#also someone in the tags of this post said that crowley’s OH moment in the conversation with nina was ‘maybe we don’t have to hide’ and…

[fuckyeahisawthat]

Yeah absolutely. “You go too fast for me” only works if they both know, because 100% of the meaning of that scene is in the subtext and the emotional impact comes from the fact that they both know what they’re saying.

don’t get me wrong, i’m all for the ‘aziraphale knows crowley loves him and crowley knows aziraphale loves him’ meta posts but. haven’t we known that since “you go too fast for me, crowley”? isn’t that statement a clear indication that they both know what’s happening but it’s new and scary and very real. they’re at different speeds but they know it’s love

[ingravinoveritas]

The people that keep saying not to ship Michael and David together in real life because of their relationships to Georgia and Anna are also the same ones who keep begging to have the two girls appear in the next season of GO as a couple because of Anna’s little joke of making out with Georgia. Seriously people saw that tweet of hers and immediately decided to ship them together and call them the “ineffable wives” but Michael and David have come out with soooo much more adorable moments of the love and joy they have for each other and everyone starts saying that it’s disrespectful to ship them when their “married” to females in real life 🤷‍♀️ I mean…. The hypocrisy is astounding and disturbing on levels I can’t even comprehend. The fact that Georgia, who is known to search her and David’s name on Twitter and answers back to anyone that tags or even mentions her didn’t even acknowledge Anna’s tweet says sooooooo much about this “best friend dynamic duo”. The fact that Anna is resorting to jokes about kissing another woman just for attention also…. WHEW. If this isn’t the biggest cry for attention I don’t know what is. And the fact that people feed into her attempts also and are petitioning for them to kiss and show up in GO!

Lord. I've seen so much talk about casting female actresses in regard to fem-presenting Aziraphale/Crowley over the past week, and while it is disappointing, I am not at all surprised. The first inkling I had was upon seeing the reactions when a behind the scenes photo of Crowley as Bildad the Shuhite was posted just before the release of GO 2:

It seems that a lot of folks were expecting/hoping for fem!Crowley, as we saw in Golgotha in season 1 (on the right), and when that turned out not to be the case, the reaction was to call Bildad!Crowley ugly, to say that he should shave, and other comments essentially making fun of this particular look. Obviously, much of this could have (and likely was) made in jest, but the overall consensus was clear: You can't be feminine with a beard.

(Which...I'd like to see someone tell that to Michael Sheen, because yes, the fuck you can...)

So from the outset, I was already bothered by what seemed like the hypocrisy of on the one hand celebrating a show where the characters are genderfluid/nonbinary by definition, and then on the other hand getting upset when one character doesn't fit into a prescribed, conventional idea of femininity.

When Neil subsequently mentioned that there had been a storyline for female-presenting Aziraphale and Crowley in the 1960s, it was dismaying (but again, not surprising) to see these same fans casting female actresses in the roles. Never mind that you already had David playing female!Crowley and Nanny Ashtoreth in season 1. Never mind that both Michael and David have played...well, "drag" doesn't seem like exactly the right word, but they've played women, and brilliantly subverted gender roles in their own ways. There is no reason to think that they couldn't do a fabulous job as fem!presenting Aziraphale and Crowley, except that (again) some fans seem to have a specific idea of femininity that they think does not or cannot apply to Michael and David.

Which then brings us to the apparent clamoring for Anna and Georgia as female Aziraphale and Crowley, which has again left me scratching my head. In all of the tweets and hubbub, I have not seen one person say why they think AL and Georgia would do a good job in said roles--like, "Oh, Georgia was so good as [insert role]" or "I loved Anna as [insert role]"--only that they would be "so amazing." This leads me to think that the only reason these fans want AL and Georgia in the roles is because they are Michael and David's partners. They are assuming that this is somehow a guarantee of the same profound understanding of the characters and their connection, despite there being no evidence of such a correlation. (I mean...I fooled around with my former grad school professor last year, but that doesn't mean I have a PhD...)

What it also seems to indicate is that these folks are not thinking of what is best for the characters, either, or indeed if playing female!Aziraphale and Crowley is something AL or Georgia would even want to do. Neil recently said that Georgia turned down a role in GO 2 supposedly because the character was older than her and she didn't feel it was appropriate. If this is the case, why would Georgia want to play the role of a middle-aged character? Because that is what Aziraphale and Crowley are--ageless celestial beings, yes, but beings who have chosen to present as middle-aged. That is a key part of who they are, so to have the female versions of them played by younger actresses makes no sense and seems downright disrespectful.

There is also what you said, about AL's cringey tweet from a little over a week ago. Georgia could have absolutely responded to or acknowledged it by now, as she has responded to several other tweets since then...but she hasn't. Not a reply, not even a 'like.' And I agree with you that that seems to speak volumes, and that it would probably be a good idea if people looked beyond the Staged-driven narrative of "Georgia and AL are BFFs" to see how Georgia actually seems to feel about her.

(And to echo another thing you said, I will never understand how it is somehow completely fine for fans to ship Georgia and Anna/want to see them make out despite neither of them showing that level of affection toward each other or having any visible chemistry, yet not okay to ship Michael and David who do have that chemistry and have been making their feelings for each other very obvious for the last several years...)

So yes, those are my thoughts on the whole female Aziraphale/Crowley fancasting situation. I just hope that if we do get them as fem!presenting in season 3, that it is Michael and David, because there is no way any other two actors could give us what we got with Aziraphale and Crowley the way Michael and David did. I guess we'll see what happens...

[metatronhateblog]

The Nightmare of our Dreams?

Okay so I watched a video a week or so ago on Youtube by @sendarya while falling down a rabbit hole working on the Angelic Language a bit. And I had some thoughts after i that I was going to add onto a reblog of this post and then it got all spirally and I had a lot to say all of the sudden, so I'm making this a ✨separate post✨ instead of adding a huge ass reblog. I'm tagging @sendarya anyways because it was their post to begin with and I like to give credit to the people who say things that make my gears start turning.

That being said, enough of this rambling and it's time to move on to the other rambling.

I don't know if anyone has speculated this yet, because weirdly enough I haven't seen much going around about the 'nightmare sequence' Neil talked about. I think my sister sent me a post about it, and I was like 'oh cool neat' then forgot about it and didn't give it a second thought.

So then I was looking to find a transcript or something about Peter Anderson mentioning the Angelic language can be solved (these people word things in the trickiest way and I want to know exactly what was said....because I still don't know) I stumbled instead upon this video of someone (sendarya that's you) talking about Ineffable Con. And that's where I saw it. That's the moment I saw the pictures of the bookshop surrounded by destruction for the first time.

I sat there staring at it for a bit, trying to process it, my sister explained it to me, and then I continued the video and got a bit more explanation.

So when it comes down to it, this post is ENTIRELY about speculation, and my thoughts on it. I have nothing to back this up, and for all I know it contradicts what Neil says about wanting it to be the ending of the episode.

I feel like this image induces a looming dread on its own, especially when paired with the ending of Season 2 (RIP my boys but you're on separate sides again.) But I'm not talking about the end of Season 2.

I'm talking about the end of Episode 2 'The Clue ft the minisode A Companion to Owls.' That's a mouthful.

Neil said that he wishes he would've put this nightmare sequence at the end of that episode, because it didn't have a proper ending. And so I was sitting here thunking about it, trying to figure out how a nightmare sequence would fit in after Bildad and Aziraphale have their silly little moment where they sit on the rock together staring out at the sea. And I realized how jarring it would be from a writing stand point, unless of course there was a scene that segued into it so that it wasn't just BAM them on the rocks then BAM Nightmare time.

Then it hit me. The scene where Aziraphale zones out then comes to only for Jim to tell him Crowley left a while ago. Here's the first shot of his face as soon as we see him again in present day.

I'm not even sure how to describe this look? Pensive? Little bit of pouty girl? Brow furrowed? I don't know, it's just weird.

But then he starts to speak, trying to get Crowley's attention....and something in his eyes...

He also looks to the side and back several times

It's just...there's this look about him that feels like he could maybe be doing more than remembering the happenings with Job.

And Jim says to him 'He went away...while you were thinking' and I KNOW that he's remembering the Job stuff here, because he whips around and follows it up with 'You know you really used to be awful.'

And like...after remembering the Job thing it seems like a perfectly valid reaction.

And I'm aware this scene IS NOT coming out of 'a nightmare sequence' like Neil described. Not to mention we don't even know WHO had the nightmare sequence. But I just personally think this would be the perfect scene to place after a sequence like that.

Think about it, Aziraphale is seemingly all in on the ball, like HE KNOWS it's his last chance. This man is determined to get everyone in the bookshop, telling Maggie and Nina they're safe and I think even telling Crowley such at some point 'We're perfectly safe in here.'

Safe from what, babygirl? Presumably whatever that scene with the bookshop sitting on a destroyed Earth. But also what if Crowley saw a nightmare sequence? It'd make sense for him to have seen it too! I mean like...we obviously don't know who would've been seeing the nightmare sequence.

But maybe Crowley would've going out to try and do something about it. It would make him being uncomfortable in the bookshop with Gabriel all the more emphasized. It would make him willing to go into Heaven and use Muriel to do it make all the more sense. So he can figure out what's going on.

It would make the Metatron telling Aziraphale that 'it's this thing we like to call the second coming' hit all the harder. Because this is something Aziraphale's worried about after having a vision like that. Could you imagine if Aziraphale was the one who had the nightmare sequence, and Metatron says that to him and he realizes how badly he fucked up SPECIFICALLY because he can't make sure the people he cares about (really just Crowley) are safe in the bookshop when that does happen? Could you imagine his newfound determination to go to Heaven and stop the second coming to prevent that from happening.

Could you imagine if Aziraphale came back from Heaven to find the only thing left was his bookshop?

I just, have a lot of thoughts and speculation on this nightmare sequence and it makes my brain go brrrrrr. So just imagine how impactful it would've been if that moment had taken place right before Aziraphale comes to after his long zoning out only to find out that he's been zoning out for a while. And Crowley is gone.

Anyways thank you for coming to my speculation post in which I have to live with these thoughts in my head and now so do you.

But that's just a theory---

Anyways keep an eye out for more posts on the opening sequence and the various other things that have been plaguing the minds of me and my sister.

[denaphoenix]

Me too, girl. Me too.

But also...

Uhm... those tags be seriously wildin'.

Like... how do you correctly comment on these?

My initial instinct was to slide into their dms to assure them that both David and Michael are perfectly capable of kissing guys. But that feels weird.

So I'm doing this instead... (seriously feeling just as weird about that though. Like... there must be a better way. I just... ah fuck it)

Because, dammit, someone needs to make a post about David and Michael being great actors that I trust completely to properly portray ancient queer repressed love. In part because of their filmographies and in part because of what they've already done in Good Omens.

I mean, take one look at Crowley's pathetic attempts at sitting on furniture or the swing of his hips and tell me he's not the epitome of a snakey bicon. Plus, I've SEEN David Tennant kiss guys in all sorts of contexts, and he's done great! (fuck, I still feel like a creep right now. But someone has to say it. I did not explicitly seek for "David tenant kissing guys" btw... there are gif sets. They're educational.)

And while all I have seen Michael do in the lines of kissing guys was a quick peck (and a weird amount of sex scenes), the man has a frankly staggering range of gay characters, and after having seen those, and watching the man reenact that scene from the graduate where Mrs. Robinson seduces Benjamin ( which, btw., has been a truly transcendental experience) I will never doubt Michael Sheen's ability to do anything at all. And as a side note, just look at his eyes and tell me he's not VERY capable of portraying queer attraction. Plus the ox ribs... never forget the ox ribs.

So when it comes to the kissing thing, we're going to be fine. If they want to give us a transcendentally romantic kiss, they are going to. There will be no "kissing like straight guys" in the Sheen-Tennant household any time soon, trust you me.

But also... "yet another"!? I don't know where you were for that first kiss, (where, by the way, they did kiss "for real"), but if that kiss said to you "these people are so obviously straight", and not the CLEARLY SPELLED OUT "I'm going to aggressively and violently communicate 6000 years of pent-up emotions with my very inexperienced mouth and body because my words seem to not be getting through and I'm in physical and emotional distress over it and I simply need to cling on to this one moment for as long as possible because ending it will end it all" on Tennant's side, and the conflicted response of "oh fuck, how fucking dare he, oh damn, this... I want this so badly that it hurts, but I'm also currently feeling a thousand conflicting emotions most of which are stabbing into my mind like knives, and how fucking dare he, oh God, oh, not God, oh no, oh fucking hell, oh..." continued by non-verbal queer ache on Sheen's... then... did we watch the same scene?

I'm so glad we have Michael as Aziraphale... :')

[verobatto]

Destiel Chronicles

Vol. LXXXIV

It was a love story from the very beginning.

I Love You

(12x12)

Hi my beautiful friends, I will talk in this meta about the episode in which Case confessed his love. Did he? Or didn't he? Heheh let's see.

Dean Jealous and his contra-macho cool friend reaction

Oh yes, I'm gonna talk about that scene. I saw so many memes because Dean's dimples of discontent were loud. So get this...

MANDY: And how ‘bout you, handsome?

Gif credit @faramaiofnerdwoodforest

Dean's face here can't be taken by other thing than JEALOUSY, he is not amused with that girl throwing heart eyes to Cas. And he shows his dimples of discontent. Not amused at all. So, he post-reaction to this, with his mom on the table and that tough hunter too, he does what society waits for a friend to do when a girl is showing signs of flirtation to one of his friends...

But he overreacts and says a couple of silly things. One of them, Sam won't let go easily.

Gif credit @angvlicmish

This is the lie, because Dean doesn't want to teach Cas to conquer women. But he has to pretend he does. Because he wants to show the supportive friend he is. 'We've been looking for teachable moments' like 'We?' Sam and him? Sammy doesn't look as if he was waiting for this moment, besides, he knows what Dean feels for Cas, so... Dean is almost reaching the ridiculous line in here. Trying so hard to sound one thing, he is not.

Look at this...

SAM: The internet here sucks. I downloaded all the bunker’s files to a new archive, but we’re not getting any signal, so I’m j–

DEAN: [makes snoring noises and pretends to sleep] Nobody cares. Cas, here’s the thing you need to know about waitresses, okay? They get hit on all day long, so you gotta bring your A game. But, upside? [clicks tongue] They always smell like food.

WALLY: [nodding along with Dean, then pointing at him] They always smell like food.

First: Sam immediately changed the subject dragging them to the case and a difficulty he is having to get more info, and Dean! Dean just cut him off! He just can't let a waitress hitting on Cas' alone! Because is VERY IMPORTANT to him, to pretend he is helping him, because he is the waitress experienced friend, and try to low Castiel's expections into venture to do that!

Because... He says 'They always smell like food!" As if that were something sexy!

And Wally is just affirming that premise, and then Sam... Because he was interrupted by his brother's fake show, and because he knows what's the behind the scenes, he engages revengeful ...

SAM: Is that really an upside? They smell like food?

MARY: Okay– okay...

DEAN: Right? It’s great.

SAM: Why would you want them to smell like food?

Dean can't lie to Sam, because Sam knows the truth, he knows Dean is trying to kill every interest Castiel could ever have in hook up with any waitress in the world. Because he is jealous! And I believe Mary noticed that too, and just scolded their boys. Hehehe.

Then this?

Gif credit @angvlicmish

Okay, leaving to a side that his face is out of control, because he really thinks Cas is devastating handsome, he keeps with the cool friend that helps his friend, and the only one believing that story in that table is Wally, because he didn't live the Destiel drama. Dean is pretending like a good, because Wally is there. But Sam know, Mary knows, and even Cas knows.

Gif credit @angvlicmish

Dean is like 'I helped you, buddy, did you like that? I'm a cool friend.' and Cas is like 'Do you really want me to date this female, Dean?' just because the poor guy put so many effort on that. Geez. Dean is a mess... Heheheh.

I Love You

I will try to focus the meta in the 'I love you' scene, because before that, we have a very distressed Dean Winchester trying to save his angel. Dean is nervous, and in denying. Because his head can't process the fact of loosing Castiel for ever. He can't handle that lost, that's why he denies it.

Now, let's go to the famous scene. Did Cas said I Love You to Dean?

Gif credit @angvlicmish

If you rewatch the scene, previous to this confession, Castiel is looking at Dean straight in the eyes, then he drops his gaze and says these words, with a hint of shame.

But Dean's reaction can only been explained as someone who's hearing his best friend saying goodbye and giving up. And also, because in english language, this I LOVE YOU, could be sayed to a singular person of more than one. So, Dean thinks this I Love You was for them (Dean, Sam and Mary) that's why that face, is a face that says : ' Come one man, don't say it, you won't die, this is not the goodbye.'

I know a lot of people thinks Dean's reaction is because he wasn't prepared to receive a love confession, but I don't really think that. He is not prepared to say it. And in this take, he thinks this goodbye confession if for all the Winchesters in that room. Why do I think this? Because his reaction is very different when he sees Cas saying this to Sam and Mary.

Gif set credit @princessknoblauch 👇

Cas averts his eyes to Sam and Mary and Dean's face is of realization here.

He realizes the first I LOVE YOU was for him.

Why would Cas make that difference? Because the meaning are different. Even when he previously confess they are his family, he chooses to look at Dean first a confess one exclusive I love you for him.

Is platonic? Is romantic?

I truly believe is romantic, because there was shame in Cas' face, and he dropped his eyes before saying it. And I think Dean knew this deep inside.

But it could be taken otherwise, that's why it stays like a grey zone between them.

When Crowley comes and saves Castiel, Dean's face of relief is priceless, and there's this little finger touch Cas made over Dean's hand before left his hand go. They were close to be separated, what they don't know is, this is a foreshadow of Castiel's real death at the endo of the season, but also, Dean saying: "Let's go home" is foreshadowing too his own words in episode 13x06, when Castiel comes back to him.

To Conclude:

Episode 12x12 has Jealous!Dean, inside a hilarious scene, but it also has a sad foreshadow of Castiel's death.

Cas said confessed his love for the Winchesters as a family, but it was a special and exclusive confession he made to Dean, because the hint of shame and the dropped gaze, it meant more than just a platonic confession.

Dean's reaction is different to the second confession, because he realizes the first one was just for him.

I really hope you enjoyed this meta, see you in the next one!

