up, eyes still fixed on Crowley, as though afraid he might take it away again.

Crowley gave it a vague salute, then shoved into his building through the right door and disappeared upstairs for a nice nap.

******************************************************************************

Though he was a demon, Crowley had relatively few genuine full-blown weaknesses. It just so happened that two of them collided on Sunday afternoons, with the flower market, and a little pop-up street vendor stall that made the world’s best (Crowley-verified) fish and chips.

On this particular Sunday afternoon, Crowley was feeling rather pleased with himself. He’d acquired a lovely little rare bromeliad to add to his collection, as well as the last special fish supper of the day. Life was good.

He returned to his building and, as he pushed into the door, he caught a flicker of movement in the corner of his eye and turned to see the eyes of the vaguely-cat-shaped scrap from before watching him again. It seemed to have crept out of its hiding place at the sight of him.

“You really are a ballsy little shit, aren’t you?” he muttered to it.

It gave a tiny mew, as if in answer.

Glancing down at the grease-soaked newspaper in his hands, he tossed it down towards the corner. He was nearly finished, anyway. And it was litter! He was littering like a good demon should. If the cat-like-thing happened to eat it afterwards, that wasn’t down to him.

As he wandered into his building, holding the door open for the little old lady that lived in the apartment underneath him on impulse as he did so [1], he heard a quiet little rumbling purr start up behind him.

******************************************************************************

“I mostly find that Adam’s taste is quite fascinating, not to mention refreshing, the take of the youth, you know, but there are quite a few new novels I’ve found that don’t really make much sense to me at all,” Aziraphale babbled, trotting along at Crowley’s side as they wandered back to his flat for some wine, followed by more wine, followed by still more wine.

As They had decided that, in the wake of the apocalypse that never went off, they might change some of their age old traditions. This included Aziraphale sometimes coming over to Crowley’s flat for post-Ritz wine, rather than always retreating to Aziraphale’s shop[2].

“Like what?” Crowley said, frowning.

“Well there’s quite a lot of romance novels,” Aziraphale said, frowning and, to Crowley’s mingled surprise and delight, blushing, “Along with some that are decidedly, well, inappropriate,” he said, delicately.

Crowley’s smirk broadened at that, “Find a little Fifty Shades squirreled away in the back where the customers aren’t allowed to go, did you?”

“I most certainly did not!” Aziraphale blustered, looking affronted at the very idea, “I would never have anything so crude in my collection, thank you very much.”

“Too much of a prude, are we angel?” Crowley said, tilting his head to one side and favouring Aziraphale with an angelic smile on the lips of a demon.

“Certainly not!” Aziraphale said, looking surprised, “There’s absolutely nothing wrong with sex in literature, or in life, when it’s well done.” Crowley choked on his milkshake. “That book however, not that it rates the name, is both atrociously written, grossly misogynistic, and woefully inaccurate on all of its subject matter.” He sniffed, delicately, apparently oblivious to Crowley’s bug-eyed scare of amazement, “Immortal I may be, but I don’t have time for such things.”

Crowley was still trying to recover from the shock of....All of that when Aziraphale turned to him, rather sharply, and said, “Why? You haven’t read it, have you?”

“Nope,” said Crowley quickly, and truthfully. He’d been vaguely curious about all the fuss, but it had never appealed to him.

His building appeared a second later, fortunately. As they stepped inside, he casually tossed the little bag of uneaten extras he’d brought with them from lunch into the alleyway over his shoulder.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale exclaimed, shocked, eyes boggling as though he’d just tossed the second antichrist into the side street.

“What?” he said vaguely, holding the door opening and trying to gesture the angel inside, to no avail.

Aziraphale remained rooted to the spot, staring at him with shock written across his face.

“You can’t just throw your litter in the street like that!” the angel chided him.

Crowley made a show of peering around the angel to the dropped bag, “Huh, look at that. I did! Okay, now that’s settled can we-“ he tried to usher them inside again but Aziraphale refused to budge.

“You see, it’s people-“

“Demons,” he corrected.

Aziraphale gave him the kind of look that left him with frostbite for the next week and continued, “It’s demons like you that make this world a worse place to live in for everyone!”

“Not sure if you’ve noticed, angel, but that’s kinda my job description,” Crowley replied with typical snark, “Now can we-“ he swept his hands with something close to desperation towards the door of the building.

“No! We certainly cannot!” Aziraphale said, and Crowley deflated with exasperated irritation. “Not while your litter is lying in the streets, polluting the environment.”

He strode pompously forwards and bent to pick up the papers. Crowley grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back, “Okay, okay! I give up, you win,” he dragged a hand through his hair, which was starting to get a little length to it again, “I’m feeding a cat-thing,” he mumbled, all in a rush.

“Pardon?” Aziraphale said, raising an eyebrow.

“There’s some little cat thing that lives there,” he said, jerking his head towards the alley, “If I have food wrappers when I come home,” which, of late, had been every time he came home, “I just sort of,” he gestured vaguely towards the dropped papers.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale exclaimed, in that excruciating way that told him he’d just done something the angel approved of, “That’s really rather sweet of you, you know,” he said, smiling.

“Ugh,” Crowley groaned, taking Aziraphale by the shoulders and attempting to steer him into the building to escape the agony of this conversation, “Okay, okay, I’m a terrible demon, you knew there was good in me all along, blah, blah, blah. Let’s go! Wine! Now!”

Aziraphale, with surprising strength, resisted him, still peering into the alley, “Where is the little creature?” he said.

“How should I know?” Crowley growled. You better fucking enjoy this, you little beast, given how much I’ve suffered for it. “I’m not its minder!”

He finally succeeded in shunting Aziraphale bodily through the door.

“I didn’t even think you liked animals,” Crowley said, as he used a miracle to cause the lift to simply be there on the ground floor waiting for them.

“Well ordinarily I’m not too fussed, I will admit. All God’s creatures are beautiful and worthy of love, of course, but that doesn’t necessarily mean by me at all times,” Aziraphale said, stepping neatly into the lift and holding the doors open for Crowley. “But I rather wanted to take a look at this one, since it’s managed to capture your eye.”

“It hasn’t captured anything,” Crowley growled.

Aziraphale just twinkled knowingly.

Blessed angel was insufferable.

“I do have one question, though,” Aziraphale said, shrugging off his coat as they stepped into Crowley’s flat.

Crowley made an exaggerated motion of hanging himself behind Aziraphale’s back then replaced it with a sickeningly saccharine smile when he turned to face him again.

“Just the one?” he drawled.

“Why don’t you just feed it tins of fish, rather than this convoluted sharing of your supper?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“First of all,” Crowley said, raising a long finger, irritably, “I’m not sharing with it. I’m throwing my fully completed, finished, and done wrappings in its general direction, and it’s scavenging from them. Secondly, I’m not doing that.”

Because then I’d have to acknowledge I’m actively looking after this thing and that is definitely not what’s happening here. I’m littering. ‘S not my fault it wants to tidy up after me.

Aziraphale just gave him another one of his knowing looks.

Crowley wondered two things simultaneously in that moment. The first was why he kept associating with this blessed idiot after all these years. The second was, if he threw Aziraphale out of the window in the plant room, would he be able to snap his wings into being fast enough to save himself from discorporation?

Rather than attempting to divine the answer to either of these questions, Crowley instead opened the first of many bottles of wine.

******************************************************************************

Supermarkets were definitely one of Crowley’s finer ideas.

Not only did they work to damage the souls of most of the population of the world over time with a slowly forming layer of plaque-like bitterness and irritation with the state of the universe, they functioned as an excellent microcosm of said universe.

Humans all reacted in a variety of strange but intriguing ways to supermarkets.

Some of them drifted around them like ghosts in a cemetery, part of them, but not really, without any idea of what they were doing, or why, they just did.

Some of them treated a trip to the supermarket like a military operation, complete with their lists, and pens, and dedicated ‘search and destroy’ method.

Some of them, meanwhile, took out their general anger and frustration with the state of their miserable lives on the rest of humanity that could be found on the unwashed aisles of Asda with an excellent display of yelling, gesticulating, and requests to speak with managers.

Then there were the poor sods that actually had to work there and deal with all this nonsense. Them Crowley almost felt sorry for. In fact, on more than one occasion, he’d slipped them the odd miracle, to help drag them through the day...And further infuriate those who saw the chilled section as their own person battleground against humanity.

Every now and then, there was an extra, hidden category of shopper in a supermarket: Crowley.

Technically he didn’t need to visit them. He didn’t have to buy anything, and generally didn’t bother to, either. Every now and then, though, he liked to grab a basket, wander up and down the aisles, soak in his terrible, terrible work, and see what interesting new things toppled into it along the way.

As When he returned home today, bags sitting neatly on the shelf in his kitchen with all the things that had dropped into his basket[3] he discovered something rather unwelcome.

As Cursing Aziraphale seven ways to Heaven and back, he realised there were several tins of sardines sitting innocently amongst the mix of old favourites[4]and strange new highly processed, deeply unhealthy, too cheap to be acceptable, things since last he’d been there.

Crowley couldn’t stand sardines. Aziraphale had put them on everything a few decades back, and it had driven him to distraction. For one thing the smell was disgusting. For another, there was just something distinctly...Unnatural about them. Squashed together, with their heads cut off, and their organs removed, but a variety of bones still in their bodies when they had no right to be there anymore.

“They’re soft, dear boy, you won’t even notice them!” Azirapahle had insisted, airily.

Crowley had.

It had put him off eating anything for almost a year afterwards, much to Aziraphale’s chagrin.

No. No part of his subconscious had bought this for him. That meant it must have bought it for...

“Fuck, shit, balls, no,” he growled at thin air, snatching up the tins and striding over the bin, with the full intention of throwing them out and pretending they’d never existed.

But. No. He couldn’t bring himself to do that either.

He almost hurled the tin through the window in the plant room, then, thought better of it.

Gnashing his teeth with every step, he stormed downstairs, wrenched open the door, peeled the lid from the can with the sheer force of his irritation, and dumped it into the alley without looking at it.

As the door closed behind him, he heard a purring as loud as the Bentley’s engine when she greeted him first thing in the morning, and had to work hard to keep the smile from tugging at the corners of his lips.

******************************************************************************

Humans were terrible.

Crowley had long since decided on this.

Or, to be fair, (damn Aziraphale was bad fucking influence, no doubt about that), humans had the immense capacity to be terrible. More so than any other being he had ever come across.

As of Sunday the 6th of January 2019, at precisely 5.46pm, in London, he decided they’d officially outdone themselves on the terrible scale.

Crowley had seen some shit in his time on Earth. He’d seen, and been credited for, the Spanish Inquisition. He’d seen the world war. Both of them. He’d seen every war that had ever taken place in this world.

But this, this surpassed it all. Because in all those cases, he’d seen humans taking out their cruelty and twisted imagination on each other. That was one thing. This was something else. Something utterly unforgivable.

He’d gone to the flower show, as usual, though he hadn’t picked anything up. A truly shocking display of leaf spots, white fly, and a combination of over and under-watering, had put him off making any purchases.

He had stopped off at his usual fish and chip vendor, though, because the fish and chips was always top quality.

