divinegastronomer

[bipolargreen]

Alright, we need some levity amidst all these heartbreak posts 💔😭

[gotholdladywithadhd]

Good Omens Song of the Day

I thought this was a Crowley Song but it is so obviously an Aziraphale song, I mean it's in the title innit?

"The strength I need to feel, the pride inside of me Are not there behind the face staring back at me The anger and the pain of knowing where I am I have come so far and I cannot return"

Oh my precious sweet muffin baby angel I love him so much

[shipaholic]

Omens Universe, Chapter 12 Part 1

This chapter was too long for one update but lacked an obvious mid-chapter break, so excuse the cutting off mid-scene that happened here :/

gonna break into a bookshop~

Link to next part at the end.

(From the beginning)

(last part)

(chrono)

---

Chapter 12

Aziraphale had not missed Crowley’s driving.

“Crowley, please! There’s a child in the backseat!”

“I didn’t want him here!”

Crowley took a corner on one wheel.

“Why doesn’t your car have seatbelts?” Adam called.

Aziraphale miracled him a seatbelt. He gave it a tartan pattern, to spite Crowley.

They had barrelled through central London and were just entering SoHo. They would be at the bookshop ahead of schedule. This was because Aziraphale had made the schedule naively banking on Crowley driving within the speed limit.

“So, uh.” Crowley coughed. “It’s definitely the bookshop we need, right?”

A tiny alarm bell of suspicion went off in Aziraphale’s mind. He glanced at Crowley. The demon’s face was studiously casual.

“There’s nowhere else you can… what are you planning to do, exactly?”

“Yes, it has to be the bookshop.” Aziraphale narrowed his eyes. “Why, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

Aziraphale stared at Crowley as if trying to x-ray him.

“It’s still there, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Crowley said quickly. “It is absolutely still there. Very… existent.”

Aziraphale left a suspicious pause, knowing Crowley would blurt something out to fill it.

“Michael runs it now. You know Michael. Tall, stern, loves a pompadour. We’ll have to get past her, that’s what I’m saying. She’s, ah. She and I have… had a few clashes. Over the years. Loves to thwart, does Michael.”

Aziraphale relaxed. He knew Michael had replaced him as Heaven’s agent on Earth. It made sense that Crowley would want to avoid her. She had always been exceptionally smitey.

“Well, don’t worry. I think we can evade Michael. We’ll have to be pretty speedy, but this shouldn’t take long.”

Crowley still looked tense. Aziraphale’s demeanor softened. “You’re frightened of her, eh?”

“Not as frightened as she’s about to be,” Crowley muttered.

Crowley found a set of double yellow lines on a back street and parked the Bentley on top of them. They shifted up one parking space to accommodate him, making the Jaguar at the end of the row retroactively illegally parked.

“Is there a reason we’re still five blocks away?” Aziraphale enquired.

Crowley pretended not to hear. He waved the other two out of the car. Assembled on the pavement, he and Aziraphale looked like they were overseeing a poorly attended field trip.

“OK, people. It’s breaking and entering time. Delicate operation ahead. If you see books, you’re in the right place, if you see an angel with a business-casual sort of vibe, hide behind a shelf or something.”

“Are you quite alright, Crowley?”

“Never better!” Crowley beckoned the other two closer. “Er, reckon we should go in with a miracle. The stockroom ok with you?”

Without waiting for an answer, he snapped his fingers.

They all got to enjoy the short-range teleport sensation of their insides arriving at their new location shortly after their outsides.[1] Aziraphale stumbled and clutched Crowley’s shoulder. Crowley felt as though he’d come to the end of the night, glanced at the wine label and realised he’d accidentally miracled the good stuff into cheap plonk rather than vice versa. Adam looked green. He held something in his arms. It was the old book the woman from earlier had left on the back seat. Crowley supposed it would work as camouflage or something.

He looked around.

This area of the bookshop was new to him. In Aziraphale’s day, the stockroom had been a carefully collated jumble sale, full of everything too precious or secret to allow anywhere near a customer. Aziraphale had jealously hoarded his books of prophecy and his Bible misprints here.

Now, it was… a void.

A white, featureless void.

Crowley couldn’t tell if they were in a room, or on some kind of astral plane. The whiteness was so absolute that he could distinguish no edges or corners. There seemed to be a floor and walls, but who knew where one joined up to the other. He rarely needed his sunglasses for their intended purpose, but right now he was glad of some relief from the blinding whiteness.