Tagging @magnificent-winged-beast @emblue-sparks @weird-dorky-little-deana @michyribeiro @whyjm @legendary-destiel @a-bit-of-influence @thatwitchydestielfan @misha-moose-dean-burger-lover @lykanyouko @evvvissticante @savannadarkbaby @dea-stiel @poorreputation @bre95611 @thewolfathedoor @charlottemanchmal @neii3n @deathswaywardson @followyourenergy @dean-is-bi-till-i-die @hekatelilith-blog @avidbkwrm @anarchiana @dickpuncher365 @vampyrosa @authorsararayne @mybonsai1976 @love-neve-dies @dustythewind @wayward-winchester67 @angelwithashotgunandtrenchcoat @trashblackrainbow @deeutdutdutdoh @destiel-shipper-11 @larrem88 @charmedbycastiel @ran-savant @little-crazy-misha-minion @samoosetheshipper

@shadows-and-padlocked-hearts @mishtho @dancingtuesdaymorning @nerditoutwithbooks @mikennacac73 @justmeand-myinsight @idontwantpeopletoknowmyname @teddybeardoctor @pepevons @helevetica @isthisdestiel @dizzypinwheel @jawnlockwinchester @horsez2 @qanelyytha

@destielle @agusvedder @spnsmile @shippsblog @robot-feels @superlock-in-the-tardis @superduckbatrebel @2musiclover2 @nickelkit @anon-non2 @cea1996

If you want to be added or removed from this list just let me know.

If you want to read the previous metas from season 12, here you have the links:

Vol. LXXV, LXXVI, LXXVII, LXXVIII, LXXIX, LXXX, LXXXI, LXXXII, LXXXIII.

Buenos Aires, October 18th 2020, 7:35 PM.

[skyemak]

Cater Gets a New Do

Cater stood under one of the various trees of the courtyard. His hands were deep in his pockets as he swayed heel to toe. As a cool breeze brushed his skin, the leaves above him rustled slightly. Again, Cater glanced around the courtyard, and looked behind the tree. With a sigh, he pulled out his phone from his pocket, both to check the time and to check for any Magicam notifications. Recently there hasn’t been much going on at Night Raven College nor at his dorm. It was about two days since his last post, which was unlike him. However, he felt a sort of creative block recently, and no matter how many selfies or pics he took, he didn’t feel they were up-to-par to post to Magicam.

“Oh, Cater-senpai, what’re you doing here?”

Cater glanced up from his phone, a relaxed smile appeared on his face when he saw his familiar underclassman. “Hiya Ace-chan!” He raised his hand by his face, making a peace sign. “Yuu asked me to meet her here after school—said she wanted to ask me something. I wonder what it is~”

“Heh, I think that’s obvious.” A smug smile grew on Ace’s face.

“Hm?” Cater dropped his hand to rest on his side. “What’re you thinking, Ace-chan?”

“Nothing~ Just get ready for a new confess tag to post on Magicam,” Ace chuckled to himself, strolling away.

Cater blinked and looked down at his phone screen before quickly shutting off the screen. He grabbed a piece of his hair with his thumb and finger as he stored his phone back into his pocket. “Heh, as if.” But his mind began to wonder.

This school is surrounded by boys, so it’d be no surprise if Yuu-chan got a crush on someone.

She hangs out with the Adeuce combo a lot, so I’d first guess she’d like one of them.

Ah, but they’re not the brightest crayons in the crayon box.

As a human, Yuu-chan would probably prefer another human so they’d be more compatible. At NRC, that would leave Heartslyabyul, Pomefiore, and Scarabia.

Pomefiore is kinda intense in their own way.

I heard a lot happen as Scarabia…

Well, a lot happened since Riddle’s overblot too…

Now that I think about it, Yuu-chan always smiles in the morning when she sees me. It probably isn’t much though since I’m always acting peppy anyway.

Cater used his index finger to lightly twirl his hair in thought.

…But if she did confess… What would I say?

His ears tinted pink as he glanced down. The beat of his heart quickened slightly.

Well, I admit Yuu-chan is a little cute.

Another breeze flew by, rustling the leaves of the tree he stood by. Cater glanced up the wood. Soon the season will be changing, which will probably give Cater better potential selfies for his Magicam account.

“Senpai!” a voice yelled in the distance. Cater immediately turned his head toward its source and saw Yuu running toward him. “I’m sorry for making you wait!” she exclaimed. Yuu approached, stopping a few feet in front of him, out of breath.  She slouched over with her hands on her thighs, trying to catch her breath. “Trein-sensei made me stay late since I did so bad on his last test…” she whined. Cater chuckled, “Heheh, Trein-sensei can be quite strict. I know all too well.”

After a few moments to balance her breathing, Yuu heaved a sigh and stood straight up. She looked directly toward Cater with a determined look in her eyes. “Anyway, senpai!” Cater flinched. Abruptly, he felt his chest tighten. He glanced away from her. “Y-Yeah?”

Yuu grabbed Cater’s hand and held it gently in both of hers. “Senpai, I need you!” she exclaimed.

“Huh?!” Cater erupted. “M-Me?” He couldn’t help but notice how soft her hands felt against his.

Is…Is she really gonna confess?!

Okay, she is more than a little cute now that I see her more closely.

We could also post couple-y photos on Magicam.

I can see the comments now. “OMG so cute!” “I’m so jelly I wanna boyfriend/girlfriend~” “You two look so cute together!”

Wait, I need to consider her feelings too!

Ah, but she would probably expect me to wanna take selfies together.

Wait again, what about when she goes back to her world?!

“Senpai?” Yuu asked innocently, still holding his hand. He snapped back to reality.

“Ahhhh! Fine! Okay! I’ll do it!”

“Yay! Uh, Senpai, why is your face red? Are you feeling okay?”

Cater covered his face with one hand, looking toward the ground. The sound of his heartbeat rang through his ears. “I-I’m fine…” he muttered.

“Great!” Yuu smiled. “Can we do it at your room then?”

“…Huh?”

“I think I could also use two of your clones for it.”

“What?!”

-----

Yuu opened a tote bag swung over her shoulder and began to set out various hairbrushes, a curling iron, flat iron, and other hair products on Cater’s dresser. Cater stood by, watching her bring the products out. He timidly put his hands together and covered his nose and mouth with them.

She… She just wants to practice different hair styles on me…

“Cater-senpai, would you sit here?” Yuu beckoned. Cater twitched a bit in surprise. He looked over and saw her gesture toward a chair, holding a salon cape. “Y-Yeah.” He stepped forward, plopping down on the chair.

“By the way, Yuu-chan.”

“Hm?” she asked, pulling the cape around him to clip.

“Why me…exactly?”

“Well,” she began, taking the clip out from Cater’s hair. “You have nice length hair and it’s easier to try different styles with your hair. Plus, your unique magic makes it so I can practice multiple hairstyles at once! Oh, I don’t need them yet though.”

“Is that so…” he trailed off. Yuu gently ran her fingertips through Cater’s hair. Each time the brushed his hair with her fingers, it felt soothing to say the least. She stepped toward the dresser to grab a brush. Without realizing, Cater let his lids fall as she brushed through his orange strands of hair. Her movements were so gentle and tender, any tension he felt in his body just oozed away.

“I’ll just start with something simple,” Yuu said, setting down the brush and grabbing a fine-toothed comb.

“Okay,” Cater briefly replied.

She used the end of the comb to separate the top section of his hair to carefully tie into a rubber band. Once in, she tugged a bit at the hair in the rubber band at the top of his scalp to add some volume. When satisfied, Yuu again used the end of the comb to section out a piece of his hair at the side of his head.

“Yuu-chan,” Cater spoke up as she began to braid the section of hair. His eyelids still shut.

“Oh, does something hurt or feel uncomfortable?”

“No,” he quicky said, “I was just wondering why you’re practicing hairstyles on me.”

“Yeah, hold on, lemme finish this braid first, Senpai... There, that looks good,” Yuu said, tying the braid into another rubber band. “Well, there’s a couple of hairstyles I wanna try for myself but I wanted to practice them. But there’s a few I wanted to try but hmmm… How should I put it?” She took her comb to section out another piece of hair at the other side of his head. She took that piece and combed it to looked less disorderly. “It’s hard to figure out how to do hairstyles that have the focal points on the back, or that are consistent throughout. I don’t have anyone to kinda help me with that, but I thought if I could try it on your hair, I can get a good idea how to do it for myself, I guess? Plus, I can practice more than one at a time because of your unique magic! So, it’s hitting two birds with one stone, you could say.”

Yuu took the new section of hair and braided it as well. “Ohh,” Cater said.

“Whatever is done to your clones doesn’t reflect your appearance when they disappear, right?” She rubber banded the section of hair.

“No, not really.”

“Good…” Yuu smiled to herself, combining the two braids to the first piece of hair she rubber banded earlier. “Ah, this one is looking cute.” She grabbed a pink ribbon to tie a bow around the three pieces of hair. “I thought it was gonna be easy.”

“What’s it look like?” Cater asked.

“I’ll take a pic,” Yuu said, taking out her cellphone Crowley had given to her not too long ago. She snapped a quick note before facing the screen toward him. “See?”

“Oh, that’s a cute look! It’d probably would look really cute on you, Yuu-chan!”

There was a brief pause. Cater felt his cheeks redden. He just said what popped into his head without realizing it. The man was grateful Yuu couldn’t see his face. Yuu pulled her phone away from view, and quietly replied, “You think so…?”

There was another short pause before Cater spoke up, “So, you said you needed two clones to practice?”

“Uh, yeah,” Yuu answered abruptly. It involves using a curling iron, so I wanted a backup for when I mess up.”

“Okay, Split Card!”

-----

“Hey, Yuu-chan,” said Cater copy #1, “you did good makin’ these wavy curls.” He shook his head joyfully, singing out the curled waves in his hair. “They’re so bouncy!”

“Oh yeah,��� said Cater copy #2, “I have this nice braid crown going over my head.” He gestured toward the top of his head. As he said, a braid wrapped around his head, and a few strands of hair dangled from the crown. “Truly I am King Cater!”

“Which one is Yuu-chan working on now? Number 4?” Cater copy #3 said, rocking an orange mohawk.

“A-Are you sure you want me to shave it?” Yuu asked timidly to copy #4, hesitantly holding a pair of clippers.

“Yeah, sure, go ahead!” Cater copy #4 delightfully replied. “Doesn’t affect the original! Plus, it’ll make for fun selfies to put on Magicam.” The other copies shouted, “Yeah!” in unison.

“I don’t need my followers to think I changed my hairstyle 5 times in one day!” the original Cater spoke up.

Yuu had asked Cater to make two clones of himself originally, to have one as a backup, but found she only needed one try to figure out how to curl waves with a curling iron. Then she asked for another two to try the braid crown in case she needed a backup, and then it just snowballed from there.

“Cater, you want me to try shaving the side of your head?”

“Yeah!” Copy #4 said, “I always wondered about those asymmetrical cuts!”

Yuu glanced over at the original Cater. He just shook his hand as if to say, “Go ahead.” Like copy #4 said, it doesn’t affect the original.

“Okay, here I go…” Still unsure, Yuu turned on the clippers, causing a faint buzzing sound.

-----

Hard thumps could be made out in the Heartslabyul dorm hallway carpet. The dorm leader was gritting his teeth, his face red in anger. “What need would he have to make his clones and make such a racket?!”

“Calm down, Riddle,” Trey kept pace beside Riddle. Trey’s efforts were only brushed aside as Riddle trampled on, beelining to Cater’s room. As they neared, loud sounds of giggling and laughter echoed behind the door. Ready to cast his unique magic the second he opened the door; Riddle grabbed the doorknob with great vigor. The next second, Trey’s arm swooped in front of Riddle’s body.

“Riddle,” he said. His voice was gentle, but stern. “Let’s access what’s going on before doing anything drastic, okay?” Trey smiled reassuringly. Riddle took a deep breath in before heaving a heavy sigh. The red faded from his face. “Fine,” the dorm leader said, almost with a pout.

“Uh, Cater-senpai, er, senpais?” a female voice said behind the door.

“Don’t worry!” said Cater.

“We’re just having fun, Yuu-chan!” said what again, sounded like Cater.

“Yuu?!” Trey stated. His eyes opened wide in shock.

“That’s it!” Riddle forced the door open, stomping inside before yelling. “Cater!”

“Yuu, are you--?” Trey began but cut himself off.

“Oh, uh, hi,” Yuu awkwardly waved at the two. Not in any danger, but a bit tense, Yuu was sitting in the chair the previous Caters sat in before. Multiple Cater clones were pointing at her hair or held a piece of it in her hand.

“A fishtail braid would look great in her hair!” said the Cater with a braided crown.

“You know our sisters said we sucked at it growing up!” said the Cater with wavy curls.

“Well practice makes perfect right?!” said the braided crown Cater.

“I think a French braid is a classic. Plus, we were usually good at them growing up,” said Cater with a side-shave. His arms were crossed as he stared at Yuu’s hair in thought.

“Uh, Caters, maybe let’s not tug at Yuu-chan’s hair,” said the original Cater, his hair still with the braided back style.

“Don’t be so stingy,” braided crown Cater said.

“Yeah! I know you’d wanna do a fun hairdo with her too, since you could take a couple-like selfie with it!” said cater with the side-shave.

“Wha--? Why would I?!” the original Cater argued, but pink flushed his cheeks. He dared not look at Yuu’s face. What sort of expression she was making, he had no idea.

“’Cause we’re all thinking the same thing?” said Cater with the braided crown. “We haven’t posted anything on Magicam in a while anyway.”

“Uh, I kinda have some other homework I needed to get to tonight…” Yuu mumbled, looking as lost.

“I think we should try something new entirely!” slipped in Cater with a mohawk. In his hand were the clippers from before. With a smug look on his face, he turned them on. Yuu yelped.

“OFF WITH YOUR HEAD!”

Riddle’s signature collars appeared on all the Caters’ necks. Then, all the clones poofed out of existence, leaving just the original Cater, still in the collar.

“Oh, hi there, uh, dorm leader…” Cater mumbled, trying to avoid any eye contact.

“What’s going on in here?” Trey asked.

“Hair styling practice?” Cater hesitantly answered.

Riddle sighed. He crossed his arms and stood with authoritatively. “Cater, you’re making too much noise. Also, it’s past the allowed time for visitors. I won’t punish you for breaking the rules this time but be aware. I won’t be as forgiving next time.”  

“Y-Yeah, I’ll be sure not to let this happen again,” Cater said, bowing toward Riddle.

“Glad it wasn’t something major…” Trey remarked. His forearm leaned against the side of the doorway. “Alright, Riddle, let’s let them clean up.”

“Hmph.” Riddle turned on his heel and walked back into the hallway, Trey following closely behind.

“Uh, hey!” Cater said, running toward the door. “What about this collar?” A few seconds later, the collar vanished from his neck. He heaved a sigh and walked back into his dorm. Yuu was already packing up her supplies, and just about finished.

“Um,” Cater spoke up, gaining her attention. Yuu looked toward him, zipping her bag up and swinging the handle over her shoulder. He put his hand at the back of his head. For a few moments he stared at the floor, shifting his feet, before looking back toward the girl. “Sorry, I didn’t realize it’d get so…hectic.” He chuckled. Yuu looked toward her back, fiddling with the strap of it between her fingers. Cater took notice, lowering his hand from his head, staring at her expectantly. When Yuu finally spoke up, her eyes were still at her fingers. “We can…still take a selfie together…if you want.”

Cater jolted. “A selfie…?”

His chest tightened when she nodded timidly, a soft pink in her cheeks.

-----

Cater sat on the bench at the foot of his bed. His leg was bent with his foot on the bench, and his cheek squished as he rested his face on his knee. He looked idly down at his phone screen, swiping through his camera roll. He selected one of the selfies with Yuu recently, and chose to open it in an editing app. The default recommended filter was to add hearts around their faces.

He turned off the screen, setting his phone screen down on the bench. “I don’t really wanna post any of the selfies…” he mumbled. After a few moments, he vocalized a heavy sigh. Cater raised his other foot to the bench, then used his legs to launch himself backwards to fall into his bed.

“I liked the idea of a French braid on her…”

[msmarvelouswinchester]

Love In Sin

Chapter 7

Summary - Special Agent Winchester is forced to go undercover with his frenemy Special Agent L/N when they try to track down a notorious drug dealer. How will Y/N and Dean complete their task? Will their relationship worsen or will new feelings emerge between them?

Pairing - AU Detective!Dean Winchester x Reader

Series Warnings- Angst, Slow burn, Fluff, Implied Smut, Mentions of crime and drug, Swearing.

Chapter Warnings- Fluff, dirty talk, swearing, CLIFFHANGER

Word Count- 1.3k+

Square filled- Dirty Talk ( @spndeanbingo )

A/N - Finally the new chapter is here (sorry for the delay guys). Enjoy reading this chapter and SO SORRY FOR THE END!

Also this is third time I am posting this. (Stupid tumblr won't let me use the keep reading feature)

Beta'd by @deanwanddamons (she is an amazing person as well as an amazing writer)

Spn divider by the talented @talesmaniac89

Series Masterlist

You were awakened from your deep slumber with a start. Blinking a few times you registered the blaring alarm. You tried opening your eyes but your head started throbbing the moment your eyes focused on the blinding morning light.

Struggling to reach towards your alarm, you finally managed to shut it off and nestled deep into the blanket, when you realised that you were not alone in your bed.

You looked to your side and saw Dean lying on his stomach. What was with him and climbing into your bed in the middle of the night? You then noticed that he didn't have a shirt on. You lifted up your covers to confirm your worst thought, but sighed in relief after you saw you were fully clothed. You continued to stare at him with widened eyes.

“I can feel your eyes burning holes in the back of my head, Y/L/N,” Dean grumbled and turned towards you.

“What are you doing in my bed, again? Why are you not wearing a shirt?” you asked him.

“Just stop talking.” he said, rubbing his temples.

“Dean?” you said, grabbing his shoulder and shaking him a little to wake him up, which made him squeeze his eyes shut and he rolled on his back to face you.

“What?” He groaned, opening up one eye to look at you.

“We didn't do...you know-”

“No. You don't remember?”

“Nope.”

“Nothing? Seriously? You just got complete, black out drunk?”

“Maybe,” you sheepishly replied.

“Great! Well, we didn't have sex if that's what you're askin’. Since you can hold your alcohol very well,” Dean teased, “you were so drunk when we finished the bottle. I had to carry you up and I fell asleep here. Though, I can't promise you didn't do or didn't try to do some stupid things while you were drunk.”

“What stupid things?” You were mortified.You didn't trust your drunk self at all.

“Nuh-uh. No more questions until I have my coffee,” he said and climbed out of your bed and made his way to the kitchen. You stayed in bed for a few more minutes trying to remember any of the stupid things you might have said or done, but your entire memory of the drunken night was fuzzy so you gave up and went to the kitchen to join Dean for a coffee after freshening up.

“Here,” Dean passed you a cup and sat down at the table with one of his own.

“This is what being alive feels like,” he sighed in contentment after taking a sip of his coffee. You rolled your eyes at his antics.

“Dean, what stupid things did I do?” you asked again.

“I won't ever tell you. Those are classic blackmail stuff,” he grinned at you.

“Did you-did you record me when I was drunk?” You gulped.

Dean smirked at you and shrugged.

“You didn't,” you glared at the detective in front of you.

“Oh I did,” Dean said, “I just didn't record the moment when you started to come on to me. That was embarrassing but you were persistent - you even offered to go down on me.” He chuckled as you buried your face in your hands.

You were beyond horrified. Your drunken self didn't just tell Dean that she was willing to give him a blowjob. You felt your face was on fire.