Then he’d sauntered back home. Since losing her, he’d found himself much more appreciative of the Bentley, and so he let her rest on Sundays, and walked to and from the market.

Reflexively, as he reached the alleyway, he tossed the remnants of his fish supper into the usual spot before moving automatically towards the door.

Then he stopped.

From down the alley came the sound of loud, high-pitched yowling, and drunken shouts and laughter.

His eyesight easily pierced the puddle of darkness down the alley and saw a group of three large, drunk, twenty-something guys with hand-held fireworks they were throwing against the wall, terrifying the small cat-shaped-lump he’d been covertly feeding for the past couple of months.

With a low growl starting in the pit of his chest, quickly rising to his throat, he transformed himself into a snarling, black-scaled beast that truly deserved the title of demon.

Crowley was typically quite reserved. He preferred his human form, went out of his way to cover his serpent’s eyes to prevent alarming anyone. He disliked taking any other form, felt unlike himself, and afraid he might get stuck like that, which would be the worst.

But sometimes, sometimes, he relished it. Sometimes he sank into this form and relished every inch of it.

This was one of those times.

Stalking down the alley, he let the growl in his chest rise until it resembled thunder. His eyes glowed an evil red, and he licked his curved fangs as he advanced.

The guys took one look at him, screamed, and then, as one, bolted down the alley. To be quite sure, and also for a bit of devilish fun, he sent the remainder of the fireworks after them, smacking into them as they ran.

He cracked his neck out as he returned to his human form and crouched down to check on the kittenish-thing. There was a slight burn on its side, which he healed with a quick miracle. Other than that it seemed okay, just scared shitless. The little thing was still trembling, sides heaving, eyes bulging.

“’S’alright,” he mumbled to it.

It seemed too panicked to let him touch it, skittering away from him each time he tried, which he figured was fair. “Here,” he said, nudging his leftovers towards it, using a miracle to increase the quantity just a bit. “Those shits won’t bother you again. Promise,” he told it firmly.

It tentatively started poking at the newspapers, and he decided that was good enough, and slouched upstairs, cursing humanity as he went.

******************************************************************************

Crowley stretched and decided that he’d earned his monthly nap with all the evil he’d combated today.

Not that he was in the business of thwarting evil, kind of went against his whole thing as a demon, but, well, sometimes the humans went to places even a demon couldn’t condone. On these occasions, he figured it was his duty to step in, show them there were right kinds of evil, and wrong kinds of evil, and remind them of their place.

As He expected himself to be dressed in his black silk pyjamas[5]when he entered the bedroom for his nap, and so he was.

Yawning, he collapsed down onto the bedsheets which, by demonic miracle, were freshly washed and tumble dried, and smelled of jasmine and...Something else he couldn’t remember the name of but liked a lot.

As he settled himself down to sleep, there was a loud rumble of thunder in the distance, and the rain started outside, lashing against the walls of the flat.

Perfect.

A quarter of an hour passed and Crowley remained awake.

Half an hour passed, and still he hadn’t found himself in the comfortable embrace of sleep.

With nearly an hour gone into his attempt at sleeping, he sat up, frowning, and decided he needed to probe his feelings to understand why the fuck he was still conscious.

After a painful five minutes spent examining his own emotions, Crowley realised, to his mild horror and disgust, that he was feeling concern and something that felt an awful lot like guilt.

Groaning, the vague cocktail in his brain solidified into the image of a single scrawny, scrappy, dumb-coloured kitten shaped thing, soaked to the skin, cowering in some corner at the deafening rolls of thunder that were sweeping through the sky beyond.

No he told himself, firmly, he had already gone too far with the stupid thing. Scraps had turned into routine, had turned into tins of tuna, had turned into fully transforming himself in order to protect it. This was a line he wasn’t going to cross. Absolutely not. Under no circumstances, and for no reason would he ever-

He was already halfway to his bedroom door.

You he chided himself, as he miracled some shoes onto his feet, and a coat to protect his favourite pyjamas from the near-hurricane outside, are a pathetic excuse for a demon. The absolute worst demon that this planet, or any planet, for that matter, has ever seen.

He nudged his way out of the door of his flat, and took the stairs instead of the lift to punish himself for this hideous act of charity. Ugh. The word felt foul in his brain.

Turn around. Go back upstairs. Be worse than this. You can be worse than this. You should be worse than this. Stop this now before you do something that can’t be undone.

The door nearly threw him into the middle of next week with the force of it battering from his hand as he opened it.

He stumbled vaguely outside, instantly hissing in irritation as the wind slapped a wall of rain against his face.

Fortunately, within seconds, the cat-shaped thing had enough sense to emerge from its corner and trot as quickly as possible towards him.

If it hadn’t been quite so wet, and windy, and blessedly miserable, he might have paused to note how strange it was that this tiny, vulnerable, near helpless little scrap of life immediately associated him with safety. To the point that it ventured out in the middle of a brutal thunderstorm to run to him.

But it was wet, and windy, and blessedly miserable, so all he did was scoop it up and carry it inside.

The lift was waiting for them, and the doors opened as soon as he approached them. On the way up, he used another miracle to dry the vaguely kitten-like thing, because it was sodden, and disgusting, and he didn’t want it touching him like that, thank you very much.

Once they were inside the flat, he dumped it on the countertop in the kitchen and stared down at it. It stared right back at him.

It also looked as though he’d just stuffed it into an active socket. All its fur was standing on end, thanks to its miracle drying, which it didn’t seem too concerned by.

Frowning down at it, he miracled up a small box in the corner where it could go to relieve itself, then dumped two bowls on the counter. One he filled with water, the other he poured some more blessed sardines into.

The now much more cat-like thing stared at him with big yellow eyes, that were starting to look more and more like this own, as though it couldn’t quite fathom what was happening in this moment.

“Me neither,” he told it, flatly.

It crawled forwards and began to lap noisily at the water, sneezing a few times as it inhaled it up its nose. Apparently it hadn’t quite gotten the hang of drinking out of bowls.

Stupid little creature he thought, vaguely, patting it on the head.

It purred at him.

“Don’t get used to this,” he told it sternly, waggling a finger in its face, “This is not a permanent arrangement. One night only, so you don’t drown in that storm and that’s it, understand?”

It continued to drink, placidly.

Crowley was fairly certain that no other creature on Earth had half the disdain built in to its DNA as a natural fact of its existence quite like the cat.

He could have transformed himself into the demonic equivalent of Medusa and cursed its family for the next nine generations and he doubted whether it would so much as flick its tail at him.

All the same, he went on with setting his ground rules, “You eat, and drink, and shit, and sleep, and stay here,” he instructed, “You don’t go anywhere else in the flat. You so much as look at any of my plants, and I’ll drown you in the sink myself, save the thunderstorm the trouble. You stay here. All night. No exceptions.”

He considered for a moment, then miracle up a small folded blanket onto the countertop beside its bowls.

“Right here,” he said, pointing. Then, for good measure, he picked it up and placed it on the blanket to illustrate his point, “You got me?”

It blinked at him.

“Good,” he said, thinking he was doing pretty well at this whole one-night pet owner thing. “I’ll see you in the morning when I wake up and you’ve followed all those rules to a t. Make the most of this night, cat, you’re not getting another one.”

With that, he turned and sloped off to bed again, thinking that if he couldn’t sleep now he might scream.

Less than five minutes later, there was a small squeaking sound, followed by a soft flump, then loud purring.

The kitten, smelling faintly of sardines, crawled from the foot of his bed to the empty pillow beside him and curled up, the noise of its purrs now rivalling the thunderstorm outside.

Mashing his hand around vaguely, like a man who’s slept for a century and is trying to find the alarm clock that’s just woken him in the haze of grief, confusion, and deep hatred for the world and everything in it in that moment, Crowley found its small fuzzy body and patted it.

“You’re lucky I’m too tired to call up the roiling fires of Hell to damn you for disobedience right now,” he muttered thickly to it.

The cat head-butted his hand and increased the intensity of its purrs.

“You’re leaving in the morning,” he told it, firmly.

He almost managed to convince himself of that.

He was certain he didn’t manage to convince the cat for a second.

Blessed creature, he thought irritably, before he passed out at last.

******************************************************************************

Crowley’s flat had a kitchen because it had come with one, and because he’d never bothered to get rid of it.

A few months ago, though, he had accidentally sauntered into a cookery class at a local university. He’d found he’d enjoyed it, and had since accidentally sauntered into a few more.

Ever since, Aziraphale had been sceptical in the extreme that Crowley would cook, and then, even more so, that he could.

So, striving as ever to combat any and all notions of the adversary on Earth, Crowley had invited him over for lasagne followed by an Eton mess, all homemade by him.

As Going out of his way to look professional, he had invested in a new apron for the occasion[6]and had sat Aziraphale down in the dining room with a cup of tea and a new book he’d picked up at a Camden market to encourage him to stay out of the way. Crowley couldn’t work his magic with an audience, bless it.

He had just started rolling out the pasta sheets, when there was an interruption from next door.

“Ah, Crowley?” Aziraphale’s uncertain voice drifted through to him.

As “What, angel?” he replied, tersely, not pausing what he was doing, “If there’s a typo on your book, it wasn’t me this time, I swear[7].”

“No, no, it’s not that, the book is excellent, I do actually admire your taste on this one, it’s-” the angel babbled.

“Then what is it?” Crowley interrupted, exasperated.

“Well, it’s just that there’s something drinking my tea that isn’t me.”

Crowley cursed, abandoned his pasta, and strode out of the kitchen, hissing softly.

Aziraphale was sitting primly up in his seat, staring down at a small, furry creature, whose adorable little pink tongue was currently dipping in and out of his teacup.

Crowley marched forwards, scooped the offending little beast up and said, threateningly, “I will feed you to a hellhound.”

“Crowley!” Aziraphale exclaimed, indignant.

“Not a big one, either, a little runty one, that’ll take its time with you,” he added.

It had the audacity to purr at him.

“So it’s supposed to be here?” Aziraphale said, peering interestedly at the little bundle in his arms, “I thought perhaps it had sneaked in without you noticing.” He awkwardly patted its head. It purred more loudly. “Oh!” he said, obviously charmed, “Sweet little thing, isn’t she?”

“D’you want it?” Crowley demanded, thrusting it at him.

“Oh no, no,” Aziraphale said, a soft little smile on his face, “I think she belongs here. So you took her in, then?” he said.

“No I didn’t,” Crowley growled, “I took pity on it, stopped it drowning in a thunderstorm one night, and the ungrateful little shit has refused to leave ever since.”

“Oddly enough,” Aziraphale said, using a quick miracle to clean the essence of cat from his tea and take a prim sip, surveying Crowley over the rim, “That’s rather how I feel about you after all these years, dear boy.”

The angel looked rather pleased with himself at this little bit of verbal sparring. Crowley just glowered.

“You need to be punished,” he informed it darkly.

“Oh no, please!” Aziraphale protested at once, “Not on my account. The poor little creature didn’t do any harm.”

“No,” Crowley interrupted, “It has to learn its place.”

