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apocryphalia · 5 years ago

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Auld Lang Syne

My very last entry for @drawlight‘s 31 days of ineffables prompts! I couldn’t quite get it done on time, but it felt like this series needed a proper ending.

(It also now has a proper title: these are all on AO3 as Through Time, Time is Conquered, and you can read the complete series over there or continue this one under the cut.)

Happy belated New Year, everyone! :)

Edinburgh, 1831

The first time Aziraphale heard the ballad, he was in Scotland to perform a quick blessing, and his trip happened to coincide with the New Year. Rather than travel back to London, the angel decided to book a room at the local inn for the night.

He stayed in his room for a little while, going through the motions of settling in—although he didn’t need it, traveling without luggage tended to make humans a bit wary—until the clamor of the dining room below his feet broke through his concentration, and he decided to put aside his book. He made his way downstairs and leaned on the bar, one foot up on the rail, just like the humans around him. The gentleman on the other side raised an eyebrow at his dress, but didn’t comment as he sidled over to take Aziraphale’s order, and his coin.

“What’ll it be, sir?”

“Whisky, please,” the angel replied, knowing better than to order his habitual wine in a place like this. “And have I missed dinner?”

“Nay, sir, we’ll be serving it soon.”

“Excellent.” Aziraphale beamed at the barkeep as he produced the required coin from his pocket, and then retreated to a table in the corner of the barroom. He was aware of the sidelong glances he received from the regular clientele, but studiously ignored them as he sipped what turned out to be a rather good Scotch whisky.

A number of glasses and a fairly unimpressive meal later, Aziraphale was surprised to hear the battered old clock in the corner strike twelve. A cheer rose up from the assembled patrons, and Aziraphale watched as they all rose from their seats and their positions leaning on the bar, formed a circle around the room, and began to sing.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? asked their song. Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and auld lang syne?

Although the passing of the years should be nearly meaningless to him as an immortal being, Aziraphale had always enjoyed the humans’ midwinter traditions, and with the aid of quite a bit of Scotch, he found himself swept up in the reflective mood of the occasion. He thought about the bookshop waiting for him in London, and the day that he had opened it, three decades ago now. He thought about the demon he had last seen on that day, the oldest acquaintance he had, the only other being he had known since the Beginning.

We twa hae run about the braes, and pou'd the gowans fine, sang the humans around him. But we've wander'd mony a weary fit, sin' auld lang syne.

He wondered where Crowley was at that moment, and whether he, too, was celebrating another revolution of the earth around the sun. He glanced to his left without thinking, and something clenched uncomfortably in his chest at the sight of the empty chair across the table. It was silly, of course, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that Crowley ought to be here with him.

As the inn’s patrons finished their song and began to depart, trickling upstairs to their rooms or out the front door, Aziraphale drained his final glass of whisky in one long sip. The burn of it on his tongue reminded him uncomfortably of a sweet, smoky taste he had experienced on a demon’s lips once, in another tavern centuries before, and 1,200 miles to the south and east.

Aziraphale retreated to his own room, and in the safe solitude of its darkness, he tasted the echo of the liquor on his own lips, and he imagined that it belonged to someone else’s.

New York City, 1929

The first time Crowley heard it, he was sitting alone at the kitchen table in his Manhattan flat, staring into a bottle of Canadian whisky. He had been in New York for most of the decade that was now coming to an end, drifting aimlessly through the city’s streets and speakeasies, feeding off its sleeplessness and sin. He was growing bored, and he missed London. New York was full of life and youthful vitality, teeming with the very best and worst humanity had to offer. It was new and brash, and so American. London overflowed with history: the remnants of empires come and gone, the relentless march of human progress, and—perhaps most salient—his own personal history with a certain angel, one-time Guardian of the Eastern Gate.