“What else...did I-I do?”

“Not much.” You understood Dean wouldn’t budge. He wasn't gonna tell you anything. You sighed.

“What's the plan for today?” You asked.

“Act normal.”

“We are normal.” You rolled your eyes at him.

“I meant let's pretend to be all lovey-dovey and do things that couples do. Mr. Singer sent me a text saying that we should do something to make our cover more believable,” Dean shrugged.

“Okay. What do you have in mind Mr.Campbell?” You played along.

“Lunch, movies and sex, Mrs. Campbell,” he teased.

“I am not having sex with you, Winchester,” you warned.

“Just sayin’, you were pretty persistent last night, sweetheart,” he smirked.

“I was drunk and I don't even know if you are lying or not,” you pointed out.

“Why would I lie?” Dean said and got up from his seat.

“I don't know.” He walked over to you.

“The offer still stands though. I promise you won't be able to walk properly for a week,” he whispered in your ears. A shiver ran down your spine. You swallowed hard. Dean Winchester had a strong effect on you, but you wouldn’t let him see it. You turned your head to the side and looked at Dean.

“I bet you can't even satisfy me,” you teased. Dean looked at you, his eyes darkening. The look on his face was enough to make you wet. You seriously needed to get laid. He leaned into you, tilting his head. Was he gonna kiss you again? He was so close, you could feel his hot breath. Your heart was beating a mile per minute.

Dean moved his head to the side and whispered in your ear, “Don't challenge me, sweetheart.” His lips brushed a spot on your throat, making you whimper.

Dean moved his face away from you, straightening his shirt. He had a cocky smile on his face. That son of a bitch.Well, two can play that game.

“I am going to take a shower. Wanna join me sweetheart?” he smirked.

“No thank you.” you huffed. He gave you a shrug and went towards the bathroom.

You sighed loudly and didn't leave a kitchen even after you were finished with your coffee. You were trying hard to maintain professionalism, but every damn time that son of a bitch was in the room, all your professionalism flew out of the window. You heard the bathroom door open and close, which hinted that Dean was out of the shower.

You left the kitchen and while going to your room, collided with a wall of muscles.

“Whoa! Careful there Y/N,” Dean caught your arm steadying yourself.

“Yeah sorry.”

“No I was in a hurry and I didn't see you there,” Dean said.

“Where were you going?” You asked.

“I think Crowley is trying to trap us,” he frowned.

“What?” You asked.

“Yes, his right hand man wasn't at the party. What if it was just Crowley trying to set us up?” Dean said, his brows knitted together.

“I mean it's not impossible, but how does he know about us?” You asked, a little unsure, “why would he do that? It's not like anything eventful happened at the party?”

“What if he has someone in the feds? And maybe he wanted to….uh-I don't know, I'm just spitballing here. What if he wanted to divert the attention from him? Lead us onto another path?”

“There is a possibility but-”

“But? I know it all sounds a bit unrealistic but what if all this is a trap?”

“I really don't know, Dean!” You exclaimed, “but do you really think someone in the feds would go that low and turn on us?”

“Then what do you think is the reason for the person to not show up at the party?” Dean raised an eyebrow challenging at you.

“I-” you sighed aloud.

“I don't want that assumption to be true either but we have to cover every possibility - even going at lengths to suspect each other. Crowley is one sly bastard. He can do anything to escape the feds, again,” Dean said, scratching the scruff on his face thoughtfully.

“I hate it when you are right,” you mumbled, as his lips twisted into a slow grin.

“Oh get over it! We all know that I am the best detective in the whole world,” he gave you a smug smile.

“Do me a favour and please stop talking,” you groaned.

“I should alert Mr. Singer about this,” Dean said, all playfulness leaving his face.

You opened your mouth to speak, but was cut off by two harsh knocks on your door.

You and Dean shared a look.

“Are you expecting anyone?,” you whispered.

“Stay behind me,” Dean said and made his way towards the door slowly. He opened the door and looked at the men in front of him.

“Yes?”

“The Campbells? You're under arrest for being in possession of Class A drugs.”

Let me know if you want to be tagged in the series!

Feedback is highly appreciated!

[pengychan]

[Good Omens] Winging It - Epilogue

Summary: Shockingly, attempting to destroy an angel without consulting God first comes with consequences. There is more than one way to fall, and a thousand more ways to inconvenience an angel and a demon who just wanted to be left in peace. Characters: Gabriel, Crowley, Aziraphale, Beelzebub, Michael, Uriel, Sandalphon Rating: T  

Prologue and all chapters are tagged as ‘winging it’ on my blog.

A/N: Aaand we finally made it to the end! Which is a beginning in many ways. How is it going to go? Beats me, but it probably won't be boring. Also yes, I am just posting a Christmas-themed chapter right before Easter. So sue me. I had a blast writing this one - hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing!

***

“Unionize Hell. You’re telling me we should unionize. Hell.”

“Well, it would be a first step towards giving you some bargaining power. Once demons begin seeing Satan as someone you can bargain with through the sheer force of numbers, it will be easier to convince them they can decide to walk away.”

“This is the single dumbest idea I have ever heard coming out of your mouth.”

Sitting beside Gabriel, Michael stiffened and glared daggers across the table. “If this is how you believe you can address us, we may as well end the meeting--” she began, only to trail off when Gabriel grinned,  resting an elbow on the table and leaning his chin on the palm of his hand.

“That’s blatantly untrue,” he said, still smiling at Beelzebub. “You’d ve heard dumber by far.”

The prince of Hell’s lips curled upwards for the briefest moment. Michael shifted a little on her seat and glanced over at Dagon, who just so happened to be sitting beside Beelzebub for the meeting. She met her gaze briefly, but it was enough for Michael to know she was not the only one to be mighty uncomfortable at the turn Gabriel and Beelzebub’s formerly entirely professional relationship had taken. That was an odd sort of relief. 

Unaware of their second-in-command’s discomfort, or just blatantly ignoring it, Beelzebub let out a thoughtful, buzzing sound. “... Hmph, I suppose I have. But I am ready to be you are not inclined to have the Heavenly host unionize.”

“Ah, actually,you’d lose that bet. We have given the go-ahead.”

The Lord of the Flies blinked. “... You have?”

“Yes. It worked out for my friends back in Southampton, so I figured, why not Heaven?”

Michael briefly wondered if she was supposed to remind Gabriel that Heaven was not precisely the same as a port city on England’s south coast, but in the end she decided against it. She was a warrior, had always been, but a good warrior knows how to pick battles and that was not the hill she was ready to, figuratively speaking, die on. 

Across the table, Beelzebub raised an eyebrow while waving away a few fies “And God is not displeased?”

Gabriel shrugged, leaning back on his seat and spreading his arms a little. “I have not been fired yet, and I am taking it as a good sign. I suppose it may create a precedent for angels to leave, if so they wish, on more amicable terms than you did. And possibly with some severance. Who knows, perhaps if you had formed a union in the first place instead of going immediately for full-on rebellion--”

All right, they got sidetracked far enough. “Gabriel,” Michael spoke up.

He cleared his throat. “Right, yes. Apologies. Never mind the past. What I am saying is, it might be a viable path forward now - for beings on either side. Do give it some thought.”

“Mmh.” Beelzebub crossed their arms, leaning back against their seat with a foot braced against the table. To Michael’s surprise - and to Dagon’s utter bewilderment, it seemed - they seemed to be truly giving it some thought. “I suppose that perhaps, this does fall into the ‘so dumb it might just work’ caregory. And it’d make Hell worse for Reagan and Thatcher. I will consider it.” 

“Very well. I do believe that concludes the meeting.” Gabriel said, and smiled. He’d been smiling an awful lot throughout the meeting, and not the kind of insincere business-like smiles he would usually sport on such occasions. 

No, Michael thought, not usually. Before.

“Actually, there’s more we need to discuss,” Beelzebub said, standing. “Privately, if possible.”

“Ah, of course. Right this way. You’re all right wrapping this up, Michael?”

Trying with all her might not to wonder about their private discussion, Michael nodded mechanically. “Of course,” she droned, and busied herself picking up papers once they were gone, trying to ignore the demon who was very much not gone.

“... For the record, the cold shoulder treatment only works if the one receiving it cares about getting the cold shoulder,” Dagon spoke up after a few minutes, filing papers away in a folder she had seemingly summoned out of thin air. “And I do not care.”

And yet you had to remark on that.

Michael let out a snort, choosing not to argue. She hadn’t been trying to remember the being they had known before their rebellion and Falls, or at least not as hard as Gabriel probably wished her to - Sandalphon and Uriel were fairly ahead of her there - but she did have the uncomfortable sensation she had known Dagon, whatever she was called before, quite well.

Awkward, considering she was rather certain it had been her to cast her out.

“Have you had any success in tracking down the Duke of Hell?”

“Hell has a great many Dukes. You will need to be more specific.”

“I believe there is only one who is currently a fugitive,” Michael said, her voice sharper. “Hastur. The one who kille-- who almost-- sort of killed Gabriel.”

“... We lost him somewhere around Alpha Centauri, but I am certain we will catch up with him eventually.”

“Are you always this inefficient?”

“I mean, you’re welcome to try catching him yourself,” Dagon snarled, snapping the folder shut. It seemed the perfect moment for her to disappear in a cloud of foul-smelling smoke, but she did not; rather, the Lord of the Files seemed to hesitate. Michael had just enough time to wonder if she may have remembered something from before that Michael did not before she finally looked up and spoke again. 

“All right, since we are suddenly supposed to have opinions now, what do you really think of this… entire… thing?”

“You mean, Gabriel and Beelzebub’s plan?”

“Calling it a plan seems more generous than I’ve ever known you to be.”

That was true, Michael had to concede. When she had tried asking Gabriel if there was a plan they should know of, he’d only replied that he was ‘sort of winging it’. It certainly was a complete u-turn from how things used to be, but if he had been brought back and… not yet cast out again over his unorthodox involvement with Beelzebub, there had to be a reason. 

Perhaps whatever he had learned in his time on Earth would be the key to everything. After what she had done to him by blindly following orders, Michael was willing to heed his words now, and so were the others. If it turned out to be a mistake, they would face whatever consequences there may be as one. Never again would she lift a sword on her friends.

“... No, it is not a plan,” she finally said. “I suppose it is more of a leap of faith.”

“Faith in what?” Dagon made a face. “In God?”

Michael did not take the bait. “More in our own ability to figure things out, I suppose.”

“That’s the sort of thing humanity is all about,” the Lord of the Files muttered, and blinked when Michael let out a brief laugh.

“Well, perhaps that is precisely the point. Try being more human.”

“... Have you hit your head? From the beginning of everything, it has always been human who tried to become more like u--” she trailed off, wrinkling her nose as though she had just sunk her fangs into a lemon. “You. More like you. And from the beginning, you have encouraged that.”

“Maybe that is where we went wrong after all.”

A pause. “Are you seriously suggesting it should be you-- us-- to lower ourselves into being more like them? Really?”

“Well. It is what Yeshua did, and perhaps it was a lesson meant for us,” Michael shrugged, and tuned to the door. “After all it was humanity, and not us, to be made in God’s image.”

***

“Oh, look at that. Another wedding invitation.”

“Shadwell and Madame Tracy?”

“How did you guess?”

“They made it abundantly clear during Anathema and Whatshisface’s wedding reception.”

“Ah, fair. Do you think they’ll allow us to take Warlock to their wedding as well? He got on well with the Them, and Madame Tracy has surely invited those children.”

“Can’t see why not. Are you sure they meant to invite us?”

“This is marked for the Serpent of Eden and the Southern Pansy.They did mean to indeed.”

“No clause against witches?”

“Oh, there is. It is to be a witch-free wedding. The only exceptions to the rule are dear Anathema, Adam, the two of us, and the bride herself.”

“You’d think that by now he would have noticed she only has two nipples.”

“Don’t be crass, dear.”

“Fine, fine. Do you think he’ll ever stop thinking we’re witches?”

“Unlikely. And I am not particularly inclined to disrobe and let him count nipples.”

A hiss. “Old fool.”

“An old fool who managed to swindle both of us for a few decades.”

“... Don’t remind me.” 

Aziraphale chuckled, and settled more comfortably in his armchair, setting aside the letters to pick up a book. Wrapped around the back of said armchair, the Serpent of Eden leaned his head on top of Aziraphale’s own. He tended to enjoy inhabiting that form, Aziraphale had found out, when the weather outside was cold and the fireplace was lit. 

Amazing, how many more little things about Crowley he’d found he didn’t know, after so many centuries of… acquaintance. Sharing a home with someone really did lead to a lot of interesting discoveries. For one, he could now see the appeal of laying in a bed and hallucinating behind closed eyelids for a few hours. 

“I could make my entrance in a cloud of Hellfire,” Crowley muttered, tongue flicking against Aziraphale’s hair as he reached to pick up a book. 

“I suspect giving the groom a heart attack would put a damper on the wedding.”

“I’m not hearing a no.”

“No, Crowley.” Aziraphale reached up to scratch the scales on Crowley’s side. 

He hissed again. “Spoilsport,” he said, but he leaned into the touch all the same. 

“Heh. Either way, we have plenty of time to make plans for the wedding, whereas Christmas is around the corner. Do you have anything in particular in mind, Crowley?”

“You do realize demons don’t really celebrate the birthday of your boss’ son, right?”

“Ah, I suppose that’s fair. But I wouldn’t mind a quiet evening in, perhaps bake some cake,��� he said, faintly wondering whether Crowley would object to mistletoe. 

“Oh. Well, then I could help with the tasting, I guess. And-- wait. There are presents, right? Do you want presents?”

 A chuckle “I am rather content as is, but thank you.”

“Ah. Of course,” Crowley seemed to stammer, which was no mean feat considering he currently had a mouth whose anatomy was not meant to utter words in the first place. His head slipped lower, and ended up resting on Aziraphale’s shoulder. “... You wouldn’t happen to know anything about whatever Heaven’s planning, would you? Things have been… quiet.”

“Not at all. Nor you have the foggiest idea as to what Hell is on to, I’m guessing?”

“Nothing whatsoever. I think I’ll wish them luck and keep it this way.”

Aziraphale smiled, took a sip of wine, and opened his book. “My thoughts exactly,” he said.

When he tilted his head to rest his cheek on top of his head, Crowley did not protest.

***

Did you throw out another of your angels?

Not to my knowledge?

You must have. Someone just got through all layers of Hell all the way down to Satan’s lap. Sliding down a pole and singing. What the Heaven is going on up there?

Let me check with Uriel.

***

“Uriel?”

“Yes?”

“Are you aware of any angels being cast out? Beelzebub insists someone just got there, and I quote, ‘sliding down a pole’.”

“We have cast out no one. Their security must be really lax. Didn’t they have a similar problem with a poet from Florence at some point?”

“I don’t think that one came in sliding down a pole, but fair.”

***

I can confirm we cast out no one. Must be a mortal.

Wonderful, more paperwork and security checks. Thanks for checking, I guess. At least he seems to be keeping Satan distracted from anything we do.

Dare I ask how?

Don’t.

All right. Have you changed your mind about coming with me to the Christmas party?

Absolutely not. But I will meet you afterwards for carnal relations.

Are you aware that it does not count as a sin and therefore it is not the middle finger to God you think it is?

Are you saying you’re not interested?

No. Usual place?

Usual place. Don’t be late. 

I wouldn’t dare, Gabriel wrote with a smile, and his finger lingered over the send button for a few moments. I love you, he almost wrote, but he did not and in the end he just sent out the message as it was. Beelzebub would have found it both saccharine-inducing and redundant, and for good reason. There was no need to spell it out, really.

They were both very much aware of it.

***

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay for usual celebrations?”

“Rather certain, yes. My former colleagues on Earth invited me to join them so long ago, it would be rude for me to cancel on them.”

“Yeshua might actually show up this year.”

“Ah, I am doubtful. He never did attend his birthday party, did he now?”

That was true, although not something any of them had really felt entitled to comment on. Sandalphon knew that Gabriel had taken it… not quite as a slight, but close enough. After all, the celebration was about a birth whose annunciation he was most widely known for.

Now, on the other hand, he seemed too taken with the idea of celebrating it on Earth to be bothered in the slightest. “... I suppose he didn’t,” Uriel conceded. Gabriel closed the drawer with the last of his work for the calendar year, straightened his tie, and smiled. 

“Why don’t you come with me? You could use getting to know more humans, too.”

Both Michael and Sandalphon blinked. Uriel raised an eyebrow. “To celebrate Yeshua’s birthday on Earth with them?”

“Why not? I am sure they won’t mind if I bring some friends. And you could use a break, Uriel. You’ve been working on reorganizing the lower spheres for months now.”

“You know I do not get tired,” Uriel informed him, but she was already glancing over at Michael and Sandalphon. 

In the end, it was Michael to shrug. “I suppose,” she finally said, “it would be interesting to see how the celebrations have changed since last time I took a look. They were not precisely cheerful, back then.”

“... When was the last time you did check?”

“Sometimes in the mid-fourteenth century,” she replied, and Gabriel laughed, putting a hand on her shoulder. 

“Ah,” he said, “I think you will be pleasantly surprised.”

***

“... And this is why it’s either panettone or pandoro, and anyone claiming not to take a side is  coward and a liar, and--”

Fabrizio rambled on, clearly rather satisfied to have finally found an attentive listener in Sandalphon, and Gabriel chose not to interrupt him. Somewhere at the other side of the room, Łukasz was staring in absolute disbelief as Uriel drank the twenty-second shot in a row without seemingly feeling any effects, and he might just be starting to fall in love. 

As he stepped towards the door and passed by a table, Gabriel chuckled. “Go easy on them,” he muttered, and Michael just raised an eyebrow at him, effortlessly beating yet another warehouse worker at an arm wrestling match. In the end, Gabriel decided that as long as the only thing getting bruised were egos, there was no reason to intervene. 

He stepped outside into a cold, clear night. No comet in the sky, but he had felt a pull to come out all the same. He let his gaze wander down the street and there it was - a shadow crouched in an archway, barely illuminated by a street light and covered in blankets as he tried to keep warm. Somehow, the blinking lights of Christmas decorations on the building made the figure seem even more lonely. And that wouldn’t do, it wouldn’t do at all - especially not that night. 

“Excuse me,” Gabriel called out, approaching the man. “Would you like to come inside? It is quite cold, and my friends and I are having a party - I am sure they wouldn’t mind.”

The man looked up. He had long dark hair tied back in a ponytail to reveal dark brown eyes, and his features were just barely illuminated by the street light - but it was enough for Gabriel to trail off, taken off guard. The man smiled. 

“Thank you for your offer, Gabriel. I think I’ll take you up on this one.”

Ah. Well. It made sense, come to think of it. He’d always been original like that. Past the initial surprise, Gabriel straightened himself and smiled. “Any particular name I ought to call you by tonight?”

“In this time and age, Joshua will do. It's nice to see you guys paying more attention to humanity. I look back fondly on my first lifetime among them. Most of it at any rate,” Yeshua added, and stood. He straightened his back with a groan. “Ow, my spine.”