He carried it out of the kitchen and dumped it into a cot with high barred sides, meant for small human children. The conversation he’d had when purchasing it (since the one’s he’d miracled into existence himself hadn’t held it for more than the time it took to sneeze) had been truly nauseating.

Pointing a finger threateningly down at it he commanded, “You stay there and think about what you’ve done.”

It mewed softly at him.

Crowley returned to the kitchen.

Five minutes later, it had escaped its plastic prison, and climbed onto his shoulder to peer interestedly at the sauce he was making.

“You’re a demon,” he told it, conversationally, as it head-butted his ear in a gesture he’d come to interpret as affection.

Crowley checked his watch, “Huh, faster than last time,” he observed, feeding it scraps of meat from the pot in front of him, “Going to need to reinforce Alcatraz.”

It purred and nibbled his ear in a gesture he’d interpreted as ‘give me more food, I’m always hungry, if you were mortal I’d have no qualms whatsoever about eating your corpse if you died before me. If you don’t feed me right now, that will happen’. He kinda appreciated its moral outlook on life.

He gave it another scrap of meat.

As “Not a word to the angel,” he growled, “Got a reputation to uphold,” he said, starting to chop onions, “Can’t have it getting back to Heaven I’ve gone soft in my old age,” he sniffled[8].

“Ah, hello there little one,” Crowley jumped, and four sets of claws dug deeply into his shoulder to prevent their lasagne becoming distinctly more cat-flavoured.

Aziraphale had apparently drifted in from the dining area and was now tickling the little creature under the chin. It was uncertain, but not fleeing or trying to gnaw the angel’s fingers off, so that was an improvement.

“So what have you decided to name the little thing?” he asked evenly.

“It doesn’t have a name,” Crowley insisted, dumping his shredded onions into the pot and miracling his eyes back to normal, “I just call it ‘cat’ if I have to call it anything.”

“Cat is a very nice name,” Aziraphale said, blandly, plainly not listening to a word Crowley was saying.

“No, not ‘Cat’,” Crowley said, irritably, emphasising the first letter, “Just ‘cat’. No capital.”

“Of course,” Aziraphale said, in a tone of voice that meant he was agreeing with Crowley to avoid an argument but was going to carry on believing his stupid, wrong, angelic opinion anyway.

Crowley glared at him.

“First day of Spring on Wednesday,” he said, now hacking tomatoes into bloody red chunks, “Soon as that comes, it’s gone. That means you,” he added firmly to cat, still perched on his shoulder, poking it in its little furry chest to make sure it got the message.

“Just so,” Aziraphale said. Then he sighed and added, in a very long-suffering tone, which Crowley thought was pretty rich for someone about to eat the best thing they’d ever tasted, “Crowley, would it be so terrible to just admit that you’ve adopted this cat? It’s not the end of the world if you have, you know.”

“Yes, it would be,” Crowley said, scraping the tomatoes into the pot with unnecessary violence, “Because I haven’t.”

“Clearly,” Aziraphale deadpanned, watching the cat eagerly licking the juice from his fingers.

“Shut up and make yourself useful, angel,” Crowley growled, impatiently, “Set the table.”

“I’m your guest, Crowley,” Aziraphale reminded him, primly, “I think that means you’re supposed to-“

Crowley flicked his hand towards a drawer that shot open, nudging the angel smartly on the hip, “Cutlery’s in there.” Azirapahle opened his mouth to protest, but a cabinet door nearly hit him on the head and cut him off. Crowley snickered. “Glasses are in there. Figure you know where the wine is by now.”

Grumbling under his breath, Aziraphale trotted off to set the table.

Two stunning courses and a lot of wine later, Crowley and Aziraphale were sprawled on the couch. Crowley was sprawled properly¸ lanky body spread across two chairs, foot dangling off the end, jiggling vaguely in time to the music. Aziraphale was sprawled Aziraphale-y, slouching in an armchair the way Queen Elizabeth I with an over-tightened corset might have sprawled in it.

Cat was curled on Crowley’s chest, rising up and down gently in time with his breathing.

“Well, I suppose I’d best- Oh” Aziraphale hiccupped and broke off, “Excuse me. I’d best get back to the bookshop.”

“Want me to sober up and drive you?” Crowley asked, vaguely, making no move to begin the process of doing either.

“No, no, don’t worry yourself, dear boy,” Aziraphale said, waving a hand, “The walk will do me good.”

As “You’re going to walk to the end of the street then miracle yourself right back into the shop, aren’t you?” Crowley said, shrewdly[9].

“Of course I am. Who do you take me for?”

Crowley snorted.

Aziraphale tottered, a little unsteadily, but impressively so, over to Crowley, and patted cat on the head. “Now you be good,” he told it, in his best approximation of drunken sternness, “And look after Crowley for me, alright?” She blinked at him. Crowley glared at her, since she never got anything like that level of acceptance from his requests.

Aziraphale patted her on the head again then, for good measure, patted Crowley’s head too, and bobbed towards the door.

Cat yawned, stretched, flexed her claws, then comfortably began to knead at Crowley’s apron. He hadn’t taken it off all night, feeling it was only right he have a constant reminder to Aziraphale just where his dinner had come from.

“Wednesday,” he told it, sleepily, “You’re gone. Enjoy this while you’ve got it, it won’t last.”

Cat purred, somehow insolently.

Crowley stroked her vaguely behind the ear in that place she liked, and fell asleep.

******************************************************************************

Cat did not leave on Wednesday.

******************************************************************************

Footnotes:

11- Crowley did not, as a rule, make a habit of holding the door open for people. He figured that he had to at least try to be demonic some of the time, and he did this, by and large, by refraining from the many little trappings that contributed to what society deemed ‘polite’. In doing so, he raised the general irritation levels wherever he happened to be.

An exception was made for Mrs Coal.

For a start she was ancient, Crowley was at a 50/50 toss up right now that she pre-dated him. And she’d been ancient when he moved into the building.

For another thing, he was almost certain that if he ever let the door close on her face, something would smite his existence from the face of the Earth faster than he could blink.

And finally, demon he might be, but he had some standards, contrary to Aziraphale’s typical belief. Even demons like Hastur or Ligur would have flinched at the idea of closing the door on Mrs Coal.

There was a power to little old ladies Crowley had long ago decided not to trifle with.[return to text]

2- On the strict condition that Aziraphale said nothing to his plants, since it had been proven with time he couldn’t limit himself to simply saying nothing nice. [return to text]

3- Except for the small bag of groceries sitting on Mrs Coal’s doorstep. [return to text]

4- Tetley teabags, Digestive biscuits, and a six pack of irn bru. This is not typically found in supermarkets in England, but present with his shopping all the same. [return to text]

5- They were trimmed with a fine edge of red lace, and had been a Christmas present from Mrs Coal some years ago. Crowley had never, in his life, received a gift and felt the compulsion to buy the other person something in return. He figured if they wanted to buy him a gift, good for them, didn’t mean he wanted to buy them something in return. Mrs Coal had found new slippers, a thick woollen blanket, and a hand-knitted hot water bottle under her tree from him that year, however. [return to text]

6- It was black with fire licking up the edges, and had ‘Hot as Hell’ printed on the front, which Crowley had found amusing. [return to text]

7- There had been a time when Aziraphale had refused to accept books from Crowley, owing to the frequency of, typically inappropriate, typos that didn’t exist in any copy the demon hadn’t gotten his hands on. [return to text]

8- Crowley had been distinctly aggrieved to discover that being a demon did not mean he was immune to the plague of onion tears that he had unleashed upon humanity several centuries earlier. He’d thought it would be really funny to give humans a foodstuff they couldn’t prepare without crying all over it. He’d thought right. Until he had to prepare it himself. Onions were in fucking everything, there was no escaping the little buggers. [return to text]

9- As shrewd as one could be after three bottles of wine. [return to text]

#good omens #good omens fanfiction #good omens fanart #goodomensedit #ineffable husbands #anthony j crowley #aziraphale #aziraphale x crowley #aziracrowley #good omens fic #ineffable fic #fluff #i took out a lot of my domestic nonsense in this fic #also Crowley is Soft i will FIGHT abt this #he won't accept this but he IS #my fic #mine

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doctortreklock · 5 years ago

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An Ancient Place (the by his side remix) - December 32, 2019

Part of my Resolution19. Read it on AO3.

Prompt: Full of History and Secrets (x)

December is a month of remixes and sequels!!!

Fandom: Good Omens

Title: "Night Vale is an ancient place. Full of history and secrets, as we were reminded today." Welcome to Night Vale, Ep. 4

Words: 4635

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If there was one thing Aziraphale hadn't expected from a brisk fall day in 1967, it was meeting Anthony J. Crowley.

He'd been doing his usual afternoon stroll through Soho, feeling somewhat more lonely than perhaps he customarily did, when he decided, on some whim that he would be forever grateful for, to pop into St. Patrick's for a brief visit.

Like all holy sites, he felt a pleasant warmth as soon as he set foot on the hallowed ground. Surveying the sanctuary with all the satisfaction of a job well done by someone else, he noticed a particularly striking man by the basin of holy water.

He was dressed in what Aziraphale had come to suppose must be the fashion of the day: an overly tight outfit in a somber black that looked out of place in the brightly lit church. With dark, round sunglasses and heeled boots to be precise. He found it a bit ridiculous, but was quietly aware that they must find him equally ridiculous for his own, more old-fashioned, apparel. Not that the thought made him anxious to match the current trend. Aziraphale had determined long ago that he would only bend to the latest fad if it was no longer the latest. It would hardly be worth updating his wardrobe for any style that lasted less than at least three decades.

Though most trends in human fashion were perplexing and often downright distasteful, Aziraphale couldn't help but note that this man seemed to wear the clothing with ease. The dark jacket flexed easily around his body as he carefully held a glass jar in the water to fill it. His black leather gloves were likewise somewhat jarring when compared to his otherwise brilliant surroundings, Aziraphale noticed. But, he admitted, to the contrary, they also seemed to fit him just as well as the rest of his ensemble, regardless of how out-of-place they seemed in context.

As he watched, the man pulled the bottle cautiously out of the water and held it nearly at arms' length, as if struggling to figure out what to do with it. Unbidden, Aziraphale felt a smile slip onto his face.

It quickly vanished, however, when the man seemed to discover an itch in the most inconvenient place, giving what could be overestimated as a full-body flinch. The general effect, however, was that the glass bottle slid against his leather gloves and began to fall.

Before he knew it, Aziraphale had reached out and caught the jar. He wasn't out of breath, which meant he must have employed a minor miracle to have made it so quickly. Hopefully Gabriel wouldn't audit his miracles any time this century. Either way, he didn't regret his slip in the slightest, as it made the man's face light up in the most relieved smile he'd seen in decades.

"Here you go," he told the man, surprised to find himself a little breathless after all. "Careful that you don't drop it again," he cautioned. "That glass would be quite a bother to clean up."

The man took the bottle back with a dazed nod, holding the bottle gingerly, close to his body this time. Good deed done, Aziraphale began to turn away, ignoring the hollow feeling forming in the pit of his stomach. There was no reason for it, after all. He'd only just met the man.

"Would you like to grab a drink?" the man blurted, and Aziraphale halted in surprise. "As thanks," he finished.