The sounds of the city’s revelers drifted up from the streets below his flat, and the bells of a distant church rang out, once, twice, and again until they finally hit twelve. Crowley raised his bottle toward the only other presence in his flat, the wooden radio chattering away in a corner of the kitchen. As he did so, a song began to play through its speakers.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? it asked him, and he glowered in response. That was precisely the reason he had come here, to this city that had risen from nothing in a rare blink of his serpentine eyes, and it had already proven impossible.

We two have paddled in the stream, from morning sun till dine

But seas between us broad have roared since auld lang syne, sang the voice on the radio, and Crowley swallowed down the remainder of his whisky in one long gulp. There was a very literal sea currently separating him from Aziraphale, the turn of the year already long past on the other side of it, and Crowley wondered what the angel was doing at that moment. The rest of London would be sleeping, but he knew Aziraphale saw no need to let the small hours go to waste. He could picture the solitary light in the bookshop window, a beacon calling him home through the darkness. He could picture Aziraphale’s steady hands turning the yellowing pages of some ancient book in the flickering light of his outdated gas lamps, his soft fingers cradling a glass of red wine or a cup of tea.

As the song on the radio drew to a close, Crowley stood and twisted the dial until it faded off. He determined as he stumbled down the hall and collapsed into bed that he would soon cross the sea that separated them and return to London, to Aziraphale. American prohibition would soon be stretched to the breaking point anyway, and Crowley had no desire to see it to the end.

A Bungalow Called Shangri-La, 2019

When the clock struck midnight on the last day of the year in which the world didn’t end, the strange company assembled in Madame Tracy’s living room collectively let out a quiet cheer. Adam and the rest of the Them—whose parents hadn’t thought to question their invitation to this unfamiliar bungalow with their childrens’ long-lost aunts, uncles, and godfathers—had been asleep in a pile on the sofa for the last two hours. Shadwell was snoring softly in his armchair, and Newt had been stuck in a cycle of nearly dropping his wine glass and then catching it and startling himself awake for the past twenty minutes.

Crowley and Aziraphale, who had brought their own considerable supply of wine, were bickering in low voices over whether or not penguins could fly, while Anathema and Madame Tracy giggled helplessly on the sidelines.

“Ooh, ooh,” Anathema cried out excitedly after their midnight toast, rushing toward the sofa and pulling Newt up by one arm. “We have to do the… Auld Lang Syne.” The Scottish title sounded too thick on her inebriated American tongue, and she stumbled through it a tad too quickly.

“Oh, yes!” Madame Tracy agreed. Newt mumbled something unintelligible, swaying in Anathema’s grip. Crowley groaned, and Aziraphale looked slightly sick behind his carefully neutral expression. Shadwell let out a loud snore.

Anathema had already grabbed Crowley’s hand with the one that wasn’t holding onto Newt, and was herding them into a misshapen circle. Madame Tracy took hold of Newt’s other hand and one of Aziraphale’s, and both women stared pointedly at the empty space between the angel and the demon.

Finally, Aziraphale made an uncomfortable motion that resembled a shrug, and took Crowley’s other hand in his own. Anathema and Madame Tracy started singing, slurred and off-key: “Should auld acquaintance be forgot…?” Newt grunted out something that might have been an attempt at the song, while Crowley and Aziraphale simply looked at one another, both faintly pink.

Aziraphale remembered seeing this circle formed for the first time, at the inn in Edinburgh, and what he had done after, with thoughts of Crowley swirling in his mind. He felt the warm weight of the demon’s hand under his own palm, and he wondered if Crowley would still taste as he remembered from so many centuries ago. His face burned with the memory, and his fingers felt cold and empty once the song ended and Crowley let him go.

Soon, Aziraphale decided as they walked up the drive together toward the Bentley. In a world made new by the sleeping child inside, a thousand years on from the start of their original Arrangement, he and Crowley would form a new one—a more honest one—and one day soon, Aziraphale would once again learn the demon’s taste.

#31 days of ineffables #good omens #fanfic #ineffable husbands #aziraphale/crowley #material culture series

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