Gabriel was unable to hold back a chuckle. “Is this how you’ve been spending your birthday for the past two-something thousand years?” he asked. Until not too long ago, he would have been offended by the notion. Now he felt rather foolish for not having thought of it. 

“More or less. No offense, but I enjoy Earth. Corporate events were never quite my thing.”

“None taken. I hope your mother is well?”

“The one who cast you out of Heaven, or the one who hit you in the head with a clay vase?”

“... The latter.”

“Ah, yes. She is very well. Still rather sorry about the incident, but maintains you should have knocked if you didn’t want a vase to your head.”

“That’s… understandable. But we have amended records to omit that part, so no harm done.”

“I am aware. So, is there anything I may do to thank you for your hospitality tonight?”

“... Do you still do the thing with the water and wine? Because I believe we’re running low.”

A laugh. “Ah, yes,” he said, slapping a hand on his shoulder as they headed back inside. “I think that can be arranged.”

***

Somewhere, Crowley is losing his entire MIND over the fact this guy got to use a pole on his way in. 

[ethereal-not-occult]

patience and the mulberry

"With time and patience, the mulberry leaf becomes a silk gown."

Fandom: Good Omens Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens) Characters: Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale (Good Omens) Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Established Relationship, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Fluff and Angst, Character(s) of Color, Sericulture, silkworms, past religious trauma, but nothing bad happens in this fic I promise, mixed bookverse w/ TV elements, references to Chinese culture Notes: Originally written for the @goodomensfashionzine​ !

“I'll only be a minute, dear.” Aziraphale kissed Crowley's cheek as he opened the door of the Bentley. “You don't have to see me to the door if you don't want to.”

Crowley tightened his grip on the wheel. “Sure, angel. Sounds good to me.” The sibilants slid far too quickly past his clenched jaw, and he bit his tongue to stop the instinctive hiss from escaping.

Aziraphale gave him a sympathetic look, but shut the Bentley's door behind him and soon disappeared through the doors of the church. Once he was out of sight, Crowley slumped forward slightly, sliding his sunglasses up and rubbing at his eyes. A few deep breaths later, and he felt composed enough to exit the Bentley himself in blatant disregard for the “NO PARKING” sign on the curb.¹

[¹ Given his new job position (or lack thereof), lawbreaking was no longer a necessity, but old habits die hard.]

The bright afternoon sun made him wince a bit, and two robins in a nearby bush were getting frisky in a way he would never be able to unhear, but they made it easier to forget the distant wail of air sirens. Even standing out on the road, Crowley's skin prickled faintly with the remembered sting of consecrated ground.

He pushed the feeling aside and walked resolutely forward. Aziraphale was bound to take his sweet time as he mooned over the church's dusty old tomes, but Crowley had his own investigations to conduct while he waited. No rest for the wicked and all that.

The concrete pavement under his snakeskin shoes gave way to grass, and the tingling sensation in his soles faded. Soon he found himself at his intended destination—an Edenic grove of mulberry trees, clustered together in a ring in the church's backyard. He'd spotted them on the drive over and couldn't resist the temptation of a closer look.

Crowley wandered into the garden with a scrutinizing eye. They were young, for trees, but growing well despite their callowness. A particularly stocky sapling hardly flinched when Crowley gave it a token glare, much to his disappointment. Then again, outdoor plants were rarely as well-behaved as properly cowed houseplants. It seemed this attitude persisted even in ecclesiastic gardens such as these.

He cast a surreptitious glance over his shoulder, then reached a hand up into the tree's umbrella-like branches and tugged. The season wasn't quite right for fruits, but he still withdrew clutching a handful of dark ripe mulberries. Hardly apples, but his lips twitched upwards nonetheless. He plucked a berry from the pile and raised it to his lips.

“Zaoshang hao!”

Only a hasty miracle saved Crowley from choking as he jumped and swiveled around. Hovering right outside the churchyard was a middle-aged human, well-dressed and smiling pleasantly at him. Judging by her formal clothing and the Bible she carried, she was a part of the congregation, maybe even the priest herself. Crowley swallowed and stepped backwards.

“Ni shi jiaohui de xinshou ma?” the human called again, picking her way across the dewy grass in his direction. Crowley eyed the Bible she held, willing himself not to break out into hives.

“Um. Wo bu—er, no. I'm not new. Not here for church at all, actually.” He fidgeted and clasped his hands, still full of pilfered mulberries, behind his back. “Just waiting for someone.”

The human raised an eyebrow. “You're welcome to wait inside, if you like,” she said, also switching to English. “I reckon we still have biscuits left from the children's morning service—”

“No!” Crowley said too quickly, and perhaps too sharply. He winced. “I mean. That won't be necessary. I'd much rather stay out here, if it isn't too much trouble.”

The human gave him a Look. Crowley's cheeks heated and he averted his eyes, willing his sunglasses a few shades darker.

“Beautiful, aren't they?”

Crowley's head shot back up. The human had turned her back to him and was running a hand through the glossy green leaves of the nearest mulberry tree. Crowley could practically see the branches stretch out in delight beneath her touch, like a purring cat.

“Volunteers from our congregation take care of them,” the human continued, smiling at the young tree. “The kids here like raising silkworms, you see, and we welcome them to pick leaves from the trees each week to feed them.”

Silkworms. Of course. Despite himself, a hazy memory rose to the forefront of his mind: Sichuan, China, several hundreds of years ago. A family farm, weathered and cozy and oozing enough sheer goodness to make the average demon ill with it. Crowley wouldn't normally be caught dead in such a place, but he had owed a favour to the angel. His fingers twitched at the phantom memory of butter-soft silk fibres against his skin; long, winding threads that stretched out thin and fine, tangling so easily around his uncertain fingers. With this memory came the golden, moon-round face of a child he hadn't thought about in centuries, grinning toothily as they held out a box to him, a box filled with small pale larvae that wriggled among the spade-shaped leaves. “Zhe jiao can.”

Crowley forced himself to return to the present. The human was speaking to him.

“—waiting on Mr. Fell?” she asked.

Crowley blinked. Shook himself a little. “Yeah. He's helping out with the restoration of some old manuscript or other.”

The human smiled again. It was an unnervingly piercing expression. “I'm aware. I was the one who requested his help. Such a lovely man. Are you a friend of his?”

Crowley tensed. “His husband, actually.”

He braced himself, but the human only brightened. “Goodness, then you must be Mr. Crowley! Mr. Fell talks ever so much about you. Finally gone and tied the knot then, have you?”

Before Crowley could stammer out a reply, something dinged loudly, making him jump. The human pulled a phone out from her pocket and squinted at the screen.

“Sorry, I have to run back inside. But it was lovely meeting you, Mr. Crowley.” She stuck out a hand—thankfully not the one that had been holding the Bible—and after a brief hesitation, Crowley shook it. As quickly as she had arrived, the human disappeared from the garden, leaving Crowley alone and off-kilter amid a grove of mulberry trees.

---

Aziraphale emerged from the church around an hour later to find Crowley seated on the curb next to the Bentley, basking in the last rays of the afternoon sun as he scrolled through his phone.

“My dear,” the angel sighed. His joints creaked as he eased himself down to sit next to Crowley on the roadside. “Don't tell me you've been sitting here the entire time.”

“Nope,” Crowley said, popping the ‘p’. “I toured the gardens for a bit. Swiped some fruits, too. The mulberries aren’t half-bad, for a bunch of church plants, but they’ll need a good deal more threatening before they're really up to snuff.”

Crowley stopped when he saw Aziraphale chewing his lip, brow furrowed as he studied Crowley's face. Now it was Crowley's turn to sigh.

“Really, angel. It's fine. I was hardly bored.”

The expression didn't leave Aziraphale's face. A soft brown hand reached out and brushed aside stray wisps of hair from Crowley's forehead. The demon hadn't bothered to cut it since the Apocalypse-that-wasn't, and it was growing longer and more unruly by the day.

“I'm fine.” Crowley caught Aziraphale's hand and held it, carefully. He pressed his lips against the well-manicured fingers. “It was years ago, angel, and we both came out of it all right. You don't need to worry about me.”

Aziraphale still looked vaguely distressed as Crowley drew him close. With the sun setting behind him, framing his face and curly dark hair in a golden halo, he was the most beautiful thing Crowley had ever seen.

He kissed him then, right there on the road, in full sight of the church and probably Someone Else, too, if She happened to be watching at that particular moment. Once, he would've been terrified of such a public display, but he hadn't gone through hellfire and holy water to care anymore about what others thought of them.

As he helped Aziraphale into the Bentley, he noticed abruptly that the angel was carrying what appeared to be a shoebox, of all things, along with his usual camelhair coat.

“What on Earth is that?”

“Oh!” Aziraphale carefully pushed the box over to Crowley. “Mrs. Lao gave it to me once I'd finished with those manuscripts. She said it was a gift for you, actually. Have the two of you met before?”

Crowley stared down at the box, baffled. “We talked for a bit in the gardens just now, but I can’t imagine why…”

He trailed off, and his mouth dropped open as Aziraphale eased open the lid and beheld the contents with a raised eyebrow.

“Good heavens. Are those caterpillars?”

“Silkworms,” Crowley corrected automatically, leaning in for a closer look. There were so many of them, somehow both smaller and larger than he remembered, all white and wiggly and chomping away busily at the layers of mulberry leaves filling their box. None of them paid any attention whatsoever to their occult observers hovering above them.

“Why would she give you such a thing? Not that they aren't dear little creatures,” Aziraphale added hastily, glancing into the box, “but I doubt I have the means to keep them in the bookshop.”

“No need,” Crowley said before he could stop himself. “I can raise 'em in my flat.”

Aziraphale gave him a curious look. “You know how to care for these… insects?”

“Yeah.” Crowley gently shut the lid of the inhabited shoebox and curled a hand around the Bentley's stick-shift. “I've done something like this, before. I know what I'm doing.”

“If you say so.” Suddenly Aziraphale chuckled. At Crowley's affronted look, he demurred, “I'm not making fun, my dear. It's only that you still manage to surprise me, even after all these years.”

Aziraphale leaned in and pecked Crowley's cheek, making him blush red and sputter. Much to his disgruntlement, the Bentley chirped a light-hearted rendition of Haydn's Crazy Little Thing Called Love all the way home.

---

Crowley had spent the past eleven years co-parenting the Antichrist with Aziraphale.² They had faced this challenge head-on, and in his opinion, it hadn’t gone too shabbily. Now, without the threat of the Apocalypse hanging over his head, becoming a surrogate parent was far less daunting the second time around.

[² Even if young Warlock hadn't really been the son of Satan, it was the principle of the thing.]

Still, Crowley worried. He had always been something of a worrier, and that hadn't changed even after the First Day of the Rest of Their Lives.

After dropping off Aziraphale at the bookshop, Crowley returned to his flat, where he commenced the preparations for introducing his unexpected twenty-odd guests to their new home. This was accomplished by miracling up a small glass aquarium onto his desk, lining the bottom with paper towels, and carefully (read: nervously) placing the silkworms one by one into the tank. Once this was done, Crowley scattered the half-eaten mulberry leaves from the box around the aquarium. The silkworms set upon their interrupted lunch with all the enthusiasm of Aziraphale devouring a meringue pie at the Ritz.

Crowley slumped into his chair, took off his sunglasses with a wince, and rested his chin on his desk, staring into the glass tank.

“I raised your ancestors once, you know,” Crowley informed the wriggling creatures. “Tiny farm in China several centuries back. We'd weave branches together into a tray and let you loose inside. Bit like how manmade beehives work, or something.”

Crowley paused. Watched one silkworm slowly inch its way across a stem to tackle a new section of leaf. “‘Course, humans use wire mesh nowadays, but the general premise is the same. Always thought it was bloody clever, what humans could come up with. If you gave me a bunch of moth larvae and told me to make a living out of them, I definitely wouldn't think to make clothes.” He snorted. “Whoever came up with that, I'd like a glass of whatever they were drinking.”

The silkworms munched on. They ate much faster than they crawled, that was certain. In the quiet walls of his flat, away from prying human eyes, Crowley loosened the knot of his silk tie and tugged it off, easing the tightness around his neck.

“You're the ones who made this, in a sense,” he said, waving the tie at them. He laid the tie beside one glass wall of the tank at just the right angle for the inhabitants within to see. Several silkworms looked up curiously.

Crowley tossed his suit jacket aside, then unbuttoned his shirt collar. He had always prided himself on his sharp, modern attire over the years, the better to tempt humans with—or so he claimed. Despite repeated scoldings from his superiors, his Lust quotas had never been quite up to par.

Sufficiently dishevelled, and feeling all the freer for it, Crowley sank back into his chair to watch the silkworms.

“The only thing I didn't like about the process was the boiling,” he murmured. “Logically, I can see why it was done. And you would all be in cocoons, so it's not like you'd be in any pain. Not like I was.” He exhaled, the sound becoming a low hiss. “But still. Never liked it. Always felt like an awful lot of trouble just for the sake of some silk threads.”

One particularly adventurous silkworm had nosed its way upwards and was now creeping over the edge of the tank opening. Crowley made a mental note to devise a lid of some kind and stuck his finger against the lip of the tank. The silkworm crawled onto his hand without any hesitation. Tentatively, he drew it closer. Its many feet stuck stubbornly to his skin, and it reared up as he approached, swaying slightly, its mandibles twitching.

Crowley stared at the silkworm. The silkworm stared back, and seemed disappointed when Crowley had nothing else to offer. Just to prove it wrong, Crowley materialized a single large mulberry leaf in his other hand and presented it to the insect, who fell upon it with gluttonous enthusiasm.

Staring at the miracled leaf, an idea formed in Crowley's mind. He smiled, slowly.

“I need a hobby, now that I'm jobless,” he said aloud to the silkworm, letting it creep onto his palm. He ran a careful finger over its smooth back. “I think I'll take up sericulture again, for old time's sake.” He reached back into the tank and gently encouraged the silkworm to crawl back inside.

“Humans have to boil you alive to get those nice unbroken threads off your cocoons,” Crowley mused, withdrawing his hand. “Fortunately, I don't have to do things the human way.” He lowered himself until he was eye-level with the inhabitants of the tank. The silkworm he had carried paused in its perpetual eating and turned its head, almost like it was looking at him.

“How's this?” Crowley asked. “You'll be able to grow into a fuzzy, fully grown silk-moth, and I can take your cocoon after you've finished with it and miracle the threads whole again.” He paused and mulled it over. “I guess I could take it a step further and just miracle the finished silk together, but there's still something to be said about the human way of doing things.”

The silkworm bobbed the front half of its body as though in agreement. Crowley smiled again.

“We can make silk, and no one gets hurt. I'm a few hundred years out of practice, but I'm sure I could make it work, somehow.”

The silkworm turned its attention back to its meal. Crowley didn't notice. He was too busy wondering if Aziraphale had any old texts on silk-weaving that he could borrow, just so he could refresh his memory.

The angel would appreciate having a new silk bowtie to add to his collection.

---

Thank you for reading! Replies and reblogs are always much appreciated. <3

[turniptitaness]

A03 Tag Game

Oh heyyyy @mentallydatingahotcelebrity thank you for tagging me in this and making me feel like an ACTUAL WRITER MY GOSH, even though it took me five days to actually do it...

How many works do you have on AO3?

Nine, which is a pleasant surprise. I thought it was more like five... Plus, one of them is a compilation of 31 little ficlets I wrote for an Ineffable Holiday challenge last year, so I suppose in a way you could say 39. I'm relatively new to writing fanfic, so I'm actually proud of myself for having this many already.

What is your total AO3 wordcount?

39,850. My goodness. That many words of fanfic. Astonishing. And that doesn't even include the stuff I have yet to post. I wonder what the word count of my original writing must be???

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Four fandoms... Good Omens (mostly), The Politician, Crimson Peak, and Only Lovers Left Alive. For someone who loves Tom Hiddleston and all his work, I have the dickens of a time writing for him. No idea why. I have an old Loki fic that I keep meaning to edit and post, but you know... Something shiny and new always comes along.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Well, this will be interesting... I have no idea. Lemme just casually provide links to subtly hint that you (yes you) ought to go read my words. Just kidding. Or am I?

1. Dreams and Plans (Good Omens fic) Awww, this is the very first fic I posted! And I'm still super proud of it, so this makes me happy.

2. Holidays in the South Downs (Good Omens compilation) See, this is the one I expected to have the most kudos. It's the compilation I mentioned earlier, so I fully expected it to have the most engagement.

3. Baby Blue Transistor (Good Omens fic) Clearly, my readers are a Type. This was a "Good Omens Lockdown" fix-it fic. Because NO WAY was I going to let Crowley sleep through the pandemic and leave his angel all alone. And Aziraphale wasn't about to let that happen either.

4. Shelter from the Rain (Good Omens fic) Aw. I love this one. Writing it made me happy.

5. Crimson Past (Crimson Peak fic) It's flippin' hilarious to me that this one makes the list, since it's literally just something I threw on ao3 for a lark. But I guess if you've only got nine options to work from... 💁🏻‍♀️

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I always respond! I just get so excited at seeing that someone cared enough about something I wrote to have a reaction to it! And more people who have the same interests! It's just! So cool!!! Lucky me, so far I haven't had any really negative comments, but I would hopefully do my best to respond well to those if they ever come my way.

What is the fic you’ve written with the Angstiest ending?

Hmm. Probably Crimson Past or Will You Stay?

Crimson Past is about the aftermath of what happens in the movie, so I mean...

And Will You Stay? is a little moment between Payton Hobart and River Barkley from The Politician. Yeah. If you know you know.

I love a good bit of angst, but I mostly tend to write happy endings if possible, because I love the characters I write for and just want them to be happy. Is that too much to ask???

Do you ever write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve ever written?

S...sort of? I mean, kind of. I'm not sure if it really counts. BUT ANYWAY let me talk about my most recent endeavor, okayy?

Lonely Nights is a semi-crossover of Only Lovers Left Alive/an original character that's based on the "story" of Ben Platt's cover of "You and I" by Lady Gaga. Trust me, I know it sounds weird, but to me the music video has such a strong character and even narrative that it totally counts in my brain.

Anyways, it has like 5 kudos because it's supremely random, but I had such fun writing it that I'm currently writing a sequel. And maybe even turning it into a trilogy ye gods above save me from myself.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

If I have, I deleted it and repressed the memory. Luckily I'm not big or popular enough to garner that kind of attention. Unless, as I said, I repressed it all. Apart from Good Omens, honestly the fandoms I write for are small enough that people just seem grateful for ANY new content, so it's a win-win situation. 🤣

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Oh no, I can't write smut to save my LIFE. I'm not sure why, I love reading the stuff, but somehow I just feel so foolish trying to write it. I'm much more the "fade to black" kind of writer.