The hollow feeling vanished as quickly as it had come, leaving behind a warmth that Aziraphale couldn't quite attribute to the church, no matter how much he wanted to rationalize it away. "I would be delighted," he told the man.

The man adjusted his grip on the bottle, tucking it close to himself and reaching out with his free hand. "I'm Crowley," he said. "Anthony Crowley, but most people call me Crowley."

Aziraphale smiled and shook Crowley's hand, the leather of his glove soft under Aziraphale's fingers. "Ezra Fell," he said, introducing himself by his current pseudonym. "I sometimes go by Zira," he added on impulse. He wasn't sure why it mattered to him that this human, who he had never met before and likely never would again, address him by even a portion of his true name, but he could not deny that it did matter.

Crowley grinned at him, a wide smile of delight, and for a moment, Aziraphale was so distracted he couldn't have said if he was standing in a church or on the moon.

Anthony Crowley turned out to be the most fascinating person Aziraphale had ever met, and he'd spent time with everyone from Virgil to Arthur Doyle. They seemed to click instantly, almost as if Crowley had been made as his mirror, a perfect foil. If Aziraphale hadn't known, deep in his corporation's bones, that his Creator had never been so generous and would never forgive him for his arrogance, Aziraphale might have wondered if Crowley had not been made just for him.

He could picture Crowley everywhere, at every point in his own history. Cutting a dashing figure through ancient Rome, rescuing him when he'd been discorporated in France during the Revolution, even standing next to him at Eden as he watched the first thunderstorm. Even now, looking back at his memories, Aziraphale could nearly taste the empty spaces around him where Crowley would have stood, slotted in so neatly it would be impossible to tell he hadn't been there the entire time, warping the emptiness around his own solitary figure into a pair of companions, two partners, a binary star system in perfect balance.

"Packing is exhausting," Crowley proclaimed, flopping back onto Aziraphale's bed. Though, as of today, it was their bed, really. Aziraphale felt a flutter of joy at the thought. He'd only known the man a month, but already he knew that he wanted to spend as much of Crowley's life with him as the human would allow.

"It was mostly unpacking today, my dear," Aziraphale told him in amusement. "The packing was yesterday." He flitted around the room, tucking away more pieces of his solitary life that he hadn't quite managed to get out of the way yet.

"I don't care," Crowley told him firmly. "Packing, unpacking, it's all the same to me. Moving is exhausting, angel," he declared with a wide gesture in front of him. That he happened to be gesturing at the ceiling did not seem to put him out at all, Aziraphale noted with a burst of affection.

"Well, then," Aziraphale said lightly. "Maybe you should just never move again." He didn't pause, stuffing the detritus of the 1930s into the corner of another drawer. He also didn't look at Crowley.

"Maybe," Crowley echoed, and Aziraphale could hear the smile in his voice.

He chanced a look over at the bed, and Crowley was watching him with something like wonder and something like love in his gaze. "Maybe," Aziraphale repeated more firmly.

"C'mere, angel," Crowley said softly, sitting up and holding out a hand. Aziraphale went to him effortlessly, allowing himself to be pulled down next to Crowley on top of the quilt. "Zira, I--"

"What is it, my dear?" Aziraphale prompted when Crowley faltered. He reached out and gently tucked a lock of Crowley's hair behind his ear.

"I--" And Aziraphale had only known Crowley a few short weeks - though it felt like a thousand years already - but he'd never seen the man so vulnerable. "Zira, I've been alone for a long time," he said quietly, closing his eyes for a moment, and Aziraphale's heart broke a little at seeing the tears well up around his eyelashes. "I never thought I'd meet anyone who would want to spend a month with me - me, as I truly am - much less a lifetime. And I just..." he fell silent, overcome with emotion.

"I know, my dear," Aziraphale whispered to him, cupping Crowley's cheek with his palm and pressing their foreheads together until their noses brushed and their breath mingled and Crowley's face was too close for Aziraphale to see the tears in his beautiful, golden eyes. "I know."

He held Crowley close until the man's breathing evened out and Crowley fell asleep. Aziraphale wouldn't have been able to move if God themself had appeared and ordered him to. Instead, he expended a few small miracles on switching off the lights and repositioning them under the blankets instead of on top of the covers.

Aziraphale carefully lifted one of Crowley's hands from the sheets, kissed it gently, and held it, all night long. He didn't sleep.

The cool October winds whistled at the windows that night, but inside an angel kept watch over his slumbering partner and vowed to never let the man be lonely again for all the days of his life.

Sometimes Aziraphale wondered bleakly what he thought he was doing. Playing house with a human was never something that could be forgiven or overlooked by his superiors. It was only a matter of time before they found out. Even if his time with Crowley was long past by the time they discovered his infraction, it wouldn't stop them from issuing punishment.

Even if he managed to slide under the radar for another century, it wouldn't matter in the long run. Crowley's soul was bound for Heaven; Aziraphale refused to contemplate otherwise. But angels and human souls were strictly separated. Even if he discovered Crowley's location and broke a thousand rules and laws, he still wouldn't be able to find his beloved.

Somehow, though, when he watched Crowley coax another stubborn bromeliad into blossoming, a small, genuine smile on his face, he had to admit that it was worth it. If he lost Crowley sooner than anticipated, if he was demoted, if he Fell, if he was plunged into a column of hellfire, if he searched fruitlessly for all eternity... It would all be worth it for ever smile he could put on his dear Crowley's face.

They had just gotten back from Warlock's birthday party when Aziraphale got the message from Gabriel. It was clunky and awkward, the way Aziraphale could only imagine his own would have been if Crowley hadn't patiently dragged him into the twenty-first century.

"Aziraphale," Gabriel demanded. "What is the meaning of this? Was it not the point of adapting Heaven's communication system so that you could be easily reached at all times? We should have kept scrolls. I liked scrolls. Uriel liked scrolls too; I know they did. Michael liked telephones, though, so we had to switch. Ugh." It was around that time that the answering machine had run out of space and cut him off.

Aziraphale frowned at the telephone, but was distracted by Crowley's announcement that he was going out on an errand.

"That sounds fine, my dear," Aziraphale told him. "I need to go 'round the corner as well. I've got a message from a rare bookseller I know and he wants to meet with me," he lied. It was his standard lie for the Heavenly business he was still called upon to complete. He would have worried about how often he needed to be gone, but Crowley traveled around the country as well on technological consultations, so they could align their absences to each other's.

Aziraphale wasn't quite sure how he felt about the fact that his bookshop, once a comfortable home for one, now felt empty without two. He settled on being very thankful for Crowley's entire existence.

Once Crowley was gone, Aziraphale locked up the bookshop and walked a few blocks over to his favorite sushi restaurant. Well, third favorite sushi restaurant and his favorite to go to without Crowley. Crowley adored the conveyor belts in Aziraphale's first and second favorite restaurants, but Aziraphale preferred the chirashi from the third. The other two never seemed to get it quite right.

"Aziraphale!" Gabriel boomed. Also, Aziraphale's third favorite sushi restaurant was the only one Heaven knew about. Which was why it was so ideal for these sorts of meetings.

"Gabriel," he greeted, not quite meeting the same level of excitement as the other angel. "Why did you need to meet with me so urgently?"

And then Gabriel told him about the Apocalypse.

It was all he could do to nod in the correct places as Gabriel extolled the virtues of the coming End of Days. "Right, right," he agreed at the end. "And what's my role in all this?" He was desperately hoping his role was to tuck himself into a corner somewhere and come out when it was all over. At least that, he could do with Crowley.

"You are to take up arms alongside the rest of Heaven!" Gabriel told him cheerfully. "Come back with me and prepare for the Great War!"

No! Aziraphale's brain screamed at him. "I've got a couple things to talk care of," he prevaricated. "Earth things, you know. Principality duties and the like. I'll pop up when I've got a minute," he promised.

Gabriel didn't seem to like that very much, but he did accept it, and a moment later, he vanished.

Aziraphale immediately collapsed back into his seat as if all his strings had been cut. "Oh my," he whispered to himself. "Oh my word."

Aziraphale had once been a Guardian of Eden, with the sword, rank, and title to go along with it. He had seen six millennia of human history unfold before him and had held his beloved in his arms for fifty years. He had anticipated watching human history for another six millennia and holding his beloved for as many years as he had left.

So now, to see the world dwindle, that future history cut short, was devastating. But not as devastating as realizing he wouldn't have the millennia after that he had planned on.

Human lifespan was limited by design. But just as Aziraphale had imagined Crowley beside him for the first six thousand years of his life, he had hoped to imagine him by his side for the next six thousand. That once he'd lost Crowley standing beside him, he would still have the painful, bittersweet memory of Crowley as his companion for the rest of time, lingering in the space around him, in the empty spot that Aziraphale knew he would now reflexively compensate for for the remainder of his existence.

Which now seemed lingeringly brief. His breath caught in his throat as he had sudden visions of Crowley cut down by flaming swords or beset by hellhounds. "No," he whispered, the word escaping before he could stop it. There were more casualties of war than the loss of his eternity, Aziraphale knew.

He threw a few bills on the table and rushed back to the bookshop, abruptly desperate to retreat behind her familiar walls. Maybe Crowley would be home soon, he thought longingly. Then he could hold his dearest partner tight and pray and try not to become swamped by the despair he could already feel rising inside himself.

There was nothing he could do to stop the Apocalypse. It was ineffable, after all.

Every once in a while, when Crowley seemed surprised to find another birthday at hand, or when he cursed under his breath at the arthritis creeping through his joints, Aziraphale would excuse himself and sit in the corner of their bookshop, staring at his own hands until they stopped shaking and his vision had cleared again. Then he could wipe his face, breathe for a few minutes, and go find Crowley, a smile on his face.

His hands were never the aching, swollen mess that Crowley's became as they aged. He hadn't been able to bear the thought of his hands hurting too much to hold his books, so he had simply introduced weaknesses into the bones, sapped the strength from the muscles, allowed the skin to thin and age until it was almost like the vellum pages of his favorite tomes. He had hoped Crowley wouldn't think it an unusual sign of age.

Once, when they were younger men, when Aziraphale had found the first of Crowley's grey hairs, curled just above his ear, when Aziraphale's stomach had dropped for the first time at the inevitability of time, of aging... Once, Aziraphale had sat next to Crowley on a park bench in St. James and remarked quietly on the shortness of the human lifespan and then, quieter, on how happy he was to have the opportunity to spend any of it with Crowley.

Once, Crowley had frozen, then abruptly curled closer into Aziraphale's side and had asked Aziraphale in a rough voice to emphatically "never bring it up again, please, angel." And Aziraphale had simply curved himself over his dear, dear friend and carded a hand gently through Crowley's still-mostly-dark hair and assured him gently that he never would. It had broken his heart enough to say it the first time.

There was a book. Oh, thank his Creator, there was a book.

Aziraphale wasn't entirely sure where it had come from, given that he had an encyclopedic knowledge of his collection and The Nife and Accurate Prophefies were decidedly not in it, but he had elected not to look a gift horse in the mouth, as it were. Maybe the appearance of the book was itself ineffable, he thought giddily. Maybe it was a sign.