At intervals around the room(?) were towers of books. Someone had stacked them with mathematical neatness rather than the higgledy-piggledy effect that would arise despite best efforts if placed by human hands. They seemed to extend forever, passing through the point where the walls should be, stretching out like infinite reflections in two mirrors positioned face to face. Aziraphale’s books had been a treasure trove, lovingly curated. These books were a sterile display, assembled for their geometry rather than contents. Crowley wondered if the pages even had writing on them.

Aziraphale stared around and shuddered.

“I’ve had quite enough of that for one lifetime,” he said.

“Where are we?” said Adam.

“A pocket of Heaven.”

Aziraphale spotted the exit at the same time as Crowley. A short staircase - white - led up to a door that was also white. It was hard to spot when nothing cast a shadow. Aziraphale started towards it.

Crowley’s pulse leapt. It was still early in the evening, well within normal opening hours. He had a half-baked notion that if they could wait until the lights upstairs were off, he could hustle Aziraphale through this part of their journey without him noticing… well.

Aziraphale stopped, suddenly arrested by something.

“Oh, Crowley! It’s my books!”

Hidden behind a stack was a battered cardboard box. It was large enough to fit about eight paperbacks. Crowley came over and stood over it besides Aziraphale. When he looked down, he saw that the bottom of the box stretched down into a cavernous space. It was like a trapdoor to an entire hollowed-out mountain. Inside were heaps upon heaps of books.

Aziraphale looked dismayed. “Has she just dumped them all in here? No care at all, honestly. Some of these need to be in temperature-controlled cases. I don’t know what she’s playing at.”

Crowley suspected this bubble of liminal space was about as temperature-controlled as you could possibly get. If one were to distill the concept of neutrality, this room would be the result. He didn’t want to start an argument, so kept his thought to himself.

“The poor things. It’s so disrespectful.” Aziraphale tutted. “Maybe I should sneak a few with me…”

“Focus, angel.” Crowley couldn’t help grinning.

Adam ambled over. He wasn’t paying attention to his surroundings, which had exhausted their interest for him after five minutes. His nose was in the book he was lugging around. Crowley frowned at it. Aziraphale’s attention was still on the cardboard box. He slipped out a few books from the top of the pile. His gem glowed, and the books vanished inside it. Crowley spotted Mrs Beeton’s Guide to Household Management.

It seemed they were just hanging around, then. Crowley stuck his hands in his pockets.

“Mind letting me know the plan?” he said to Aziraphale. “Just to pass the time.”

“Oh! Certainly.”

Aziraphale fished out the watch on a chain from his waistcoat pocket and looked at it. Crowley rolled his eyes, indulgently. The watch had regenerated along with the rest of Aziraphale’s body. Presumably, it was for show and did not keep time.

“Right. The plan is to wait until closing time, and head on out to the main shop -”

“I was afraid you were going to say that,” Crowley sighed.

Aziraphale gave Crowley an eagle-eyed stare. “You’re being very peculiar. What’s the matter?”

“It’s nothing, honestly,” Crowley said hastily.

Aziraphale glared. His gaze slid from Crowley to Adam. “And what is that you’re reading?”

“Nothing,” said Adam.

“Will everyone please stop saying ‘nothing’?”

Adam was used to ignoring adults. He continued to read. He wasn’t normally a big reader, but this book was his favourite kind: a lot of it seemed to be about him.[2] He turned a page.

Aziraphale sighed. He turned towards the door. He listened intently.

“I don’t sense Michael in the other room…”

He tiptoed up the steps and pressed his ear to the door. He slowly turned the knob. The door opened, soundlessly.

It was surreal to see a window to a real place open up from inside the Heavenly void. A normal-looking bookshop lay beyond, dim and empty.

“She’s closed up early,” Aziraphale whispered.

Before Crowley could stop him, he stepped through and into the main shop.

“Oh Chr - crumbs,” he muttered, and followed.

He was hot on Aziraphale’s heels when the angel twigged something was very, very wrong. Crowley nearly ran into the back of him between the neatly arranged shelves.

Aziraphale revolved, slowly. His uncomprehending gaze flitted from the shelves of books set out in logical order, to the displays of mascot-friendly soft toys, to the table of board games all priced at £55 each.

“What,” he said.

“Er,” Crowley said, desperately.

Aziraphale turned to him. His face was full of distant, dawning horror. It was the face of a person who has just discovered a loved one has been body snatched.

“Crowley, what has happened to my shop?”