I did just write a quick little rather steamy moment for Ben, my Lonely Nights + Unnamed Sequel OC, but even that was written from the perspective of an unwitting observer and was intended for comedy purposes, so yeah. And both participants were fully clothed throughout.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not as far as I'm aware... Again, being small and in tiny fandoms has its advantages.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Not technically, although I am currently indebted to Mental (hi!) for donating like half of the good ideas for my current WIP, and being a cheerleader for the other half. So in a way??? Anyway, shout-out to you for being amazing, Mental. 💞

What’s your all-time favourite ship?

Don't ask me that. That's mean. I could be here for days. But as of THIS PARTICULAR MOMENT, my top three (in no particular order) would have to be The Ineffables (GO), River/Payton (The Politician), and Ben/Top Secret New OC from my WIP.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Honestly, I'm pretty sure it was the Curious George fandom when I was like five years old... But that's not on ao3, so. I bet my mom still has the original manuscript somewhere in her house though, so you never know.

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

It's a toss-up between Lonely Nights/its upcoming sequel, purely because I'm having so much fun with them, and Give Me One Weekend, a Politician fic, because it makes me happy to write about my boys being happy.

Okayyyyy, I'm gonna tag @missarisanitewrites even though you've probably already done this... But just in case you haven't. Mainly, I'm just a fan (curses on you for that Professor!Tom nonsense) and wanted to tag you, so. Hi. No pressure.

And also @broken-lycan because Ummmm hello you're super talented and ought to flaunt your words at every opportunity and also I miss you so Hi.

[lucisfavoritedemon]

Rebellious Soul: Chapter 5

Pairing: None

Summary: Y/N is having a hard time coping with the fact that her friend is gone and now her best friend is back, but there is a new player in town. The ultimate leader of the Rebels, Commander Ruby. Will Y/N be able to defeat Eve or will she give up the fight to mourn the loss of Dean?

Warnings: Mentions of torture.

Word Count: 1324

A/N: I realised that what I had posted, and what I had written were two completely different things. So I went through an edited this chapter, along with Chapter 6. I have major plans for those two chapters, and I got away from my original thought process. Also, as you may have noticed, this is loosely based off hunger games, but it's with a twist. I hope y'all are enjoying this series so far. Thanks for the understanding and patience.

"I thought that the Colt was just a legend?" I asked looking between Gabriel and Charlie.

"Well supposedly, but there are more facts out there proving that it exists more than there is proving it doesn't. When thinking about stuff like this, I go with the facts."

"Alright then. I guess I should round up my gear and head out. The faster I can find my guy the better. I have a feeling it won't be long before Eve figures out what we're planning."

"Good idea. Why don't we head out together that way we could both hit our people and both know with having to relay the information to multiple people? That way Eve doesn't find out as quickly."

"I agree. Gather everyone interested and let's head out in ten. I have to speak with Sam before we leave."

"Sounds like a plan."

Gabe and I headed off in different directions. I hadn't seen Sam since we heard about Jessica. It was hard for him not knowing whether she's alive or not.

"Hey Sam. How's everything?"

"Better. At least getting there."

"I feel so bad for what happened to Jess. I'm sorry she got dragged into this."

"Don't be. She knew the risks just like everyone else. Trust me you didn't do anything. Ruby told me what you did for her, and that is the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me. I never expected you to give up this opportunity to get revenge on Eve for Dean."

"Did you not hear what happened? The theories at least?"

"No. I haven't really wanted to listen to what people have to say about the matter. He's gone and I can't have him back. It hurts because we were close. We grew up in this together. He was like a brother to me."

"I know Sam. I wish there was more I could do to help you cope other than the fact that we are going to get him back. I don't care what anybody says, Ruby promised a rescue and amnesty for all of them. Including Dean."

"What does everyone say happened to him exactly?"

"That Eve had taken him hostage. Tortured him in unimaginable ways. Using him as their poster child to rid the world of Rebels. She won't stop till we are all dead or worse under her spell. Killing us off is her main goal, and she has the biggest inside man we had. She has the means of destroying us if she truly wanted to."

"I know Dean is our biggest and best weapon we had against her. He was building a case file on how to kill her. Said that he was doing it for someone special. I could now only assume that's you."

"Why me though?"

"Because you would want revenge. He knew your father died. Apparently he also knew how, and it's not how you think it happened."

"I knew he was killed, but I never told anyone because no one would believe me. They all knew I hated Eve from the moment I first saw her. She is clearly nothing but evil, and I will stop at nothing to defeat her. We have everything we need except the weapon to kill the thing that can kill her."

"What is that?"

"A special gun that can kill almost anything with a single bullet. We need the gun to kill a Phoenix. It's ashes are the only thing strong enough to kill her."

"You're not talking about the Colt are you?"

"Afraid so. Do you happen to know someone who might know it's whereabouts?"

"Yeah, but I would save him as a last resort." Sam warned.

I knew perfectly well who he was talking about, but this was a chance to get the upper hand on Eve. I wasn't going to let him tell me otherwise. I couldn't risk Dean's life on a last resort situation. He was our last resort.

"I'm sorry Sam, but this is that type of situation. I'm going to do whatever it takes to get Dean back. For all of us, not just me. He meant something to everyone, which is why this betrayal is the worst we have ever seen."

"I know, it's just, he is bad news. I wouldn't go to him unless no one else truly knows the whereabouts of the Colt."

"Fine. But if no one else does, or even if they hesitate for a second we move to him, got it?"

"Yeah now go and save Dean. For all of us."

Gabe, Ed, Harry, Michael, Castiel, and I all headed out in search of our first lead given to us by Gabriel and Cas who have known this person, well rather Angel, for a long, long time.

"Balthazar. We are here for knowledge on a weapon we seek the location of!" Gabe yelled through the thick of the forest.

As I have stated before each creature lives in a designated section of the world. If ever caught out of their designated area, they were immediately killed off. This was a beautiful lush forest that looked like a Heavenly paradise Perfect for the majority of it's heavenly inhabitants.

"Ah, Gabriel and Castiel. What brings you two traders back home, and with humans too?"

"Enough Balthazar. We need to know the location of the Colt."

"Ooh, temper. I say, is this how you got daddy to give you your favorite toys? Well that tone doesn't work on me Mikey." Balthazar spat.

I had to agree with the Angel, Michael was being a little too straight forward.

"Balthazar? We seek the location of this weapon for a good reason. Please will you help us?" I asked kindly, gaining a gentle smile.

"I wish I knew, but sadly I don't. Maybe if you five hand over the girl I will suddenly remember."

"He's lying." Gabe simply stated.

"How do you know?"

"He only wants Y/n because it will earn him and the others a spot at the big kids table. He doesn't really know where the weapon is. I say we move on."

"I agree. Let's head out."

"Okay, you got me. I really don't know where the weapon is. I'm only in charge of the Angelic weapons. The rest go through Crowley. He will definitely know where this weapon you are seeking for is. I swear."

"I know. Sadly Crowley knows everything about this gun." I whispered walking away.

I knew exactly where to find Crowley. We had a few talks here and there, but I have never asked him for a favor as big as this one.

"Crowley! We need to talk! It's about the Colt."

"Hello darling. It's about time."

"I know it has been a while, but I need you to pull in that favor of mine. You know the freebie before you start charging?"

"Yes I know what freebie means. Why do you want this Colt so bad? It doesn't even do anything."

"It's important."

"You want to kill Eve don't you? Well sorry to break it to you, but sadly she is one of the four beings this won't work on. Been there, tried that."

"We know it doesn’t work on her, but it will work on the thing that can."

"Oh. Well in that case here."

Then the gun appears in his hands and he tosses it to me. I looked at the gun in awe. It was the most beautiful thing in the world. Now all we needed was to get to the Phoenix mountain without being caught by Eve and her stupid henchmen.

"One last thing. Well really two. Don't let her know I'm working alongside you and two DON’T miss your target! Kapeesh?"

"You got it. Don't let Eve know and don't miss."

"Good." As quickly as he appeared he was gone again.

Now all we needed was to find these Phoenixes and find Eve. Things were starting to go in our favor.

SPN Tag list:

@atc74 @bella-ca @canadianspnhunter @deansdirtylittlesecretsblog @ericaprice2008 @impala-dreamer @impalaimagining @katymacsupernatural @leatherwhiskeycoffeeplaid @mamaredd123 @masksandtruths @mirandaaustin93 @muchamusedaboutnothing @our-jensen-ackles-love @roxyspearing @sea040561 @snffbeebee @spnwaywardwitch-blog @squirrelnotsam @torn-and-frayed @winchesterprincessbride

[themonotonysyndrome]

A Chance Meeting?

Not gonna lie, I didn’t expect that ‘Our Intertwine Dream’ would receive a lot of positive attention. I’m happy that a lot of people enjoyed my whimsical indulgence and that the damn tags worked for once. 

Anyway, this is a continuation of my previous Twisted Wonderland fic and I’ll post this in AO3 tomorrow. In this one, we’ll explore more of Silver’s unusual predicament and how the people around him react to it. It’s, uh, a bit long so please bear with me. Also, I still can’t believe we’re gonna get Lilia and Silver’s cards today! I can’t wait to learn more about these two!! 

-

“Tsunotarou-senpai? Are you here to see the headmaster, too?” 

Leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, Malleus slowly open his eyes and turn his head to greet the young odd, magic-less human. His little feline friend is sleeping deeply in his arms. 

He hides a smile when Yuu jog towards him without hesitation or fear. 

“No. I’m waiting for Lilia and Silver to finish up in there.” Malleus answer, gesturing to the headmaster’s office with his head. When Yuu’s smile drops into a frown, the Unseelie Prince allows the boy to collect himself first; no doubt he and the rest of the student body has questions. 

“Oh... Is Silver-senpai alright now?” Yuu carefully asks, he heard what happened to Silver and how no one - not even the headmaster - could wake him up during his four days slumber. Because of his relations with Malleus, his absence was quickly noticed when not only did he failed to show up for classes, no one saw him with Malleus’ group for days. Gossips soon erupt like a wildfire; everyone wondered if the Second Year student was seriously ill until whispers about how Lilia and the headmaster couldn’t rouse Silver from his sleep came from a couple of Diasomnia’s students. No one knows what really happened to Silver; not even Sebek knows the full detail. 

Malleus shakes his head. “We’re not certain. Lilia took care of Silver as soon as he woke up and they went to see Headmaster Crowley once classes are finish.” As soon as they realised that something was wrong with Silver, Malleus step up to sort out their dorm’s affairs while Lilia watched over him, researching with the headmaster on how to wake him up. 

Fortunately for him, there wasn’t a lot for Malleus to do; everyone in Diasomnia handled themselves quite well when news of Silver’s ‘illness’ spread throughout the college. It was as if they had all had taken an unspoken agreement to not bothered their leader and vice leader. 

“I hope that Silver-senpai will feel better soon...” Yuu said, when Grim begin to mutters in his sleep, he carefully adjusts the cat in his arms so he could be more comfortable. 

Just then, the door swing opens and Headmaster Crowley pokes his head out. 

“Ah, just the student I wanted to look for! Won’t you step in for a moment, Mr.Draconia? We just need to wrap up our discussion and then I’ll be right with you, Mr.Yuu.” The headmaster said. 

Yuu flashes him a thumbs up. “No problem, sir. I can wait.” 

“Excellent! Now, Mr.Draconia, if you’d be so kind...” Headmaster Crowley push opens the door wide with a flourish and bows for Malleus. 

“I’ll see you later Tsunotarou-senpai! Please give my regards to Silver-senpai and Lilia-senpai!” 

Malleus nods once - curious when his collar reveals marks that resemble tiny suction cups littering his neck when the boy politely bow - and enters the office with Headmaster Crowley promptly close the door behind him. Seated in front of the desk are Lilia and Silver. Despite how relaxed Lilia appears with both of his legs stretch out, Malleus easily caught his displeasure and worries with the way gloved fingers are gripping the armrests. Beside him, Silver’s shoulders are rigid and clear signs of exhaustion and confusion are brewing in his eyes.

“How was class? The kids?” Lilia inquired when Malleus took the vacant chair beside him.

“Everything’s fine.” Malleus states. “Rumours of Silver’s absence is still circulating the campus but it’s nothing we can’t manage.” 

“Indeed. According to several of my teaching staff, Silver-san’s peers and most of Diasomnia’s students are doing well not to add fuel to the fire. I applaud your sense of leadership Draconia-san, Vanrouge-san.” Headmaster Crowley slips into his seat to resume their discussion. 

Silver blows a frustrated sigh. “I’m sorry for causing everyone so many problems. I... I never thought that my condition could worsen like this.”

“To be fair, no one could predict this.” Lilia cuts in with a comforting smile. Malleus didn’t comment on how it falters for a split second when Silver looks away.

“Vanrouge-san makes an interesting point.” Headmaster Crowley ruminates as he rubs his chin with gold-tipped claws. “According to the records we have, this is the first incident that Silver-san slept for days straight. I wonder what could be the cause...” 

“I’ve always had a problem with sleeping but it was never this bad. Even back at home.” Silver grouse. When he realised that he just let out a huge yawn, he blinks in surprise before sighing. 

“And it seems despite sleeping for four days, it wasn’t a peaceful rest.” Headmaster Crowley commented, behind the mask his eyes are scrutinising Silver. “No matter what the teachers and I did, it took Vanrouge-san and Draconia-san’s combined efforts to woke you up.” 

It appears that Lilia didn’t inform Silver of that fact judging by his startle expression. 

“Malleus-sama had to use his magic on me...?” 

“Mm,” Malleus confirmed. “Lilia and I had to slip into your dream and I used my magic to pushed him towards your consciousness when we understood that you reacted well to his voice.” 

Silver hung his head low, as if in shame. “I even bothered Malleus-sama...” 

Malleus narrows his eyes at Silver’s bitter tone, slowly growing confused at his behaviour. Lilia interjected when neither he nor Headmaster Crowley said anything.  

“It wasn’t your fault, Silver. As I said, no one could’ve foreseen something like this happening.” The Unseelie Fae consoles the troubled Silver. Lilia’s smile is finally genuine when Silver’s lips quirk up when he patted his hand. “Now then, did you managed to find anything on why Silver couldn’t wake up?” 

Malleus could count on one hand when it comes to creatures that he would accede to; his parents, grandmother and Lilia. Though each of them for various reasons, he respects Lilia not only for raising him but also for what the ancient Fae represent. Powers that come from lost knowledge, confidence from crushing haughty Seelie Fairies as a pastime and experiences gained from many passing seasons. All hidden behind mischievous smiles and an unassuming demeanour.

And as they continue to discuss what had induced Silver into a temporary coma, Malleus easily differ to Lilia’s ability to take reign on any situation so seamlessly like a king with his court. Even the headmaster nods along to the possibilities listed by Lilia. 

“A spell is a strong possibility.” Headmaster Crowley hums in agreement. He had been writing down their theories and the possibilities raised by Lilia in a journal while Silver and Malleus listen on silently. “The tricky part is finding out just what sort of spell that was cast.”

“...And who the caster is.” Lilia is all smiles and pleasantly agreeable, but there was something dark that touched his tone. Silver might’ve missed it but not Malleus. Never Malleus. 

The headmaster claps his hands once. “Very well then. I will request several of your teachers to help me on my research on the spell that was cast on young Silver here.” 

Silver ducks his head but Lilia presses on. 

“And we’ll make sure this... incident won’t happen again.” Only Lilia could say something that’s cross between a promise and a threat, all the while flashing a teasing wink at a huffing Silver. 

By the time they made their way back to the dorm, Malleus mentally inclines his head to not only Lilia’s masterful way at sorting out the talk with Headmaster Crowley, but also cheer Silver up to his usual charming self. Lavender eyes roll at his corny jokes that had Silver looking away so Lilia couldn’t see his shy, happy smiles when he did manage to get him to laugh. 

“So... is it safe for me to sleep again so soon or...?” Silver asks once the three of them are in his room. He was the first to take a seat on his bed, follow by Lilia soon after once he removes his heavy coat.

Lilia fondly ruffles Silver’s hair who in turn, did his best not to frown at the childish treatment. “Go ahead and try to sleep tonight. Malleus will be putting spells in your dreams to keep intruders out once you’ve fallen asleep and ah… hang on...” He trails off and starts to fiddle with his leather belts to unclasp one of the spools of threads. Every Diasomnia students carry with them magical spools of threads and a small pack of needles on their dorm uniform to represent their allegiance to the Witch of Thorns. Some use the threads as a conduit for spell castings while others - mostly the younger students - enjoy pranking their friends with it. 

Oh! Though there is a Fourth Year student who often receive commissions for soft plushies since he likes to sew them. From what Silver has heard, they are sewn with his own magic threads and rare stuffing materials that it bestowed each soft toys the magical ability to copy and stored the owner’s happiest memory. When someone touches or cuddle with the toys, they will relive that memory as if it happened just yesterday.  

Lilia pulls a lengthy green thread from the spool and nips it with his fangs before gesturing Silver to extend his dominant hand which he did so wordlessly. “I’ve enchanted this particular spool of thread for the younger, rowdy Diasomnia students who tend to injure themselves whenever they practised magic unsupervised.” He explains, deftly tying the thread around Silver’s pinky finger. “This thread can only be destroyed when the person carrying it is hurt and will alert me of their whereabouts.” 

“That’s a powerful spell...” Silver mutters, eyeing the thread carefully. It’s barely noticeable and weights almost nothing.  

“I can teach you if you like,” Lilia promises and jumps out of the bed to slip his coat back on. “But that’s for another day. Would you like to join us for dinner or - ”

Silver shakes his head. He had enough of people staring at him when he and Lilia went to the headmaster’s office. “I’m not really hungry. A couple of my classmates came by to give me some homework that’s due this week. Might as well get a start on it.” 

Lilia accepts this and fusses over Silver a little more - fluffing his pillows, spellchecks his finished homework and even rummaging his cupboard to see if he did his laundry - before he and Malleus left soon after, much to Silver’s immense relief. 

It’s dinner time and huddled around a table in the cafeteria are Yuu and the rest of his First Year friends eating together. Yuu, Grim, Ace and Deuce caught Jack and Sebek on their way to the cafeteria and since Epel was reading alone in the courtyard, they extend an invitation to him which the Pomefiore boy happily accepts. 

Stirring his bowl of soup, Yuu turns to glance at the table with a group of First Year Scarabia and Octavinielle students who were gossiping loudly. 

“...Saw Vanrouge-san and Silver-san going to the headmaster’s office earlier.”

“Really? So was Silver-san sick?”

“How should I know? I didn’t dare to ask and besides, you don’t approach Vanrouge-san; he approaches you.” 

“Oh c’mon, he’s nothing like... you know who. He can’t be that scary.”

“No, you don’t understand. It’s not that Vanrouge-san is scary, he’s one of the most popular student and one of the beautiful elites in the whole college! You can’t just go up and talk to someone like that!” 

“That and have you seen him? He’s up there with Schoenheit-san when it comes to looks and fashion. I even heard Schoenheit-san asked for tips from Vanrouge-san!” 