Crowley had been wound tighter than a particularly high-pitched harp string the past few days, but Aziraphale couldn't blame him. He knew he had been fraught with tension himself ever since the conversation with Gabriel. Even the tender moment with Crowley that evening hadn't dissipated his lingering dread.

He had finally deciphered the identity of the Antichrist and the location of the Apocalypse's commencement, when Aziraphale's thrill of discovery trailed off into hesitant contemplation. What was he going to do with the information? If there was anyone else he could trust to definitively wish to halt the Apocalypse...

Crowley sprang to mind instantly, but Aziraphale discarded him just as quickly. Crowley was the love of his existence, a deeply sarcastic man with a heart of gold, but he was still only human. In a battle of angels and demons... Aziraphale had to keep him safe.

The next best option was Heaven itself. Surely the angels would want to stop the Apocalypse. Surely they would. And then Aziraphale and Crowley could have the remainder of their happily ever after. So he called them.

Unfortunately, it appeared Heaven itself did not have quite the same view on Heaven's role in halting the Apocalypse as Aziraphale did. He had only just managed to extract himself from his conversation with the Metatron when the Witchfinder Sargent himself burst into the bookshop. Aziraphale only had a fleeting moment to be thankful that Crowley was out before he vanished in a beam of white light.

The next few hours were harrowing for Aziraphale. He had needed to get to Tadfield as quickly as possible, and so had ended up riding shotgun with Sargent Shadwell's - ahem - lady of the night. All the while, he had fretted to himself about whether Crowley was alright and how frantic he was going to be when he returned to the bookshop to find Aziraphale missing and he'd left a chalk circle on the floor, oh dear, and was he going to call the police and file a missing persons report or was there a minimum amount of time Aziraphale had to be missing for that?

So he was understandably a little distracted from the actual Apocalypse itself. Once he was himself again, it took him a moment to realize the vision of Crowley running towards him was not actually a stress-induced hallucination. For one, Crowley's skin was pale under dark soot and when he hugged Aziraphale, he smelled of smoke. For another, even Aziraphale's imagination couldn't accurately conjure up the feel of Crowley's arms around him, no matter how many times he tried to memorize it.

Then he and his partner had to introduce themselves to the Antichrist. And what a bombshell was dropped. It did oddly remind Aziraphale of a bomb strike. Or perhaps one of those grenades he'd found himself on the wrong end of once or twice. The inciting event. A moment of ringing silence. And then an explosion.

Only this explosion didn't bring rubble or fragmented metal shards. It brought--

"Me, too," Crowley said, eyes wide in astonishment.

And that didn't make sense. "What?"

"I'm immortal too," Crowley said with hushed awe. "Neither of us is going to die."

Aziraphale's world ground to a halt. "What?"

"I get to keep you," Crowley breathed, and Aziraphale could see something like wonder and something like love in his gaze, just the same after so many years together.

Then they were rudely interrupted by the attempted continuation of the Apocalypse. After a spot of encouragement, Adam sent Gabriel and the accompanying demon away, leaving Aziraphale and Crowley alone once more.

"Let me introduce myself again, properly this time," Aziraphale said, excitement bubbling up. Crowley was immortal. He wouldn't have a shade of Crowley, he would have Crowley by his side for the rest of eternity. All that was left was to discover the shape that eternity would take.

"My name is Aziraphale, a Principality of Heaven, formerly Guardian of the Eastern Gate," he told Crowley, holding out a hand. "I have been stationed on Earth since Eden, and I am desperately in love with you," he added, just in case it needed saying. And now, laid bare with words, he stripped off the layers of miracles that had been keeping him aging apace with his so-called human partner.

Crowley reached out and took his hand. Aziraphale gripped as tightly as he dared. The arthritis was still running through Crowley's hands, but Aziraphale needed Crowley to understand one thing: he was not losing Crowley. Not now. No matter who Crowley was, angel or demon or other, Aziraphale was not losing him.

"Crowley, Serpent of Eden and the First Tempter," he said, losing layered illusions as well. Aziraphale could feel the fingers beneath his strengthening, straightening, and slimming, and he gripped all the tighter. "I was assigned to the temptation of Earth six thousand years ago." He cleared his throat. "I have been in love with you since you saved me from accidentally destroying myself with a jar of holy water."

All Aziraphale's half-recalled stories of the Serpent of Eden vanished abruptly. For a heart-stopping moment, all he felt was cold terror at the thought that Crowley might have died the day they met, that Aziraphale might have lost Crowley before he ever really got him.

If Crowley had needed circulation, Aziraphale might have been concerned by how tightly his was holding his partner's hand now. "Was that-- What were you doing with holy water, Crowley?"

Crowley looked surprised at his concern. It was the same look he got when Aziraphale reminded him point-blank to take his medications, and that more than anything told Aziraphale that Crowley-the-demon and Crowley-the-human were still the same fundamental Crowley.

Then Crowley told him about Ligur, which he seemed to think would be reassuring. Aziraphale was most definitely not reassured. Spine-chilling terror was not, in fact, more fun to experience for the second time in ten minutes.

Fortunately for Crowley, Lucifer decided to show up shortly afterwards, saving him a long, twenty-seven point lecture on personal safety.

At long last, however, it was over. Finally. For good. The Antichrist and his friends went their way; the young couple went theirs; and Shadwell and Madame Tracy set off for London as well.

In the light of their escape from certain doom, Crowley seemed to have forgotten how he'd come to arrive at the air base. He stuttered to a halt outside the gates, and Aziraphale was going to ask him what was wrong until he caught sight of the same thing and stopped just as abruptly.

"Is that..." he trailed off, because he knew exactly what it was. "Oh, my dear," he murmured, putting a comforting hand on Crowley's shoulder. The demon swayed into the contact, so Aziraphale slid his hand around his back to his other shoulder, pulling him into a half-hug. "What happened to her?" He knew as well as anyone who had ever met Crowley, that the Bentley was his most treasured possession.

"I--" Crowley faltered. "I thought Hell might have gotten you. And then the M25 was on fire, and..." he trailed off. "This," he finished, gesturing half-heartedly toward the shell of his precious Bentley.

Aziraphale couldn't begin to touch on all the ways that made him feel. "I love you," he told Crowley firmly. "Wait here."

It didn't talk too terribly long to track down the Antichrist, even if he did have to invoke a minor miracle or two to catch the bicycles. After a rambling explanation and a tentative question, Adam looked surprised and fixed the Bentley with a thought. Apparently he'd thought he'd undone everything already, and the car must have slipped through the cracks.

Aziraphale thanked him politely and went to find his partner.

When he arrived back at the Bentley, it was to find Crowley already tucked inside the cabin, running his hands over the steering wheel and cooing at the dash. "All right?" he asked.

Crowley looked at him. "I love you," he said. "So very much, angel." And then he kissed his hand and his cheek and his forehead and drove them back to London, holding Aziraphale's hand the entire way and using miracles to compensate for being a hand down during shifting.

The drive itself was quiet, as if neither could bring themselves to give voice to the revelations surround their, well, revelations.

At last, Crowley broke the silence. "So many years, angel," he said quietly. "So many years we could have known each other."

"I like to think we made up for it," Aziraphale said lightly. "Quality, not quantity, my dear. I can't imagine we would have been as we are if we had met as ourselves."

Crowley hummed. "You may have a point there, Zira."

"Besides," Aziraphale continued, ignoring the fluttering in his belly at the nickname. Zira was something of himself that only Crowley had. No one else called him Zira. He found he was quite content with that even now, when Crowley had the option of his full name. "It's hardly as if our paths never crossed. The Tower of Babel was yours, wasn't it?"

"Yes," Crowley admitted, glancing at Aziraphale before turning back to the miraculously reconstructed M25. "I was quite proud of that one, actually. Got me a commendation for original thinking."

"I can't say I enjoyed it as much," Aziraphale told him. "All those new languages meant more rules to learn. And the translations!" he exclaimed. "I had never imagined they could be so terrible."

Crowley snorted. "Should I be apologizing for doing my job?"

"Never," Aziraphale told him warmly. Then, "I pictured you there, you know," he said quietly, holding Crowley's hand tightly. "With me. Every lifetime, every city. You slotted into my memories as if you had always been there."

Crowley exhaled. "I never could," he confessed. "Not because you're so modern, angel," he teased, "but because I couldn't imagine you having lived and died so long ago."

Aziraphale wasn't sure what to say to that, so he just held Crowley's hand. "I'm here," he settled on. "Now and for always, my dear."

"I know," Crowley said, meeting his eyes again. They were full of warmth and love. "I'm so glad for it, you have no idea, Zira." Then he continued, lighter this time, with a familiar, curious smile. "I've been wondering. Did you ever met Virgil?"

#Resolution19 #Good Omens #A/C #Ziraley #Ineffable Husbands #Remixes and Sequels #playing fast and loose with canon #...holy crap guys it's over #like...that's all of them #56 fics #over 80k words #and 2019 is over #holy crap

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ishomoogoo · 5 years ago

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trying to kick myself out of my depression induced funk

So i’m writing this in hopes that i’ll get over it already. this is just a snippet from a rough draft, so don’t expect any kind of quality. warning for naughty language. and use of the word naughty.

oh look, i said it again.

let me know what you think, i like criticism and advice

Shuffled About

I pace down the line of potted plants, that I had decided to separate from the rest of the… herd? Pack? However you’d describe it, a few had been separated from the rest for a purpose. With hands behind my back, I march down to the far wall, inspecting the quietly shaking plants with narrowed eyes. I frown down at a rather alarmed bunch of petunias, which break into further hysterics from the added scrutiny.

“Right, not you lot then. Not up to par.”

I toe the small pot away from the wall, and continue my pace in the other direction. I glance over and eliminate some Devil’s Ivy, Calatheas, and a Dracaena from the line for various reasons. I then eliminate a rather uppity group of Bromeliads, making a note to teach them a lesson later. I then scowl between the two remaining plants, going over their leaves and flowers with a metaphorical fine toothed comb. Neither have any blemishes and are standing tall and firm, colour bright and vibrant.

Eventually, I decide to go with the red flowered Schlumbergera. With that settled, I pick up the pot and hold it aloft, turning around to make sure all of the others can see it from where they sit.

“Right you lot, listen up! Say goodbye to your friend, because it’s leaving! You should all be ashamed of yourselves! None of you are in the proper condition to even be considered as a gift! And you!”

I lower the potted cactus down to eye level, lowering my sunglasses so that it knows I mean business.

“Just because I’ve deemed you fit enough to be shown in public, you aren’t off the hook! If you, for even one moment, show anything less than your absolute best, there will be dire consequences. Believe me when I say that you will be begging for a weed whacker when I’m done with you!”

With the warnings given, I head out of the plant room and deposit the appropriately terrified cactus on top of the heavy ornate table located in my Thinking Room1. I then pull a sheer black and red ribbon out of thin air, and carefully wrap it around the red clay pot. I loop and tie it into a bow, making sure that it looks right before turning and heading back into the plant room.

I have some time before I need to head out, so I use it to put all the pots back in their original places. Except for the Bromeliads. Those I shove into the Naughty Closet, across from a half used bottle of weed killer. Maybe a day or two in there will straighten the little shits out. I don’t bother telling them anything about what’s going on, it’s better to leave them guessing right now. Instils more terror that way, and takes way less effort.