“As riveting as it is hearing you two gush about Vanrouge-san, I’m more interested in what happened to Silver-san. I heard that Mr.Divus spend all night brewing some special potion for him.” 

“Really? Maybe he was seriously sick then. It would explain his absence.” 

“Whoa, like, he was so sick that he nearly died?” 

A startled silence falls in the cafeteria when Sebek suddenly slam both of his hands on the table as he stands up. 

“As a Diasomnia student, I won’t tolerate any slanders against a student under Malleus-sama exalted leadership!” Sebek bark angrily at the table beside him. “Even if said student is a mere human!” 

“Ah shit, here we go...” Ace mutters underneath his breath as he wipes the spilt drinks with a napkin. Epel promptly left to grab more napkins the moment Sebek stood up while Yuu hurriedly pushes their plates and cutleries away from the mess.

Jack simply close his eyes and exhale deeply through his nose, attempting to remain calm while Deuce glare at the other table. 

“Whoa, whoa, relax! We don’t mean any harm, just talking.” One of the Scarabia students hurriedly counters, hands up in peace. However, his friend just scoff. 

“He won’t listen to you, man. That’s Sebek Zigvolt; he’s the fanatic student from Diasomnia and not one to listen to reason.” 

“Then why did you talk about Silver-senpai in such a manner when you know we were seating here!?” This time it’s Deuce. “Have some respect for your senior!” 

“Guys, c’mon. I’m sure Silver-senpai wouldn’t want this - ” Yuu tries to diffuse the situation but his words fall on deaf ears when an Octavinielle student interjects with a put-out sigh. 

“What’s the big deal anyway? He’s walking about since this morning right? It’s fine. The fact that you feel the need to make a fuss out of it is ridiculous.” 

Yuu paused to face that student, incredulous at his nonchalance. 

“Watch your tone.” Jack snaps. Yuu internally sighs now that even Jack is on board. Looks like it’s another trip to the headmaster office after this... 

Wild, uneasy tension is crackling in the air - or was that Sebek? Yuu isn’t too sure - surrounding them while most of the students in the cafeteria quietly sneak out, smart enough to avoid whatever trouble that will occur. 

“We’re so going to get in trouble...” Epel whispers though the idea of a brawl sounds exciting. Getting scolded by Vil? Not so much. As he weighs the pros and cons, a new voice joins in. 

“Ah, the liveliness of youth... It never fails to makes me happy seeing First Year students getting along so well!”  

Everyone flinches when Lilia appear out of nowhere, smiling in amusement. They all said nothing when the Vice Leader of Diasomnia cross his arms and said, “It seems that everyone is having fun. That’s good, that’s good... but let’s keep it down, yes? Curfew is in two hours so good children should finish up their dinner soon.” Despite how young Lilia sounded, his voice remind everyone of their parents at that moment. The two First Year students that were gushing about him earlier flustered brightly and unable to meet Lilia’s smokey red eyes.

“Lilia-sama... I-I didn’t mean to bring shame to - ” Sebek began, his voice wavers and face scrunch in obvious distress. Deuce is stuck in an awkward angle trying to console him and looking away in embarrassment. 

Lilia floats up to pat Sebek’s head. “Aww, chin up, Sebek-kun. We all get a little excited sometimes, hmm? No harm done.” He then turns his attention to his wary audience, slender finger tapping his chin in contemplation. “It’s been a while since we dine with the First Years. Shall we have dinner with them? What do you think, Malleus?” 

Someone gasps as soon as Lilia said that. The table with the Scarabia and Octavinielle students immediately duck their heads when Malleus appear, stoically carrying a tray of food and drinks. With stiff politeness, they excuse themselves and hurry exit the cafeteria. Lilia’s amuse smile never falters once. 

“He’s seriously not going to join us here right?” Ace whispers, both in awe and fear only to be roughly elbowed by Yuu. 

“Don’t be rude, Ace.” Yuu chastises him before giving the two Faes a welcoming smile. “Of course Lilia-senpai and Tsunotarou-senpai can join us! The more the merrier after all.” 

Malleus tilts his head, wondering if it’s truly alright, but Lilia just chuckle. “Well then, we’ll happily take up on your kind invitation, child. Come Malleus, don’t just stand there like one of your gargoyles.” 

Yuu and his group scoot over to make space for them; Lilia slides in to sit beside Deuce while Malleus sits beside Jack. The wolf doesn’t seem to be bothered by their close proximity and Malleus’ intimidating figure. 

Or maybe he’s doing a great job hiding his wariness. 

Since no one knows what to say with Lilia and Malleus at the table, Yuu breaks the silence first. “So how was the meeting with the headmaster went, Tsunotarou-senpai?” 

“Yuu - ” Deuce hiss while Epel instantly facepalmed and Ace whimpers as if in pain. 

Malleus easily ignore their odd reaction and reply, “The headmaster is investigating the matter. As of now, we don’t know the real reason behind it.” He handed Lilia a plate of steak and veggies with a glass of red wine before arranging his meal on the table. 

“Mm-hmm. But at least there weren’t any bad side effects on Silver so he’ll be fine soon enough.” Lilia chimes in. 

“It’s good to hear that Silver-senpai is alright!” Yuu said, brightly; his own half-eaten lasagna forgotten at the good news. “What a relief...” 

“Yeah, it’s been weird not seeing him sleeping in the courtyard after P.E.” Deuce absentmindedly comment. 

“Or on the bleachers at the training ground.” Jack added as an afterthought. 

Lilia languidly swirls his wine. “For First Years, it sounds like you’re close to him, yes? I understand Sebek because he’s in our group...” 

“I am eternally grateful for your and Malleus-sama’s benevolence!” Sebek suddenly shouted. 

“Use your indoor voice for once in your damn life!” Jack growls, disgruntled but otherwise focusing on his food more than the conversation. 

It was Yuu who answered Lilia’s musing. “Silver-senpai sometimes help us with our classes.” 

“He’s... surprisingly a cool senior.” Ace praised with a mischievous grin. Deuce immediately glares at him and for some reason, it actually shuts him up. 

“Huh? Is that so?” Lilia drawls with a raised eyebrow. Ace and Deuce valiantly hold themselves back from fidgeting while Yuu is oddly quiet as the Fae takes a slow sip of his drink. Epel doesn’t know what’s going on and Malleus is lost in the conversation. Meanwhile, Sebek and Jack are nearly finishing their dinner. “It makes me happy that Silver is putting himself out there a lot more then. Not just in his studies but also with his friends.” 

“Mn.” Malleus easily agreed. 

The topic is then steered to trivial matters by Yuu and a half an hour later, dinner is wrapped up and everyone returns to their specific dorm. 

And that night, Silver dreams of thick, green walls of thorns that reaches to the endless sky and green fireflies hover around him, carrying a familiar presence that eases his heart and melts away the unknown fear on his shoulders. 

That night, Silver sleeps undisturbed and under the watchful spells of his parents. 

-

“Hey, Silver-senpai? Can you hear me?” 

With a nonsensical grumble, Silver raises his head from the cool wooden table to glare - well, he tried to glare but really, his eyes are squinting from the harsh fluorescent light - at the fifth person to bother him today.

But when he realises it’s Yuu and Grim, Silver couldn’t help but sigh. Irritation replaces with apathy as he rubs his temple and asks, “Out of all the tables in the library, you wanted this one?” 

Yuu sheepishly grins, scratching his cheek while Grim twitches its whiskers; indifferent to their conversation. “Actually, we were just about to leave the library when Grim spotted you. You weren’t moving so I thought you were sleeping but then...” He trails off, unsure on how to explain himself for disturbing him but Silver could already guess what he’s trying to say.

And for that, Silver didn’t really have the heart to be mad at him but seriously... 

“I wasn’t sleeping; just... resting my eyes for a bit.” Silver begrudgingly admits. Seeing that Yuu won’t be leaving anytime soon, he invites the younger boy to take a seat in front of him. “I appreciate the gesture, but I need you and the rest of the student body not to freak out when you see me taking a nap.” 

“A-Ah, will do, Silver-senpai.” Yuu chuckles albeit still abashed for thinking of the worst when he approached the Second Year student. “Was it really that bad? When other students tried to wake you up?” 

“A Savanaclaw student literally carried me to Lilia-san while I was sleeping. While he was in the middle of class.” 

“Wow... that’s, uh, that’s...” Yuu had to bit his lower lip to stop himself from laughing at the image popping in his head. Grim had no such problem. 

“Gyahahaha! That’s so funny!” Grim cackles. “You’re like a princess!” 

A couple of students shot him an annoyed look for his loud voice, not that he cares. Silver groans, “It’s annoying. I’m fine; I’d wish people would stop looking at me as if I’d slip into a coma at any time.” Even Sebek had taken to hover around him a lot more often now. Probably came up with all sorts of excuses like how it would greatly inconvenience Malleus and Lilia if Silver were to injure himself if the same incident suddenly repeated.

“...Do you think there’s anything I can do to help?” Yuu asks after a ponder. His offer is genuine and Silver have to wonder how this boy can be so kind. 

But he just sighs once more. “Just don’t treat me as if I’m made of glass.” He’s meant to be Malleus’ knight for the Witch’s sake. He trained and worked hard since a young age so he could keep up with the other Faes when it comes to magic. So he’d like to think that he’s as capable as Sebek despite their glaring difference.  

Yuu then promises and that’s that. He and Grim left shortly after when Ace call him to hang out at the Heartslabyul dorm - Riddle is having a tea party and he’s invited - leaving Silver to gather himself before his next class, Evocation.

Wary glance, exchange whispers and knowing looks that Silver had been receiving for the past two days quickly grate on his nerves. He knows that the rumours would die down eventually but that doesn’t mean he had to accept it quietly. 

He needed to get away from college for at least a little while. By the time Lilia texted him to inform that he’s waiting for Silver in their shared class, Silver made up his mind.

He needs a damn break. 

“...Do you think we should tell Silver-san that Leona-senpai asked us to tease him?” A First Year Savanaclaw student asks after he and his friend watch him step into the library’s teleportation mirror and vanishes. They didn’t mean to eavesdrops on his conversation; it’s just that their table is behind the shelf of books that stood between his! 

“B-But I want to carry him in my arms too...” His friend whines. “It’s not fair that Romulus get to carried him...” 

“Dude, you know crushing on that guy’s companion is a bad idea, right?” The Savanaclaw student dryly stated. “Especially since Leona-senpai hates his dorm leader.”

Despite his generous advice, his friend only whines louder. “I can’t help it! Why does the Diasomnia clique have to be so good looking!?” 

The Savanaclaw student just sighs and shakes his head at his friend’s hopeless case. 

Back to Silver, he transforms his magic crystal from a pen to an earring and clips it on his right ear. It gleams eerily before the light melts into darkness. He had been getting ready when curfew has struck and he bid the others good night. Lilia had stopped checking up on him after a few days since his coma and Silver doubts he would randomly come by tonight. Not when there’s a dorm/vice dorm leader meeting with Headmaster Crowley tomorrow morning. 

“It’ll be fine.” Silver murmurs as he checks his reflection in the bathroom for one last time. “It’s been a few days since that day and nothing bad has happened... I’ll be fine.” Silver convinced himself. He had been sleeping well these past few days and he feels better than ever! Surely a night to himself away from Night Raven College won’t bring any harm? 

And so he sneaks out of the dorm using the same path as before and calls for a teleportation service to Mystic Elixir. Like the night when Yuu and his friends tagged along, he had no problem walking into the club after greeting a few of the staff. Another Friday night, another night full of party-goers and creatures looking to start their weekend right. Silver made himself comfortable and let the pounding music distract him as he watches the dance floor, nursing his drink in one hand. 

“Silver-senpai...” 

Silver nearly spat out his drink when he heard that voice. Whipping his head around with wide surprise eyes, he asks incredulously, “Did you followed me here?” 

Yuu at least had the decency to blush in embarrassment when he nods. Like Silver, he ditched his uniform for a set of casual clothes. “I saw you walking out of the forest on the way back to the Ramshackle dorm.” 

“And you were out late at night again because...?” 

“I couldn’t sleep. I was reading near the window when I spotted Tsunotarou-senpai near the forest and decided to join his walk.” Yuu explains. 

If Silver could’ve instantly dropped dead the moment his heart skip a beat, he would be a goner. “Malleus-sama wasn’t asleep?” His panic then fades away when his mind supplied that Malleus is not like Lilia; he didn’t check up on him when he was sleeping so it’s very unlikely he would start doing so tonight.

Meanwhile, Yuu understood what’s going on when Silver’s breath hitched. Looks like no one knows that Silver is here... 

Yuu snaps back to attention when Silver asks, “Anyway, why did you followed me then? I thought I told you not to worry about me.” 

“I know.” Yuu is quick to reply lest he would irritate him. “I just thought maybe... you could use a friend?” Silver said nothing but Yuu discreetly sighs in relief when the older boy turn to order a light snack for the both of them from the bartender. 

As Yuu is happily munching on a breadstick, he didn’t notice how his loose t-shirt slides down to slowly reveal fading marks of suction cups and light purple and red bruises on his collarbones that look like they were made by rows of sharp teeth.

Silver, however, notices it. He awkwardly coughs, loud enough to garner Yuu’s attention despite the noises around them. When he gestured to his own neck, Yuu frowns, gently touches his bare neck and instantly blush when he felt how tender some spots are. 

With a squeak, Yuu hurries to tug his shirt back up. “S-Sorry about that, Silver-senpai!” 

“...They’re not forcing you or anything, right?” Silver couldn’t help but ask. The Leech brothers can be a handful on their own, but together? And with Azul in the mix? He just couldn’t imagine it. 

“No, no; they’ve been very patient with me, Silver-senpai! I was surprised at first because I thought this wasn’t an otome game, but I’m good at going with the flow.” 

“...What?” 

Yuu just shrugs and continue to stuff his mouth with food. He kept his words and remain by Silver but not to the point that his presence bothers him. They watch the club-goers dance the night away, talk about this and that and Silver feels the tension that had been weighing down on his shoulders over the past few days melts away as he enjoys himself and the buzzing alcohol burning down his throat. 

Yuu excuses himself to go to the bathroom when his glass of lemonade is empty; finally leaving Silver alone. He checks the time on his phone and decides to have a couple more drinks before they return to college.

“A Primordial Gin, please. Less ice.” 

From a corner of his eye, Silver saw a small wad of Madols slide across the bar before a tall man takes the vacant seat at his right. Despite Silver’s subtle look, the man caught his eyes. A beatific smile graces his lips. “Good evening. Is that any good?” He points to the half-empty glass in Silver’s hold. 

“It’s alright. I like the sweetness after the liquor kicks in.” Silver easily reply. 

The bartender comes by to hand the man a tumbler glass with a bluish-green liquid and ice inside. He thanked the man and carefully takes a sip of his drink, sighing with pleasure at the taste. He then raises the glass to Silver and said, “Here’s to a good weekend for the both of us.” 

They clink their glasses together and downed their drinks. Silver loves the alcohol thrumming through his body and the air of peace and geniality enveloping the tall stranger. Magnetic and welcoming that it draws Silver in.

“Rough week?” He asks Silver. Underneath the light above them, his golden eyes are like smouldering ambers; his sharp eyeliners highlights them even more. Despite pulling his black hair up in a high ponytail, it falls past his waist with messy bangs framing his handsome face. 

Silver grimace; he didn’t want to talk about it. “It could’ve been better.” He left it at that and nibble on a breadstick. 

“Sorry to hear that. Hey, maybe next week would turn around, hmm?” The stranger hopes with a tilt of his head. That’s when Silver notices the tipped ears poking out from his thick mane. He wonders what kind of creature this man is. 

With the way he dressed, face, and baritone voice, he reminds Silver of Lilia but instead of the mischievous and playful streaks, this man exudes an openness that Lilia lack; no matter how he pretended to be sometimes. 

As they chatted, Silver keeps glancing at Yuu’s empty glass; wondering how long has it been since he went to the bathroom. His gaze bounces around the club for a familiar mop of black hair. 

To his surprise, there’s Yuu talking to someone in one of the booths. Silver couldn’t quite see who he’s talking to from the bar; only that he had thick, red hair and wear white and light red clothing. For a split second, the face of Heartslabyul dorm leader flashes in mind before he realises that whoever he’s talking to is taller than Riddle. 

Nevertheless, Silver was ready to bolt out of his seat seeing that Yuu is with a stranger. 

Silver’s company turn to where his gaze is at when Silver made a move to leave. “Oh? Is that your friend? You don’t have to worry; I know that redhead.” He assured Silver, effortlessly drawing his attention back. “He’s a classmate of my ward. I promise you that he won’t do anything untoward to your friend; he doesn’t have a mean bone in him to do any of the sorts.” 

Silver still wasn’t convinced but when the redhead throws his arms around dramatically as if to emphasis a point, Yuu laughs and eagerly respond back. A small part of Silver whisper in his mind that he really should pull Yuu away lest a... misunderstand might occur, but the drink and friendly companionship made him think twice. 

Even when the redhead and Yuu ditch the booth to dance amongst the crowd. 

“So anyway, what other drinks would you recommend? I quite enjoy something that’s spicy and airy like mints.” The black-haired stranger pick up where their conversation had left off. 

“Either Aether Embrace or Eden. Both are minty and quite strong.” 

His companion ordered an Eden once his glass is finish. “Since you don’t seem to be the type to dance, what made you and your friend came here tonight?” He asks, not even bothering to hide his curiosity. 

Silver carefully tip his glass at him. “The drinks are pretty good and besides, there’s always something entertaining happening around.” 

“Can’t argue with that.” The stranger chuckle, tucking a stray lock behind a pointed ear. “I don’t usually visit these sort of scenes but the drinks are truly something. I might actually come here again.” 

Silver hums as he drums his finger on the bar, feeling not quite drunk yet. “You mentioned a ward? Are you here with them?” 

The stranger shakes his head and smiles fondly. “He had been working hard all week so I told him to rest up and promised that we could do something together in the weekend instead.” He then talks a little more about his charge; how he’s an active student in both sports and academic and that he has lots of good friends.

Silver just hums as he talks; he sounds like a proud parent. Since he didn’t feel lightheaded, he wonders if he should order one last drink but the stranger purse his lips when he signals for the bartender. 

“You’re starting to look a bit flush. I think you could really use a glass of water instead.” His companion advice, concern tint his voice. 

Probably a good idea: Silver nods and did just that. He drinks up some water when it arrives. He then checks the time on his phone. 

Shit, it’s almost 3 AM; time to head back.

He paid for his and Yuu’s drinks and snacks and stretch his back. “We should get going. Thanks for the talk.” 

The stranger beam. “The pleasure is all mine! I didn’t expect to found a friend this evening through the grapevine. Oh, and best of luck to you and your friend; may you two have a great weekend.”

Silver inclines his head and bid goodbye before he fetches Yuu among the dancing crowd and they made their way to the exit. 

“It was nice talking to you!” The redhead shouted at Yuu as he waves goodbye with a happy grin. Yuu throws back the sentiment, so carefree and bright that Silver had never seen before. 

When he called for a teleportation portal back to Night Raven College, Yuu lets out a huge tired yawn as soon as they arrive. 

“Are you alright?” Silver asks, checking his eyes and face. A light sheen of sweat clings on his flushes face but Yuu is 100% sober. 

“I’m just exhausted, Silver-senpai.” Yuu assured him and smile tiredly. “I saw you talking to someone at the bar, Silver-senpai. Did you had fun?” 

“It was alright. He was a friendly guy. Now come on, let’s go to Ramshackle.” Yuu protest that he didn’t need Silver to walk him back to his dorm, but Silver rebuffs and explains that he’ll be going in the same path to the Diasomnia dorm anyway.

They soon parted ways and Silver saw Yuu entered his dorm, very clearly exhausted but with a happy smile as he clutched his phone and begin texting. Silver could easily guess who.   

Silver wonders if this heavy lead in his stomach is because of the alcohol or Yuu’s new friend. 

He decides to sleep it off. All in all, it was a good night; Silver was glad he made the decision to take some time for himself away from college, from the mess that happened.  

The little thread around Silver’s pinky finger remains whole. 

[go-events]

GO Rom Com Spotlight: @racketghost​

The fabulous @racketghost​ has claimed Zack and Miri Make a Porno to adapt for Good Omens in the Good Omens Rom Com Event.

For reference, here’s some information about the source material!

Synopsis of Zack and Miri Make a Porno: Lifelong friends and now roommates, Zack (Seth Rogen) and Miri (Elizabeth Banks) are buried under a mountain of debt. When the electricity is turned off, they realize that desperate times call for desperate measures. They decide to make an adult film to raise some cash. Though they swear that having sex will not damage their friendship, their business proposition quickly turns into something much more.

We spent some time chatting about how the adaptation is coming so far, as well as future plans for it! Now, get to know @racketghost​​ (also racketghost on AO3) a little better!

* * *

goromcom: Here it comes, my silly tags question. You know how if you open a Tumblr chat with someone you haven't chatted to before, Tumblr tells you two things they post about? I wanted to tell you that yours reports that you post about "#aziraphale is baby and #ineffable husbands." I am DYING at that first one, because correct tag is correct!

racketghost: Oh my gosh, that is amazing. I use that tag an unholy amount. But I mean, he is baby, so—I think it’s warranted!

goromcom: You chose to adapt Zack and Miri Make a Porno as your rom com. I'd like to disclose to you at this time that I am the one who added that to the masterlist, and was secretly hoping someone would take it. And you have! :) Has this movie been a favorite of yours, or is there some other reason you chose it?

racketghost: AH! I remember when the prompts were being claimed and I think it was you who said OMG someone took Zack and Miri and I wanted to stand up and say, it was me. I’m the absolute loon! I am SO GLAD you added it to the master list. It’s an under-appreciated romance movie (I think because it gets covered up by all the wonderful, wonderful filth). 

I will confess that I chose this movie because @summerofspock​ and I were chatting about which movies to take (I originally wanted Pretty Woman! Anyone who has read Strange Moons knows why) and we were discussing which movies would be the hardest to adapt. And then I sort of coughed up an idea for Zack and Miri and Summer went full supportive-cheerleader mode and pointed out that pining-while-also-having-sex is sort of my entire wheelhouse. The rest just clicked. She’s wonderful. <3 (I have also always loved the movie. I really adore Kevin Smith. It is my duty as a native of New Jersey!)

goromcom: What's your favorite moment of your chosen rom com, and are you looking forward to presenting it in your adaptation? Any loose plans for that scene that you can share? (I will inline spoiler alert for the answer if it seems necessary.)

racketghost: I think my favorite part of my romcom isn’t necessarily a moment or a scene, it’s more that Zack and Miri are the very dearest and closest of friends that we get to see over and over again. They have a wonderful platonic intimacy that I think mirrors Crowley and Aziraphale very, very well. Lots of bickering and long-suffering sighs and many an eye-roll. But also a fierce protectiveness. Like, this is MY best friend and yes they are ridiculous but only I can say so. I hope to capture that intimacy!

goromcom: Do you plan to stick very closely to the story beats of the original movie, or make bigger changes?

racketghost: Oh no, my story is…. Very, very different from the original. It will follow the same story beats to a degree but I am flipping this from an ensemble cast thing into a just-the-two-of-them thing. So that’s a big change! 

goromcom: What's an interesting decision you've made in your planning so far--a notable casting decision, a changing of venue, or some other plan you have to paint Good Omens all over your rom com?

racketghost: Well, anyone who has read my other stories knows that I am clearly incapable of writing anything that isn’t hopelessly full of angst. So I have upped the stakes quite a bit and basically scrapped the entire mood of the movie. I also really twisted the idea of someone turning off the power, so to speak. There are bills to pay! It’s set in a canon-universe so they aren’t worrying about keeping the lights on. Basically, Zack and Miri Make a Porno but make it goth.

goromcom: I am blatantly stealing this last question from The Good Place: The Podcast, but here goes: Tell me something "good". It can be something big or small. It can be a charity you think is doing good work, or you can talk about how great your pet is.

racketghost: Let me begin this by saying YOU are wonderful for managing this wild bunch and starting all of this. You are doing an awesome job and I really appreciate all the work you do for us!

Second, my dog Jackson is the goodest boy of all the good boys and I love him forever.

And third, I am a big fan (and so is Jackson) of a grass-roots organization called The Surfrider Foundation. I’m basically an unevolved ocean creature (when did I sprout these legs?) and I think the preservation of our oceans is one of the highest and most important campaigns we can all work toward. They do regular beach cleanups you can join in and they help preserve oceanic habitats, educate people on single-use plastics and residential water consumption, and champion making informed choices on sustainable seafood. They’re non-profit and staffed by some truly wonderful hardworking humans who just want to preserve this great, beautiful blue planet and all the things living in it. Crowley and Aziraphale would be fans, I think.

goromcom: Aww, thanks for that first bit. And Jackson and The Surfrider Foundation both sound amazing.

So GO fans, make sure to watch for...and I am giddy to be saying this...a canon-compliant adaptation of Zack and Miri Make a Porno.

[soulflamesketches]