With that taken care of, I check the time on my watch. Hmmm, 9:30 am. That’s a proper time to swing by the bookshop, right? Not too early? I could just ask if Aziraphale wants to go to brunch or something. Or lunch, if he’s particularly busy today. He shouldn’t be, considering the date. Besides, he’s always up for an excuse to close the shop, no matter how much he fusses about it.

Well, no sense hanging around here then. I pluck the cactus up and brusquely make my way out of my flat and out to the Bentley. I set the pot down on the passenger seat, before revving the engine up and pealing out onto the street. Some horns blare, and some morons shout from the middle of the road, but I ignore them in favour of flicking on the radio. I put in one of my cd’s, pleased to find that it hadn’t been left in the car for too long and is indeed The Velvet Underground and not something else. I’m not sure what to think of it yet, but after my car came back from it’s fiery grave a year ago, it seems to have developed a taste for Green Day.

Don’t get me wrong, the blasted thing still belts out Queen like nobody’s business, it’s just switching things up a bit now. It’s nice, but it really pissed me off when it played Stay the Night on a loop one day. Nearly ruined a perfectly good day out with Aziraphale. Thank Whoever that he never actually listens to my music, otherwise that would’ve been awkward to explain. Maybe I should have a few words with it, put it back in line a bit.

Nah. The thing’s been through so much already. I’ll let it slide, for now.

I make it to the bookshop in no time, swerving up onto the curb just outside the doors. I cut the engine, grab the cactus, and slink my way up to the aged doors. They obediently open up as I approach, not bothering to make me go through the ritual of actually laying my hand on the tarnished knob so I can go through unimpeded. I barely notice the CLOSED sign as I pass by. Huh. The doors softly close behind me and I look around the cramped shop.

“Angel? You here?”

Stupid question, to be honest. I can hear him bustling around upstairs. He just gets so absorbed in things, that if I don’t announce myself in some way then he’ll get all huffy for the rest of the day2. I’m not really in the mood for that, so I call out and wait for his muffled reply.

“Yes dear! Give me a moment, and I’ll be right down.”

I grunt in response, and make my way into the back room. I set the pot down on one of the stacks of musty books, pause to look at it for a bit, before scowling and picking it back up again. Where the Heaven should I put this?

As I’m looking around fruitlessly for a clear spot to place the cactus, Aziraphale finally walks downstairs and into the room. I turn to look at him, pot still in hand. Aziraphale gives me an anxious smile, his hands flailing about his clothes that seem to be a bit out of place.

“Hello Crowley! What brings you here today? Would you like some tea? Is- is that a cactus?”

I look down at the clay pot that’s still gripped in my hand, staring at it absently before my brain kicked back in.

“Oh, yeah. It’s called Schlumbergera. Was trying to de-clutter the flat today, and there’s just no room for it. Didn’t feel like throwing it out though, and figured you could use something to spruce up the place. ‘Sides, you like Christmas stuff don’t you?”

I hold up the cactus, and Aziraphale gives it a bewildered look before hesitantly taking it from me. With my hands now free, I spin around and make my way to the couch.

“Thank you? Oh! These feel so love-”

I spin back around just before I plop down onto my favourite spot, staring at the gushing angel. Our eyes meet, and Aziraphale gets this panicked look.

“-ly. This cactus feels so lovely.”

To emphasize his point, he pinches one of the flat parts of the plant and rubs it in between his fingertips. His smile is twitching at the edges, and he has this mirthful glint in his eye.

“Right, well, I should go find a place for this delightful little thing. Tea dear?”

I narrow my eyes at him, and Aziraphale turns to scuttle out of the room. I grunt out an affirmative, and finally settle down onto the couch. I hear him putter around in the little kitchenette, and lean my head back onto the cushion and close my eyes. Whenever Aziraphale decides to do things the human way, he always takes his sweet time.

1Brooding Room

2Crowley found Aziraphale’s shriek of terror funny for all of two seconds, before a rather hefty fantasy novel got thrown in his face. The Principality had apologized afterwards, but he kept making pointed comments about proper etiquette and really dear, would it kill you to knock?

#Ineffable Husbands #ineffable idiots #good omens #anthony j crowley #Aziraphale #still don't feel like writing #but trying anyway

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plant-in-a-box · 6 years ago

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This is an update from a few days ago, I tried posting it before but it doesn’t seem like it posted? Anyway, the baby tears is throwing out little roots already! I have high hopes for the philodendron and bromeliad on the background, but the philo wasn’t rooted properly beforehand (oops) and I’ve never had good luck with broms.

#live plants #planted tank #planted aquarium #aquablr #aquatic plants #plantblr #vivarium #paludarium #bioactive #bioactive vivarium #bioactive paludarium #terrarium #bioactive terrarium #mine #christmas tank

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flapperfromthefuture · 6 years ago

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I have been eagerly awaiting the Exotic Plants and Succulents Sale at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens since the moment I left the last one in a bacchanaliac frenzy exactly one year ago.

I’ve been losing sleep wondering what kind of plants they would have this year, and constantly reminding everyone that there’s only so many weeks/days/hours until the succulent sale— much like a small child counts down the days until Christmas, only there is no Santa Claus, just a guy in flannel named Ken who brings a truckload of echeveria hybrids.

Only my friend Jessie responded with the appropriate level of gravitas that the succulent sale deserves.

“We should get there when they open,” she said. “My dad has a membership, so we can get free parking—”

“AND DO THE MEMBERS-ONLY HOUR!” I said, very loudly, because this is important.

Every Matthaei event has a members-only hour, where the members get to peruse the flowers and merchandise and succulent-themed greeting cards for 60 merciful minutes before the raucous hordes of plebeians are allowed inside.

I’ve never gotten to go to members-only hour. But here was my chance. I was going to get the best plants and actually enjoy choosing which ones I liked the most without the sensation of being crushed in a stuck elevator filled with cacti.

Jessie and I arrived bright at early just before 9, with our own cardboard boxes to carry our plants, because we are pros—and unlike last year when I had to park across the county line and hoof it in the hot sun, we got a spot right in front of the gardens, and sauntered right up to the door . . . to find a dozen people already ahead of us, and a dozen more piling in behind us. Everyone else had their cardboard boxes too. Guess we’re not the only pros in town.

“Holy crap,” I said. “There are people crazier than us.”

“Good thing we got here when we did,” said Jessie.

But 9 am clicked by, then 9:05, then 9:10, and the doors didn’t open.

The volunteers, who are usually the most chill of even the chillest volunteer brigades in Ann Arbor, looked a little nervous as the addressed the expanding line.

“We’re not doing a members-only hour this year,” they said. “It got too insane. One person passed out in the line and people were parking all the way down on the main road, which is totally illegal. So sit tight and we’ll open the doors at 10.”

Our flight to the kingdom of succulents was a little delayed, but I had already waited a year. So we hung out and watched the line grow behind us and wondered how many plants we’d buy.

“Okay, I think I want to do a first pass without picking anything out, like at a buffet,” I said. “Then go for a second pass and make my initial selections.”

“If they were really smart they’d have a food truck out here,” said Jessie. “And then the food truck would also sell plants.”

There was a football game later that day, and cars were rolling by with U of M flags affixed to the windows.

“We should have made succulent flags for our cars,” said Jessie. She might be a genius.

As the minutes ticked down, the crowd’s excitement was palpable—it really was like rope drop or waiting in line for a brand-new ride at Disney World, but with plants instead of a roller coaster—and then the doors opened, and we were in.

“Should we go for Space Mountain first?” I said, entirely out of habit, and Jessie just looked at me curiously before we rolled into the greenhouse.

Along with a hundred other people, and I was dismayed to actually feel my panic symptoms checking in at the front desk before I’d even eyeballed my first plant.

No one even stopped to check out the bromeliads at the bromeliad table—they’re the “exotic plants”—this crowd was all about those sweet, sweet succulents.

“I feel kind of bad for the bromeliads,” said Jessie.

“I don’t,” I said. There’s no room for feelings at the succulent sale.

It was really hot in that greenhouse—again—and several of the folks packed inside had oxygen tanks, and that made me nervous. I lost track of my carefully planned itinerary almost immediately and just started weaving between the tables like this was my first rodeo.

I don’t think I would do well in like, a combat situation at all.

We were intrigued by the 3D planters, which were going like hotcakes, only plastic.

“Is that the Creature from the Black Lagoon or the fish man from The Shape of Water?” I asked.

“They’re the same thing,” said Jessie. “Am I crazy or do I want it?”

Like the Twilight Zone, or traveling over Thanksgiving, the succulent sale makes you question your own mind and the fabric of everything you believe.

As my cardboard box filled itself with plants of its own accord (when did I put a pinecone cactus in there?), my biggest hurdle was parting with the littlest pathetic plants that had little stickers that said, “Not hardy.” I heard a college student say to her friend, “Oh, it’s not hardy? Put it back,” and I almost cried.

I got a little Drimiopsis last year that said “Not hardy” and I grabbed it because I felt bad for it (and crucially, not because I knew what it was or how to take care of it) and now a year later it’s one of my favorites.

Sometimes a little plant just needs a chance!

Somehow, we both made it out before the heat really got to us and we spent all our money. Jessie got seven plants, and I got six.

Then I returned home to a three-hour repotting marathon that I can only recall in flashbacks of flinging soil and capturing the exact moment that Lumi realized that her human is a crazy plant lady.

Did I mention that I’d made an actual spreadsheet of all my plants and who needed a new pot and who needed pruning and even left blank rows so I could write in the new arrivals?

Because I did that. I mean, there’s crazy and then there’s crazy organized.

After, again, THREE HOURS of non-stop potting, I was done with plants for a little while.

So when I woke up this morning, and my first thought was, “I wonder what’s left at the succulent sale,” but my next thought was “Oh hell no.”

I confided this to Jessie, who admitted that she wanted to check out what was left too.

I had a lot to do—like prepare for six tests that are occurring over the next eight days—but I stopped in a couple of hours before they closed. It was like the last day of Burning Man or something like that—lots of weary-looking volunteers and plant debris scattered everywhere. And everything was picked over—I’d say a good 90% of the previous day’s inventory was gone.

I texted Jessie that there wasn’t much left, not even the Black Lagoon/Shape of Water planter, and she said, “Now you can get the sad ones that need a home!”

“HOW DID YOU KNOW?” I said.

They must have seen me coming a mile away though. I picked up one small plant that I didn’t recognize and a volunteer yelled to me from across the table, “That one needs water!”

Poor little thirsty plant. How did she know I wouldn’t be able to resist that?

Well, I did. Because I grabbed this little Drimiopsis. It’s for science, you know—can I replicate the same positive results as its big sibling?

“Come with me if you want to live,” I whispered. “Oh man, I gotta get out of here.”

Succulent Fever I have been eagerly awaiting the Exotic Plants and Succulents Sale at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens since the moment I left the last one in a bacchanaliac frenzy exactly one year ago.

#ann arbor #botanical gardens #cacti #gardening #plants #succulents

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egregiousderp · 6 years ago

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Have you ever won a prize or an award?

I have!I’ve won a few prizes for art.

One of which was County-wide when I was quite a bit younger when I designed an entire freaking cuckoo clock from scratch. (There we’re certain materials you had to use in the design so I promise you this was not terribly simple and involved a lot of hand-wiring wings and designing a cage around the whole thing while I was at my first job.)That one paid a little, too which was nice.

You wouldn’t know it though. And I probably don’t even have any photographs of the clock or anything because it’s been long enough I would have been storing it on a floppy.

I don’t do a lot of visual work, and I can’t do much with people. Most online art involves people-shaped. And perish the thought I start photographing any mixed media sculptures or whatever. ^^;;;

I’ve taken about six years worth of art because it got encouraged the way that things that make money get encouraged as valuable in my family. But unless you want me to paint you a bromeliad from refs, or doodle you a lizard, or mold a clay head you’re probably not going to see much evidence of it. And what’s more I’m really slow at it. ^^;;;;;;;

All of it has always been traditional art too. And really pretty limited. Like. There are some things I just don’t know how to do just because the school was that small and you generally get taught your art teacher’s specialty.

My art teacher was a watercolor landscapes type of person and vet taken with Florida Beauty and coastlines. Which look great in watercolor.

The other art teacher taught sculpture that was exclusively clay.

I’ve never been that good with watercolor. And didn’t want to make pots. So technically I was in the watercolor and graphite class.

So here’s this poor woman watching me construct a giant box with a cage over it that somehow incorporates all these weird items. And no. Yeah. Okay. Now the goth kid is making a birdcage for some reason and attaching it to the box? Aaaaaaand there’s a faceplate now. But it’s all paper maiche and has the wrong numbers? Welllllllll.

It was sort of a “I don’t want to stop you but I need something to grade, so find me when it’s finished I guess?” And I got to work in a quiet room for hours on end.

And then it got an award and we all pretended this was according to plan so everyone looked good.

Life skills: build weird stuff and draw a gorgon on your backpack.

Ribbon: ehhhhhhhh okay I guess?

What this actually does for you: basically nothing unless you can find a ko-fi or Redbubble or something, or build a portfolio so people actually want you to make them stuff.

And then you have to MAKE the stuff. On demand.

Just… @-@

I don’t even know where to begin.

I’ve won things before but it never really felt like a skill thing. It felt more like luck and someone arbitrarily deciding they liked yours best because it spoke to them somehow and then you all pretend like it’s a skill.

I’ve seen way too many people who are phenomenal at things not get recognized for them when they should to feel good about the few times someone decided something I did was worth sticking a fancy ribbon on or throwing money at.

Especially when it’s something you don’t really want to do and know for a fact you couldn’t make a living on.

#skuun answers #it’s ask me anything night I guess

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pjbehindthesun · 7 years ago

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chapter 6: orchids, stars, and polar bear turds

Friday, June 29th, 1990

Okay, okay, suck it up, you coward, you can’t hide in this bathroom all day eavesdropping. You know he’s stalling and waiting for you to come back to your desk… I mean, no one in their right mind actually just comes by to talk to Greta. I’ve been ducking him all week, but it’s starting to become obvious. Ugh, you’re such a fucking chicken. You can do this. Go. Go. GO!

I open the restroom door and walk around the corner and see Jake engaged in polite conversation with my bridge troll of a supervisor. He’s been listening intently as she drones on about her commute, smiling and adding his own quips about the traffic on I-5, offering the occasional helpful suggestion for an alternate route or a book on tape she might try to help pass the time. I’m dying inside just having listened to her diatribe for a couple minutes, but if he’s feeling the same desperation, none of it shows on his face.

All the same, he grins and nearly jumps out of his skin when he sees me, so maybe he is actually grateful to have an escape from Greta. “Lucy! I’ve been looking for you!”

I try for a smile, but I’m sure it’s more of a wince. We both know I’ve been dodging him ever since the Strawberry Incident. It was so sweet of him. So sweet, and so poorly timed. He’s everything I always thought I wanted in a guy – hey, Mom and Dad, here’s that charming, handsome doctor son-in-law you ordered! – except that he’s kind of… too perfect? Is that possible? Can someone be too perfect to be interesting?

“Hey, Jake.” Greta grunts at me and scuttles off, sensing that her attentive audience has evaporated.

“You’re a hard woman to find,” he beams. “I’ve been wondering if you saw my package.”

I bite the inside of my cheeks and internally curse Cora for being such a bad influence on me. He doesn’t seem to notice he’s said anything funny, so I get a grip, although once the giggles pass, my heart’s still in cornered panicked rabbit mode. “Yeah, uh, the strawberries? Yeah, thanks! We loved them.”

“We?” His smile falters for a nanosecond.

“Oh yeah, a couple of the nurses and I, even Greta. They were delicious.”

He chuckles. “You’re sweet to share them. I was just, uh, thinking of you. I do that a lot, actually…”

Here it comes. Can’t dodge it forever. God, I want to puke.

He goes on. “I was actually thinking we might go out sometime, maybe get some dinner?”

“Oh, uh, Jake, you’re… that’s so sweet of you, really…uhm, I would, but I’m sort of… I’m seeing someone…?” It feels so odd rolling off my tongue, but even after just one week of knowing Jeff, it’s hard to deny that something significant has changed. First, he tracked down my apartment, then I stopped by the Raison d’Etre to spend some time with him after one of his shifts, and tomorrow we have an actual, scheduled, non-stalker-y date. I haven’t had much room in my head for anything else.

I brace for the awkwardness, or maybe even the defensive mockery or insult that usually comes with turning down a guy in my experience. But Jake just blinks before hitching his good-natured smile back into place, and I’m flooded with relief tinged with guilt. Why does he have to be so fucking nice?

“That’s great! I didn’t know that! Of course, girl like you, you must be swatting us away.”

I open my mouth to explain why he’s so wrong, how atypical any of this suitor stuff is for me, but he continues, “well, uh, he’s a very lucky man. Though I’m sure he knows that. What’s his name?”

I bite my lips in to keep from smiling rudely, hanging on to his name as long as I can, wanting to keep it for mine.

***

Saturday, June 30th, 1990

“Epi-what nows?”

“Epiphytes,” she giggles, tugging me by the hand through the greenhouse. She’s been geeking out over all kinds of flowers and plants for the last two hours, but if possible she’s even more worked up about the ones in this part of the exhibit. We stop in front of this giant cylinder covered with tufts of spiky little plants. “See?”

“I see ‘em, yup…there, uh, there they are, alright,” I nod approvingly, not having the slightest clue why we’re staring at these things but not wanting that excited look on her face to go away.

“Air plants, Jeff, look. See how they don’t have any roots? They’re not planted in any soil?”

“Son of a bitch, you’re right,” I take a step closer and squint at the plants she’s pointing at and realize they’re just hanging onto this column through sheer force of will or something. The more I look at the wall, the more variety I see, like noticing more and more stars the longer you let your eyes focus on the night sky, and I’m starting to understand, if maybe dimly, why she’s staring so raptly at them with that smile dancing on her lips. She turns to me and blushes, her hair a little wilder than usual thanks to the humidity in here.

“I know, it’s weird, I’m really into plants,” she cringes, “you probably hate it, right? We can go if you –”

“No no, how the fuck does this even work?” At first, I was kind of hesitant about a date at the conservatory – I mean it’s free and all, so it’s got that going for it, but who wants to stare at flowers all day? But I’m starting to see the appeal of staring at Lucy when she’s staring at flowers, and now I just genuinely want to understand what the fuck I’m looking at.

“They just grow on all different kinds of surfaces, and they take their moisture and nutrients from the air instead of from extensive root systems in soils. Like, uhm, mosses and stuff? Spanish moss is a good one. But also orchids, and all these bromeliads in here.” I remember the window full of orchids in her place and begin to understand why she wanted to come here. I follow her gaze back up the display wall as she continues in a hushed, reverent voice. “I just think it’s beautiful, the way they fall all over a tree or another plant, not doing any damage like a strangling, needy vine would… just, just a soft blanket all over… just breathing together.”

She falls silent and we both stare at the plants, and I’m trying not to think too hard about how romantic fuckin’ epiphytes turned out to be when I feel her take hold of my hand and lean lightly against my arm.

***

“Our feast, m’lady,” Jeff turns around holding a giant brown paper bag, having just tipped the delivery guy and nudging the front door closed.

“And what’s the damage?” I grab my backpack and reach in for my wallet, but he takes the bag out of my hands and sets it down, sliding his arms around my waist.

“Nah, forget it, you’re a cheap date,” he mumbles, planting a light kiss on my lips.

“Sure know how to woo a girl,” I grin against his mouth.

“You’re one to talk, Miss ‘I’m really into plants,’” he tickles my ribs and I break away, dodging for safety in the kitchen and sticking my tongue out at him. “You save all the best stuff for the third date, huh?”

“Oh yeah, I’m the mistress of seduction alright. The castration and branding stories were just the bait to reel you in before we started the real foreplay. Chopsticks?”

“Drawer next to the sink. Gotta hand it to you, though, it’s not the worst date I’ve ever been on.”

“Well, this sounds like a promising game…” I hunt around in his kitchen cabinets until I’ve got a couple of plates.

“Shit,” he laughs. “You know I’m just kidding, Luce, right? I had a great time.”

“You’re not getting off the hook that easy, bud. I mean it, what is the worst date you’ve ever had?”

He glances mischievously up at me while dishing out his low mein. “I dunno, I sort of want to hear about yours, you seem too eager for someone who doesn’t have a good horror story up her sleeve…”

“Nuh uh, I asked you first.”

He screws his face up thoughtfully as we sit on the couch with our dinner. “I don’t know, I haven’t had a lot of really awful ones, I guess… there was a blind date in college once that was pretty fuckin’ awkward.”

“Details, please,” I sit opposite him on his couch with my legs folded, awkwardly managing my rice with my chopsticks.

“Okay, so I got home to Big Sandy after a semester away and one of my mom’s friends wanted to try to set me up with her daughter, so my mom went along with it. I don’t think this girl’s mom had any idea who I was or what I looked like or anything, she just knew me as, like, the mayor’s kid…”

“Your dad’s the mayor?”

“And the barber,” he nods with a mouthful of food, “I don’t think I can impress upon you just how tiny this shit town of mine is… anyway, so I had to be pretty well behaved, and pretty clean cut, right?”

“Gonna need some evidence of this ‘clean-cut’ concept when story time’s over,” I tug on a piece of his hair.

“I mean, relatively speaking. Well, I come back from Missoula, having made a bunch of friends who were into punk rock, and I looked the part, you know… or more than I did when I moved away. And this girl’s, like, Polly Purebred, never left home, just completely sheltered and totally freaked out. I probably looked like Sid Vicious to her or something,” he chuckles. “So it wasn’t the end of the world, but she was pretty terrified the whole time, so I found excuses to cut it short and take her home.”

“Very decent of you for a depraved monster.”

“I thought so. And very much my last blind date, too. Your turn!”

“Ah, fuck,” I groan… “I don’t even know which one to go with. Yours was so tame, mine are all going to sound insane.”