DISCLAIMER PLEASE READ: Darkshadow3942 here! I never understand how the submission feature works, so someone submitted their entire oneshot to me because they were unsure of how to tag me it. So I’m posting with their permission! @fandom-trash-247​ is the author, give them all the love, please!

~~~~~

Imagine avoiding Crowley after you fell from Heaven, believing he didn't want to see you again because you were no longer 'His Angel'. Thousands of years later you two bump into each other and you found out that his prized possession since you disappear was one of your feathers. But not a pure white one. Half black. He knew and he was heartbroken. Looking for you ever since.

First time writing for Good Omens, so please be gentle and give constructive criticism.//

One thousand years had gone by and there were two thoughts that swam in your head. 'What did I do?' and 'I miss him.' battled for your attention on a day to day business, and it left you drained on a good day.

You had been an angel once upon a time, but that ship had sank a thousand years ago. It had been a normal day when you had gone into work in Heaven, and before you knew it you had been fired in the roughest way possible. You had fallen, and there was no getting back up.

It was that day when you dropped contact with Crowley. He was an angel once too, and he fell long before you did, but if anything it had made you two even more inseparable. You had known each other from before he had fallen, and you had remained there through all of his troubles with his fall. He was more of an action man than words, but you knew he appreciated you being there when he had fallen.

But when it had been your turn you didn't want help from him. You didn't want to see him. It would make it all the more real, and he would be so disappointed in you. He hadn't always been your demon, but you had always been his angel and now that was gone.

Rather than face the disappointment he would have behind his glasses, you ran. It didn't matter where, just away from where you thought he might be.

But now it was present day and you were walking down to the park to try and get some relaxation in to try to combat the war in your head. You didn't know where you were or what park you were in. You felt it didn't matter. But as you were sitting by the water watching the ducks you saw a glimpse of red from the corner of your eye. Looking over there he was. Crowley. And he was with someone else getting ice cream. Aziraphale.

You knew of Aziraphale, but had never taken the time to get to know him. Heaven wasn't about friends, it was about getting the job done after all. The only friend you had ever had was Crowley, and now it seemed that he was able to move on. It made your heart swell to know that he was okay, but it also made you sad because it wasn't with you.

Being a Principality, Aziraphale had felt your joy and looked to see who gave off such strong feelings. Crowley, who was watching Aziraphale, looked to see what he was looking at. And his heart stopped.

It was you.

It was really really you!

Before he knew what he was doing, he ran towards you. He needed to talk to you again like the old times. The times where he would stay up all night with you and talk about anything and everything. He loved his sleep, but he loved you more.

Seeing him run towards you, you quickly grabbed your phone and ran away. A thousand years ago you didn't see him, and you didn't want to see him now. But as you ran and he chased you you couldn't help but feel giddy. It used to be a game for you two to chase each other, but he would...

...always win. Oh shit.

Feeling him grab you, you both fell to the ground and he pinned you beneath him, you in between his legs and his hands pinning your wrists by your head. You were looking at each other, breathing heavily as you looked each other over. While he always win, it didn't mean you didn't make him work for it.

"It really is you isn't it." he said as he caught his breath. He hadn't seen you in so long, but you hadn't changed at all. You still had the same hair, same clothing style, same height. It was all you.

You looked away when he said that, forcing yourself to not look at him again. If you did this, you wouldn't be able to go away again and you knew it.

"Let me go." you said to him.

"No, it's been one thousand years. Where have you been?" he asked.

"Away." you replied, struggling under him.

"You don't get to do that to me. Go away for a thousand years and then when I finally see you again you try to run and stay away. I deserve to know why!" he shouted, not caring if he alerted anybody in the area.

Rather than give him and answer you struggled some more and he held onto you tighter.

"Tell me!" he shouted, and in his voice you could hear the desperate undertones. You had hurt him and he needed to know why you left.

"Because I'm not your angel anymore, Crowley! I haven't been for a thousand years and I would take a thousand more to avoid your disappointment." you shouted back.

He stiffened above you and you took that moment of opportunity to push him off of you and get up. You were about to walk away when you heard his voice again.

"Did you really think that about me?" he asked, his voice softer and uncertain.

Looking back at him, he was still on the ground and looking up at you. You couldn't see his eyes, but he was very much expressive without needing to see them. He was upset, sad, though you didn't know who at.

Going over to him, you helped him up. "Why wouldn't you be? I was your angel, your best friend. And I'm nothing now."

"Ngk. You're not nothing. You never have been and you never will be. Not to me." he told you.

"It seems in the past thousand years my position as angel best friend has found another." you said, gesturing over at Aziraphale, who had come over but kept some distance.

"Don't do that. Jealousy isn't a good shade on you." Crowley said.

"It's merely a fact." you replied.

"If you want facts then fine. You were my angel best friend, but the day you fell you left. I went to another friend to cope with your loss and to help me find you. After a thousand years I thought I'd never find you, but I have today. And now that I found you-" he said, going from talking to shouting throughout his monologue, grabbing you by your shoulders and bringing you close to him. You braced yourself for his anger and disappointment.

"- I want you to come home." he said, sounding like he was on the verge of crying.

Grabbing something out of his pocket he pulled out a feather. One of your feathers. Unlike Crowley's, yours weren't completely black. Instead the top half were dark, the bottom half still white. To anybody looking at your wings they would be black, and nobody took the time to see the pureness underneath. Nobody but Crowley.

When you heard him tell you to come home, you looked up at him. How could he possibly want you around after all of this?

"Aziraphale told me about your fall. I went to find you but you were gone. In all the rush you had dropped this." he said with a sniffle.

You looked at the feather and then back at him. "Why did you care so much?" you asked him.

"Because it was you. Falling is a terrifying and traumatic thing and I wasn't there to help you like you did with me. I wanted you to know that everything was going to be okay. But I lost you." he told you, hoping you would understand.

Tears gathered in your eyes. "But I'm not your angel anymore..."

He let go of your shoulder and wiped a few tears that fell away.

"You don't have to be anything but one of my best friends again. What Aziraphale and I have is very special, but what you and I have is extraordinary. And I would love to have both of my best friends by my side." he said, offering his hand to you.

After so long without him, you didn't even consider saying no to that offer. You placed your hand in his and he gave a smile before bringing to over to Aziraphale so you two could properly meet.

While Crowley wasn't a man of words, he was willing to be if he could have to back for all of eternity.

[dickwheelie]

Day 29: Secret Admirer

For the @ineffable-valentines prompt list!

Boy oh boy. I cannot believe I was able to post a fic for this prompt list, on time, every day for an entire month. For me, that’s huge. I tend to be a slow writer and I rarely finish the stuff I start. Not every fic was amazing, or very long, but by gosh, I sure did finish them, and I had so much fun doing it! Huge thanks to @mielpetite for making this list and reblogging all the entries throughout the month, they’ve been amazing. Thank you also to all the lovely folks who commented/reblogged/liked my fics, you gave me the motivation to sit down every day and write something, even when I wasn’t feeling it. Much love to all y’all.

If you go to the #ineffablevalentines tag on tumblr, you’ll see the other entries, and if you go here on my blog you’ll see all of mine. Okay, enough chat, please enjoy my final fic of the month, wherein to no one’s surprise, there is more letter writing.

__________

To the proprietor of A.Z. Fell & Co Booksellers, Downtown Soho, in case there’s another one knocking about somewhere—

I saw you in the shop the other day and couldn’t help but stare. You were gently ushering someone out the door without a single book in their hands, and I couldn’t help but find your tenacity admirable. I myself was careful not to remove any item from the store when I left, but I’m afraid I may have left one behind. I was wondering if you might have seen it, so I can come back to fetch it. You see, it’s terribly important to me. It’s my heart.

Love,

Your Secret Admirer

Aziraphale chuckled through an unseemly blush as he refolded the letter and placed it on the top of the stack that had been slowly growing on his desk for the past month. Every day of that cold, miserable February, a letter had arrived at his doorstep, with no return address and no name of sender. They were—and there was no beating around the bush about it, really—love letters, very obviously meant for him, from an anonymous so-called secret admirer.

At first, Aziraphale had been rather confused, but had kept the letters anyway, intending to show them to Crowley and have a good laugh. However, as each day passed and each new letter arrived, Aziraphale found himself quite charmed by this secretive writer. Clearly, they were a regular customer of some kind to know Aziraphale so well. They made all the right jokes, said all the right things, made references to all the right literary figures; either they had discerned Aziraphale’s tastes with perfect accuracy, or they had much in common with him.

Some of the letters were extremely lengthy; others, like today’s, were only a short paragraph or two, recounting the admirer’s feelings for him. Some were maudlin and prose-laden; some were humorous and sweet; others still were almost salacious in tone, never saying anything too outlandish but bordering on the cusp of it, hinting at things and implying things that made Aziraphale blush absolutely scarlet. All of them were quite flattering, and left Aziraphale’s mood brighter for the rest of the day.

Aziraphale had been charmed by humans before, and even been romantically pursued by some of them, but never before had one so captivated him with the written word. (This, of course, did not include works of literature. That was a very different kind of captivation that involved less blushing.) He’d never had a secret admirer before. It was all very thrilling and romantic.

Not being able to write back was a bit frustrating, but Aziraphale supposed it was for the best. Though he was quite flattered, and had reread some of the letters more times than he’d like to admit, at the end of the day, his admirer was only a human who only knew him as a bookseller.

Besides, Aziraphale was already taken. Speaking of which, he ought to get himself ready to meet Crowley for dinner; their reservation was at eight.

I ought to tell him about the letters, he thought as he went about selecting a bowtie. Crowley ought to know, after all, that he had some competition. Aziraphale laughed aloud at the thought. After dinner, he decided, he’d bring Crowley back to the shop and show him the pile of letters.

And so he did. Aziraphale poured them both a glass of wine and brought Crowley into his study, presenting the pile of papers as though it were an ice sculpture.

“Terribly sorry I didn’t mention these to you earlier,” said Aziraphale cheerily. “I suppose I didn’t want you getting jealous that I had a secret admirer.”

“Jealous? Me?” said Crowley wryly. “Never.”

“Well?” said Aziraphale, when Crowley didn’t make a move towards the desk. “Go ahead, read some of them. You have my full permission.”

“Hmm. I dunno,” said Crowley, making himself comfortable on one of the armchairs on the opposite side of the room. “Seems like your private affair, to me.”

“Nonsense! Here, I’ll read one to you.” Aziraphale selected one at random from the middle of the pile, unfolded it and cleared his throat. “Oh, this is rather a good one.

“My dear bookseller—

“I’ve read every Wilde I can get my hands on, but apparently even your shop doesn’t hold the book which may contain a description vivid enough to capture you. In my experience, none do; not Whitman, not Keats, not Dickenson. The most complimentary of love poems do not contain a subject more appealing to me than you are. I’m afraid there may not be words in the English language or any other to describe your radiance. Compared to all the other authors and poets, who am I to attempt such a feat?

“I must try anyway. You, of all the beings of the Earth and Heaven above and Hell below, deserve to know your own wonder. Compared to you, my perspective is lowly, to be sure. Still, was it not Wilde who once said that we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars?

“Endlessly Yours,

“Your Secret Admirer.”

Aziraphale had to pause to surreptitiously wipe at his eyes. That one had been particularly moving when he’d first read it. “Now, wasn’t that just lovely?” he said after a moment. “They know my tastes so well.”

Aziraphale glanced over at Crowley to see his reaction, but to his surprise, Crowley was smiling. A small, rather sweet smile, not at all jealous or mischievous. “Yeah,” Crowley said, “it was alright.” He put out his hand. “Can I have a look?”

Aziraphale handed him the letter and Crowley perused it, his expression much more pensive than Azirapahle would have expected. After a minute or two, Crowley said, “Yeah, not too bad, really. Not much I’d change, on this one. Just that the references to Heaven and Hell were probably a little too on the nose. And I’m pretty sure I used ‘complimentary’ incorrectly there.”

“Oh, really?” said Aziraphale, taking the letter as Crowley passed it back to him. He gave it another quick once-over. “No, I think ‘complimentary’ with an ‘i’ is correct. If it was an ‘e’ then it would be wrong, as in ‘complementary’—wait a moment.”

Aziraphale looked back up at Crowley so quickly he could have given himself whiplash. “You said I. ‘I used it incorrectly.’ Crowley. Did you—”

Crowley grinned, and crossed the room to press a kiss to Aziraphale’s brow. “Happy Valentine’s, Angel,” he said. “Well, happy February. The fourteenth went by and I had more I wanted to say, so I just sort of kept going.”

And suddenly, it all made sense. Who else, after all, could know Aziraphale so well? A human, with limited time on the planet, observing Aziraphale from afar, could never reach such an intimate understanding of him, and what he loved.

“Oh, my dear,” said Aziraphale. He glanced over at the pile. He was already planning a late night of reading through them all again, this time with the proper demon in mind. “Do I even have to say it?”

Crowley stuck his hands in his pockets and bobbed his head from side to side in a pantomime of thinking. “Well, considering it look me bloody ages to draft these all up, and write them by hand, and train the mice to deliver them, and stop myself from bragging about them to you every day for the last month—”

Aziraphale interrupted him with a kiss. “All right then,” he said, laughing. “Thank you, secret admirer.”

Crowley beamed. “Ah, it was no big deal, Angel.”

***

On February first of the following year, Crowley woke up to find an envelope sitting on his bedroom windowsill, outside his flat. It was addressed to “The handsome gentleman on the fifth floor,” and there was no return address. Inside was a letter, written on very old parchment and with very expensive ink, which read:

My dear,

Forgive me for my boldness, but I happened to see you in the Ritz the other day (you were with a rather good-looking gentleman in white, a very lucky man, if he had the privilege of being your dining companion), and you seemed to me to be the most dashing person in the room. Nay, in all of London. I found myself thinking about you for the rest of the evening, and I just had to draft up this letter to tell you exactly how lovely you looked that night. Though you wore dark glasses, I could occasionally catch a glimpse of your eyes behind them, and their beautiful golden color, and I found myself nearly speechless every time.

In all of creation, I have never found a being so wonderful to gaze upon. I imagine that if I were to, hypothetically, take the place of your ever-so-fortunate dining companion, and have a conversation and a drink with you, I would also never find someone so fascinating, so caring, so clever as you. I imagine if I were lucky enough to know you so well, your wit would be as dazzling as your eyes.

With the Greatest Affection,

Your Secret Admirer

Scrawled at the bottom of the page, in a much hastier hand, was a postscript. Crowley read it, cackled uproariously (which helped to hide his blushing), and went immediately to phone Aziraphale, intending to explain to him the point of having a secret admirer.

P.S.: Please do let me know if you received this! The doves are not very good with street directions, unfortunately. I am working on it with them. Much love! —A

Crowley also intended to tell him that he bloody well loved him, too.

[ineffable-writer]

New Year’s Eve: Aziraphale gets a wild idea about a question he’s wanted to ask for a while and Crowley does not understand why they’re going on holiday to Iceland.

I’m in Iceland for the new year (I’m posting this from 2020!) and of course I spent the last day of 2019 writing ridiculous fluff. Everywhere the Husbands go is real, and places I’ve been (though I did not get a luxury suite at the Blue Lagoon, I’m sad to say).

Previous installments are sweet but not necessary to read to understand (and can be found under the tag #PlaceWithoutPlot, although that’s not 100% true after this excerpt?). Excerpt here, full on AO3 or below the break.

--

The best crepes in Scotland were, undoubtedly, in a small café near the Meadows, which quickly became a regular spot for lunch on the days they wandered about separately. It was covered in tartan and old records, owned and operated by one man. The drinks were good and the crepes were divine.

“I was thinking, you know,” said Aziraphale, sipping a hot chocolate and relaxing into the tartan, “we don’t need to go back right away.”

“No?” asked Crowley. “Plants will miss me.”

“Oh, the Devices have nowhere to be,” said the angel. “Anathema will keep them alive and I’m sure they don’t mind a little reprieve.”

“You’re scheming,” Crowley lightheartedly accused, fighting to keep the smile off his lips. Aziraphale didn’t laugh or shoot Crowley a disapproving look, which meant he was legitimately nervous about something. The effort of hiding something distracted the angel, which meant Crowley could always tell when it happened. Crowley sat forward a bit: I’m paying attention. I know this is important. I’m listening.

“It’s just, well. We know Edinburgh. The whole island, really. We’ve lived here a very long time.”

“Understatement.”

“Yes. Well. So. I thought perhaps—if you wanted—we could go somewhere new.”

“New?” Crowley raised an eyebrow. “Everywhere’s new, angel. World keeps changing. That’s what we like about it. Remember?”

“I know! But it’s so easy to get around these days. No more horses, no more ships…”

“What’s wrong with ships? I like ships.”

“You never went on a trireme, if I recall,” said Aziraphale.

“No more triremes, I’ll give you.” Crowley raised an eyebrow. Aziraphale was avoiding talking about whatever he wanted to talk about, now. “Where did you want to go?”

“Iceland.”

“Iceland?”

“Iceland.”

Crowley bit back the why, the what in the world is in Iceland that makes you want to go there, the what has gotten into you lately, you’re always such a homebody, I literally moved right down the block from you because we both hate putting in more effort to go places than absolutely necessary. Aziraphale had something in mind, and Crowley had the sense that the wrong reaction would absolutely shatter the man. Besides, Crowley trusted him.

“All right,” said Crowley. “Iceland. What about New Year’s, then?”

-

Aziraphale insisted on being mysterious about his plans once they got to Iceland, so Crowley demanded the right to do the same.

“If you get a mystery,” he said, “I get a mystery too. And mine’s near the airport, so unless you’ve got a fantastic reason, I get to go first.”

They arrived in Keflavik—not Reykjavik, not on an international flight—and Crowley’s reasoning became apparent quickly. The flight didn’t exactly get in early, but this time of year the sun didn’t rise until noon, so it was the middle of the night when they landed at nine AM. They still didn’t have the Bentley (Newt was not to touch the car back in Sussex, and he was terrified enough of Crowley that Aziraphale suspected he’d form a permanent bond with the houseplants) but Crowley had managed a half-decent rental car. He convinced Aziraphale to get in before breakfast—“Trust me, angel, there’s food where we’re going!”—and they set out into the night. The weather was somewhat warm for the season. It was cold, but not freezing.

Iceland was famous for its stunning scenery and dramatic landscapes, but in darkness like this all they could see were black shapes against gray sky. As the sun rose, it cast long shadows over a broken landscape. The earth had cracked and crackled after centuries of volcanic activity, leaving fields that looked like the ruined cities of ancient giants. Trees here were short and grew in sparse copses—it had once been a forest island, but not after the Nordic settlers arrived—and the tumbling rocks were covered in silver-gray lichens and mosses. Here on the southwest corner, the mountains were mostly distant, framing the horizon.

Crowley peeled off the main road and drove towards an alpine cluster, and the sky grew lighter. He was sure Aziraphale would guess immediately—apparently the angel had been reading about Iceland—but it wasn’t until they drove past the first pools that Crowley saw his eyes light up. He’d picked this place for stupid, indulgent reasons, one of which was that the color of Aziraphale’s eyes matched the water exactly. (He also liked the idea of getting out of the chill for once, warming his serpentine bones, and that played into it.)

Hot springs. Deep-earth saltwater, heated by the volcano and pumped into what was essentially a fancy swimming pool by these brilliant, stupid human beings that they both loved so much. It was indulgent and warm and frankly good for their corporations and souls alike, and after doing things the Human Way for a bit he could use a little pampering.

There was a resort. Crowley had picked the top package, the one that came with free breakfast and facial treatments and daily yoga and guided hikes in addition to everything you could ask for at the hot springs. He’d booked a room for two nights, one with a view of the lagoons. It only came with a single king-sized bed, but honestly, so had every other place they’d stayed. Crowley was the only one who used it. Aziraphale just stayed up reading. Aside from a comment on the décor—“Clearly you chose this place, it looks just like the flat in London with a bit more natural light.”—Aziraphale didn’t mention it at all.

Aziraphale immediately ran off on one of the guided hikes, spouting something about history and geography. Crowley did yoga, taking a moment to try and guess what the angel was getting at with this trip in the first place. He was done first, and was relaxing in their suite with a silica mask when Aziraphale got back (grumpy from the physical activity, but excited about the geological history). Then there was dinner at the restaurant—a great wall of glass built next to the natural volcanic stone, with a table for two right next to illuminated volcanic pools and a plate of Icelandic cod for the angel—and a quick change into suits before they went into the main pool.

Public baths were familiar to them both—they had been around since the moment humans had discovered the delights of warm water—but there was something mystical about hot springs. The vivid water, as opaque and blue as a settled fog. The mist that rose and danced in the air as wind whipped around them, eddying in the rocks and around bridges. The open air, cold and wet with rain against the heat of the water.

The pool was an expanse. The far borders were lost in the mist, and patrons drifted through the water in various masks: mostly white silica, ghostly, with their laughter and conversations muted by the open space. The resort provided towels and bathrobes, so the bridges around the pools were inhabited by patrons in white as well, exploring the intricate landscape of the baths.

Crowley and Aziraphale hung their robes on hooks outside and darted to the water, laughing. They had both slicked back their hair with conditioner—the salt and silica stuck and dried it out—and Aziraphale looked ridiculous, his characteristic curls stuck flat to his head.  Someone took someone’s hand and they ended up drifting like the dead in the water, looking up at the darkness and locked together, holding tightly, refusing to ever let go.

 -

Crowley washed his hair in the private shower of their suite. The conditioner had done little to protect it, despite the spa’s claims that it had been specially designed for the water here. He could just miracle back the keratin, but some deep-down part of him liked the feeling of Aziraphale seeing him as imperfect. He slathered it in a keratin treatment instead, slicking it back against his head, before drying off and wrapping up in a robe. He’d get some rest and in the morning—

The demon’s wandering train of thought was jolted off its track as he came into the bedroom. Aziraphale was sitting on the bed. The angel was wearing pyjamas, silk beige ones with a gold trim, which was a sight Crowley had not ever thought he’d see. His hair was frizzy with silica and salt. He looked nervous. He jumped when Crowley closed the bathroom door.

“Ah. Hello.”

“Hello,” said Crowley, waving his hand in Aziraphale’s general direction. You’re in my bed, the gesture said. This is a new turn of events, please tell me what is happening.

“Yes. Well. I thought perhaps—so much has happened, lately. So much has changed. I’m… I’m tired, I think.” Aziraphale swallowed. “I’m quite tired. And I’ve never been much good at…” At trusting anyone, the pause said. At relaxing enough to let my guard down. Relaxing invites attack. Relaxing means I cannot avoid conflict once I see it coming. “…At sleeping. I thought perhaps I’d try it.”

“Am I on the couch, then?” asked Crowley, perhaps a bit more snidely than he meant it. It wasn’t so much that he was opposed to seeing the angel in pyjamas. He just assumed, at this point, that it was part of the Agreement that he was entitled to any bed in a room they shared, and he’d been looking forward to this one.

He’d give up any bed in the world for Aziraphale, but that was beside the point.

“No,” said Aziraphale.

“Oh,” said Crowley, surprised.

It was utterly impossible to sleep. The bed was warm and soft, and the rain pattered outside in a gentle white noise. Crowley rolled over, restless, assuming he’d see Aziraphale as a knot of blankets with a little angelic cloud of hair sticking out. Not the case: Aziraphale had turned to look at him, too.

Their eyes met. Gold to blue. Crowley breathed.

“You’re not very good at this,” said Aziraphale. “I thought you’d be asleep by now.”

“Sometimes it’s difficult.”

“Clearly.”

“You’ve messed with my usual routine,” said Crowley. “I don’t usually have distracting angels in my bed.”

“Distracting?” Aziraphale’s voice was prim. “So sinful.”

Crowley hit him with a pillow.

 -

The second night was clearer, and the private lagoon that came with their suite produced less steam. Crowley, who was beginning to doubt that he would ever sleep again, floated in the water and watched the stars for a while. There was some small light pollution from the spa and a nearby geothermal plant, but for the most part the sky was clear, and he could see the galaxy.

Aziraphale joined him. Crowley hadn’t bothered with a suit—no one could see them here and he still felt a little weird dressing up to get in a bath. Neither had the angel. He laid back in the water and joined Crowley without a word.

Crowley pointed. “Helped build that one,” he said.

“I know,” said Aziraphale. He pointed at a nearby cluster. “And those. And most of the structures around Ursa Major, didn’t you?”

“You kept track?”

“It’s not hard,” said Aziraphale. “You tell me every time we go stargazing. We’ve done quite a lot of stargazing.”

Crowley laughed. “Humans say, when they get old, their friends know all their stories.”

“And their partners,” said Aziraphale, and then he seemed like he was going to say something else, but he hesitated.

Crowley elbowed him. “Why are you so nervous?”

“It’s my turn tomorrow,” said Aziraphale. “You’ll find out then.”

 -

It was New Year’s Eve. They didn’t leave early, not until the sun was up. They needed to arrive after dark, Aziraphale insisted, and the drive wasn’t too long.

Bullshit, in Crowley’s opinion. Not too long was about seven hours from the resort, at the speed limit and with no stops. They drove north, touched the edge of Reykjavik, then swung east on Route 1 and took the Ring Road into eternity. And Aziraphale kept stopping for nibbles and photo opportunities. They took a detour north because he simply had to see Þingvallir National Park, and then he kept taking pictures out of the car window rather than just waiting for the lookout points, and then there was this lovely little farm-to-table place in Reykholt where they had to stop for a late lunch. It had a stunning mountain view, although it also had views into the actual barn and Crowley felt a bit odd eating a hamburger next to its still-living friends.

“Is this the thing?” Crowley asked, every time they stopped. Þingvallir was spectacular, great sweeping hills absolutely spattered with snowcapped mountains and boiling, broken earth. The barn food was good. The landscape was beautiful. But each time, Aziraphale shook his head. He was stalling, the bastard. Wherever he wanted to be, Crowley suspected he wanted to be there at midnight.

It was eleven-thirty when Aziraphale told him to pull over into a nondescript parking lot. They were a third of the way around the Ring Road. They weren’t even close to a town. (Hof didn’t count, it had a total of six intersections and five roads.) It was as godforsaken as Crowley was, and that was saying something.

“Just pull in,” said Aziraphale. Crowley was grumpy and tired. “I promise you, it’s worth it.”

Crowley obeyed. Wherever they were, Aziraphale had dragged them to the ends of the earth for it. Demons trusted no one, but Crowley trusted his angel. Always.

They parked and Crowley stepped out onto black sand. It was gritty and volcanic and nothing special, exactly: it covered the entire island like a blanket. It even pooled up at the bottom of the hot springs. They hadn’t traveled all this way to see sand.

Crowley turned around.

It was a minor miracle, he was sure, that the sky was still so clear and the beach was so empty. They were the only sentient creatures present for miles, and the stars spilled above them in a shining display that was almost as clear as the day Crowley had made them. They looked like diamonds, spilled across a sky of black velvet. And in front of him, in this perfect place, the beach—

“Behind us—they call it Glacier Bay. It’s full of icebergs that break off from the glaciers, and they all exit the bay through that small opening there. They break up and smooth down in the ocean, then get caught in the tide and pulled back here.”

“Angel…”

“They call it Diamond Beach because the ice is so clear and smooth, and the broken ice looks like diamonds on the black sand. One of the employees at the bookshop in Edinburgh went here, they showed me pictures. They do look like diamonds, of course, but I saw the pictures and I thought it looked more like—”

“Stars,” Crowley breathed.

Some of the shards were the size of Crowley’s hand; some were the size of Crowley. They were scattered along the sand like glass on ink, like stars on the sky, like diamonds on velvet, and it was freezing but it was beautiful, and this time Crowley knew exactly whose hand reached for whose. He’d taken Aziraphale’s and grasped it tight.

“I thought we could go for a walk here,” said Aziraphale.

“You brought us to Iceland for a walk?” He’d already started, tugging the angel along behind him. Down the slope to the beach, careful not to slip. Aziraphale cleared his throat and caught up.

“One could put it that way.” The angel extracted his hand from the demon’s in favor of tucking into Crowley’s arm instead. He was clearly trying to be romantic, to cuddle a little, but he was too nervous and his back had gone stiff. Crowley kissed the top of the angel’s head.

“I saw it and it reminded me of you,” said Aziraphale, clearly trying to segue into something. “You helped make the stars. It’s silly, thinking you’re older than me. I wasn’t around yet, not for that part.”

“Didn’t think I was older than you.”

“Not by much.”

“Not by much,” Crowley mimicked in a posh accent. He was teasing. Time as a concept didn’t really apply to angels.

“Hush, you. It made me think, well. You talk about them so much, and I think it was a happy time for you. I hope it was a happy time for you.” Complicated topic. But Aziraphale was building up to something, and Crowley wasn’t going to stop him. “And because, well, because it seems like a memory of a safe place, something important to you—a beginning, really. Not our beginning, not The Beginning—oh dear, maybe I should have done this in a garden—”

“Angel.” Crowley laughed. The sand sunk under their footsteps and the ocean—pure Atlantic, powerful and deep—beat steadily in the background. “Keep going.”

“It just seemed like a good place to ask you a question, that’s all. I didn’t have a diamond. This isn’t very well thought-through.”

Crowley paused. There was a feeling like warmth spreading through his chest.

Aziraphale took the opportunity to let go of Crowley’s arm and turn to face him. They stood there, eyes locked, twin points of light and darkness in a line parallel to the ocean. The angel breathed deeply, and the demon forgot to breathe at all.

“I need you to know what it is that I am asking,” Aziraphale said. “I don’t… There’s so much of this, of our relationship, that I never want to change. I enjoy our independence. I will never stop you from running off to see Bond Films at the cinema or saying unforgiveable things to your plants. I know that over the years we have both developed—ah—close relationships with humans on occasion, and I do not expect that to stop for either of us. I think those relationships, whatever they might be, are important to us.”

“Aziraphale…”

“I think our freedom, however we use it, is important to our dynamic. I don’t want anything to change between us, except perhaps for each of us to… to know. Crowley—Anthony—earlier this year I said something truly horrible to you, and I need you to know it wasn’t true. It has never been true, not really. I’ve been lying to myself. I think I’ve been lying to myself for quite a long time.”

The angel took the demon’s hand.

“I am on our side. Anthony Crowley—”

“Anthony J. Crowley—” It was a reflex.

“Anthony J. Crowley, I have chosen you for six thousand years. I have done so bucking and—and fighting, on occasion. But I have done so. And I know that you’ve done the same to me. In fact—in fact, I think I’ve lied to myself more than you’ve ever lied to me.”

“I’ve never lied to you,” said Crowley, holding that hand like it was the end of the world.

“What I’m asking you,” said Aziraphale, “is simply to… make it official, as it were. Say to each other, directly, that we are on our side and no one else’s. That we will choose each other over all future sides. All future… er, choices. All future loves.”

He removed his signet ring.

“When I say marriage—”

Crowley finally broke down. He wasn’t sure if he was laughing at Aziraphale’s monologue—was this a proposal or a contract?—or crying at the sudden rush of emotion, but he closed one hand around the ring and the other around Aziraphale’s waist and kissed him. Kissed him under the stars and among the diamonds, hours away from civilization, at the stroke of midnight.

“Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes, you idiot, always yes.” Crowley’s hands cupped his angel’s face, drinking in the love that poured from Aziraphale like a fountain. “You’re right. I’ve always picked you above everything. Everyone. Always. Easy to be ourselves and still do that. It’s natural.”

Natural didn’t always mean easy—especially to Aziraphale, who could be loyal to a fault to all the wrong people. But they were free to be themselves. Free to live however they wanted. Free to choose each other. Crowley put the signet ring on his finger, already mentally sketching out a serpentine ring to match it.

This time it was Aziraphale who kissed him.