His eyes light up as he sets his empty bowl down and rubs his hands together. “Go on…”

“Okayyy… well, it doesn’t really count as a date, but my two most serious boyfriends both came out to me while breaking up with me…”

“Jesus!”

“No, that was the other guy.”

“You dated Jesus?”

“Not quite, but I did go on a date with someone who tried to convert me. Brought all his “so you’re going to hell” pamphlets and shit.”

“Okay, no, that’s got to be your worst one.”

“Don’t you want to hear about the puker?”

He blinks like a deer in headlights. “The…”

“The guy who took me out to dinner and turned increasingly green throughout the meal, and I kept asking if he was okay, until the waiter sets this big piece of salmon down in front of him and he pukes all over it.”

“That’s fucking disgusting!”

“Maybe I shouldn’t tell you the rest…” I wince even thinking about the memory of it, but he’s watching with wide eyes. “…that he… drained it off and then…”

“No he did not. He did not fucking eat the fish. Nope. We’re done here, get the fuck out!” he takes my bowl from my hands and pulls me off the couch, gently shoving me towards the door, but we’re both howling with laughter.

“You’re, like… damaged,” he teases, brushing my hair out of my face.

“Nah, just the usual run-of-the-mill lowered expectations. You’ve got it easy,” I bite my lip and he drops his gaze to my mouth.

“Well, you deserve a lot better than puking and proselytizing…” he places a gentle kiss on the tip of my nose, and I close my eyes to hang onto the sensation of it, the way time is slowing down.

“Sweet talker.” He brushes the backs of his fingers against my cheek as his mouth moves down to mine for a soft, sweet kiss. Well, it started that way, anyway… as soon as I parted my lips, he wound his fingers into my hair and wrapped his other arm around my waist, pulling me into him, and now I’m kissing him back feverishly, winding my arms around his neck, trying to get as close as I can. He shuffles me carefully backward until we find the couch, where we lay down gently and I lose track of everything except the sweetness of being all tangled up together.

What the hell time is it? I crane my neck to look around his apartment for a clock, being careful not to disturb him, but I’m distracted by how gorgeous he looks when he’s asleep. His mouth’s open just slightly and he’s snoring softly underneath me on the couch, one arm still wrapped around my shoulders. We’d been making out like a pair of horny teenagers for who knows how long, before deciding together that we were in no great rush, and enjoying an endless twilight of soft kisses, cuddles, talking, and laughing. Until I guess we fell asleep, and now it’s… 1:17? Holy shit.

Jeff’s arm tightens around me and he stretches his other arm out to the side, letting out a contented rumbling noise.

“Sorry to wake you,” I nuzzle into his neck, planting a few little kisses and breathing him in as he gathers me up into a hug.

“Sorry? Wake me like this a little more often, would you?” he mumbles against my temple.

“It’s late, I should get back downstairs and let you go to bed.” I’m saying it, but not really believing it, and all it takes is one whispered “stay?” into my ear before I settle back into his arms, with no intention of going anywhere.

***

Thursday, July 19th, 1990

“I’ve fucking missed you! I’m so glad you’re coming home tomorrow. Do you have any idea what a sausage fest my life is now?”

“You say that like it’s bad.”

“Oh shut up, Cor. You had something to do with that, you know.”

Guilty, I think to myself as I laugh at her through the phone. Lucy and I didn’t have a lot of guy friends until a couple of months ago when all these musician types crashed into our lives. Not that I don’t get along well with men. I actually tend to get along with them better than most women, and all my friends in high school were guys, on account of being the only girl in all the science and math clubs. Guys somehow make more sense to my brain. More straightforward, or easier to joke around with, or something. Or maybe it’s having a brother that makes them seem more approachable? Not that my brother is in any way typical of the species, whatever the fuck the stereotype even means. But a crowd of guy friends is something I’ve not had for a long time. I guess since I started college, started dating Alex. Ever since then it’s been one or two close girlfriends. Mad back home, Lucy here in Seattle. Quality friends over quantity, a thought that makes me grin at getting to see Luce tomorrow.

“Yeah, well, I’ll dilute the testosterone a bit when I get back.” I hesitate for a half second, knowing I’m about to embarrass the shit out of my dear, sweet friend, but also just genuinely curious since we’ve been playing phone tag ever since I made it to Alaska three weeks ago and it’s the first time we’ve actually managed to catch up. “And speaking of sausage, how’s it going with Jeff?”

“Damn it Cora!” she laughs. “It’s been going really well. Like, really well.”

“Nuh-uh, not good enough. I need more information. What date are y’all on now?”

“Uhm, I’ve sort of lost track, there were a few days where it was like, distinct dates happening, but for a couple weeks now we’ve seen each other almost every day.”

I wolf-whistle. “Busy three weeks.”

“Oh, hush. I’m a lady, you dumb bitch.” I try and fail to stifle a snort, but even she’s laughing.

“The most refined, clearly. So maybe not that much of a sausage fest, then?”

“We are taking things slow,” she says resolutely. “I mean, well, we’ve done… stuff, but like, we haven't… not yet…”

“You’re adorable, you know you can’t even say it? Haven’t had sex yet?”

“Not yet. We’re not in a rush.”

“Fair. You don’t owe anyone shit, you know, least of all a guy for taking you out.” I don’t even know why I’m lecturing her, except that she has dated a line of assholes as long as my arm.

“I know, Mom. We’re just in that… that dream-like beginning part, you know? Where it’s all new, and time slows down every time you touch, where everything’s about wanting and not having? The part you just don’t ever want to end?”

“Yeah, totally.” Except I don’t really know, but she sounds so lost in her happiness that I should keep that to myself. New topic.

“So are you guys going to the party thing tomorrow night? Stone and Chris’s thing?”

“Yeah, we’ll be there. Are you going?”

“Mmhmm. I think I talked Alex into it.”

“Whoa! So let it be written, the history books shall show that on this day, July 19th, Alex Henderson agreed to hang out with his girlfriend’s friends.”

“Yeah, yeah, wise-ass. Should be interesting.”

“It’ll be fiiiine!” she sing-songs.

“You have approximately zero data points on which to base that conclusion.” I’m imagining Stone and Chris talking to Alex and I don’t know whether to laugh or cringe at the thought. Guess I’ll find out soon enough.

“I’ll be optimistic for both of us, then.”

“Bless your heart. Speaking of the hermit, I should probably give him a call.”

We say our goodbyes, hang up, and I dial home, but I get the machine. I glance at the alarm clock on the nightstand and try not to sound too perplexed as I leave him a message: “Hey, it’s me. Just wanted to hear your voice one more time before I get to see you tomorrow, but maybe you crashed early? You’re turning into such an old man on me, love. Well, if you get this, give me a call back, I’ll be up for a while. And if not, well, I can’t wait to come home to you tomorrow. Love you.”

I’m checking every corner of my shitty motel room one last time to make sure I’ve packed everything when the phone rings about 5 minutes later. Figures, Alex probably crashed on the couch but woke up when he heard my message.

“Hey, gorgeous,” I murmur, “did I wake you up?”

“Gorgeous, huh? Finally seen the light? And no, you didn’t wake me up, I called you, genius. You eat paint chips as a kid, Red?”

“STONE! Fuck you dude,” but I’m laughing my ass off. “What do you want?”

“Child, you cut me to the quick. I’m supposed to want something if I call?”

“Well, A, you’re only two years older than me so cut the ‘child’ shit, and B, it’s you, so…”

“Okay okay, I give, you’re impossible,” he chuckles, “just wanted to say hi. Been a few days.”

Before I left, I’d told him to call me and annoy me every so often to keep me sane on this trip, and he’s been holding up his end of the bargain admirably.

“Yeah,” I grin. “So what’s new?”

I listen quietly while he rambles about the songs he’s writing with Mike, bitches about work, unpacks a tense but seemingly productive dinner he had with Jeff the other night to come to an agreement about working together in a new band. He asks about how the sampling trip is going, prods me for the nth time to make sure I’m coming to his birthday thing tomorrow. We take turns giving each other shit, as usual. After a while, the conversation falls into a comfortable silence and a quick glance at the clock shows that we’ve already been talking for almost an hour, although it’s only seemed like a few minutes have gone by. Somehow, Stone became one of those people to me faster than almost anyone else I’ve ever known. One of the ones you can talk about everything and nothing with, who gets the jokes and gives them back, who it’s easy to be easy with. After a while, he speaks back up.

“So, what are you getting me for my birthday?”

“Haha, presumptuous much? Just where and when am I supposed to be doing birthday shopping? Do you forget I’ve been marooned above the Arctic Circle digging in dirt for three weeks?” I’m giving him maximum sass, which is no less than he deserves, but I feel a spasm of guilt. In truth, I already found Chris a present, but I still have no idea what to get for Stone.

“No excuse for poor planning, Red.”

“Okay. Fossilized polar bear turd it is.”

“Nice talk.”

“You knew what you were signing up for.”

He clucks his tongue and sighs, but the conversation sags without his usual immediate zinger. “Yeah,” is all he says after a moment. I shake my head at the phone. He’s weirder than usual tonight.

“Alright, I’ll play. What do you want for your birthday?”

“I was just kidding, Cora, don’t get me anything. Just come hang out.”

“I can handle that. But that wasn’t my question.”

“I mean it. I just want to have a fun night with my friends. It’s… it’s been kind of a year, you know?”

Andy. I nod stupidly for a moment before remembering he can’t see me. “Yeah, yeah.” Once again, we fall quiet for who knows how long before he breaks the silence.

“So is Alex picking you up at the airport tomorrow?”

He hasn’t been giving Alex derogatory hillbilly names recently. I’m not even sure when that stopped, but I didn’t notice, and for whatever reason, I kind of miss it.

“No, my car’s there, I’ll drive myself home.”

“WHAT?? Where’s the romance in that? Come on, Jethro, step it up, buddy.” Oh, well there it is.

“And you are the expert on romance since when?”

“You don’t even know, Red,” he purrs. “Hey! Stop laughing! I’m serious!”

“Sure you are. Hate to inform you, Stoner, but Friday’s a work day for most productive members of society. My flight lands at like 2. I don’t expect the world to stop turning for me.”

“Yeah, but asking your boyfriend to meet you at the airport’s not asking the world to stop turning. It’s asking for something people are just supposed to do for one another. I’d think he’d want to.”

“I didn’t ask him!” I’m not even sure why I’m yelling. Are we fighting?

“Okay, okay. Easy. I didn’t mean anything by it.” There’s a bit of a pause, a strained one this time, and I’m not really sure what to say to fill it, but Stone speaks up after a moment.

“You know… if you ever need a ride to the airport, some of us unproductive members of society would be happy to oblige. You dropped everything to drive our asses all over the place when you barely even knew us. I’m just saying, I’m happy to return the favor anytime.”

“I…”

“Don’t make it weird, Cora. Just… just ask. Anytime.”

“Thanks, Stone,” is all I can manage to say as I turn the offer over in my mind. I’m genuinely touched, and also a little confused, before he breezes on like nothing happened.

“So we might have a line on a potential singer…”

#behind the sun #chapter 6 #fanfiction #fanfic #jeff ament #stone gossard #pearl jam

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