“It’saWaterstones,” Crowley garbled, ripping off the bandaid.

A distressed sound came from Aziraphale’s open mouth.

“Waterstones are all right,” said Adam, utterly failing to read the room. “They’ve got a café upstairs.” He looked wistful. It had been a long time since his birthday cake.

Something in the air turned. It smelled sickly sweet and made the back of Crowley’s throat tight and cold.

“Aziraphale,” he said, urgently.

Aziraphale’s eyes were lost and bewildered.

“D’you think the café’s open?” Adam asked.

Footsteps sounded on the stairs to the first floor. Calm, measured steps, with a sensible heel.

“I wasn’t aware I should be expecting guests,” came a managerial sort of voice.

Crowley looked up. The Archangel Michael stood on the staircase. She was holding a muffin.

“I rather assumed your side was making preparations for the oncoming destruction of the Earth.” The blue of Michael’s eyes cut through the dimness of the shop. “I take it this is not a social call?”

She’d eaten a few bites of the muffin without spilling a single crumb on her suit jacket, cravat, or enormous lace sleeves. She snapped her fingers to miracle the rest of it away.

Crowley was getting desperate. Aziraphale seemed to be in a kind of fugue state, which meant getting out of here with their skins intact would be down to him. His track record versus Michael was not good.

“Let’s see what we have here. The demon Crowley. How’s the arm?”

A pinprick of wriggling discomfort ran all along Crowley’s arm, under the glove. He resisted the urge to grip it with his left hand.

“The Principality Aziraphale. I was not aware you had clearance to return to Earth. Can you explain this unauthorised visit?”

Aziraphale was silent. Crowley’s eyes hunted for an escape.

Michael took in Adam from a distance. Her eyes flicked from his trainers to his t-shirt to his shorn head. Her eyes went very wide when she saw the horn jutting out through his close-cropped hair.

“Oh Lord, it’s the Antichrist.”

The aura of smugness vanished. If Michael had still been holding the muffin, she would have dropped it. Her head jerked back to Crowley.

“What are you doing here?” Wariness crept into her voice.

Crowley felt Aziraphale stir. He turned towards Michael by inches. There was a hum in the surrounding air. Crowley thought he heard wind whistling.

He looked at the being he loved most in the world and gulped.

The slightly foxed, kindly bookseller facade had fallen away. There were tempests in Aziraphale’s eyes. He looked like an occult entity with a berserk button that had been decisively pressed. Phrases Crowley would never have thought to apply, like ‘eldritch abomination’, now seemed exceedingly applicable. A black glow suffused him, as though light didn’t work properly in his vicinity any more. The shop’s lights flickered above his head. On a metaphysical plane, hundreds of eyes flicked open.

“Michael. I believe you’ve been responsible for my shop.”

---

[1] Which is preferable to the other way around. It’s also tidier.

[2] The part he was on heavily referred to his companions, a ‘devil’ and ‘angel’. Adam assumed this was Agnes Nutter’s 17th century conception of aliens: devils because they were scary, angels because they came from space. Had he explained his reasoning, Aziraphale would have been waspish in the extreme towards whoever had been in charge of the boy’s religious education.

(link to next part)

[overcastcat]

Day Two: Snow

Here’s my contribution to @drawlight ‘s 31 Days of Ineffables Challenge. The prompt was snow. Read my ficlet below the cut, or read on AO3.

Snow. Aziraphale knows, he’s known for millenia, that snow slows Crowley down. 

He’s a serpent after all. Being a demon with a coldblooded form can’t be enjoyable in the winter months. He thought that this much snow would never fall on London again, what with all Adam’s been telling him about the icecaps and the Earth’s global temperature skyrocketing, but here they are with about 12 cm of it. I suppose miracles must happen occaisionally. Aziraphale reached into his pocket and extracted his small mobile (which he does know how to use, thank you very much), and set to typing at a steady crawl. 

Text Message

Thursday 1:32 PM

Are you on your way, dear? 

Read 1:32 PM 

yeah. i’ll be around by 2, i’ve got errands. grabbing muffins, there’s a sale at the nearby place (the soho one).

Thank you Crowley. Drive safely.

Read 1:33 PM

no worries love, i’ll keep it below 90 :P. you like the raspberry kind, right? with the icing sugar all over? dunno how you can stomach all that sugar, i always end up choking on it.

Aziraphale lips curled into a satisfied smirk. Crowley calling him “love” was a recent development that still caught him pleasantly by surprise, no matter how many times a day he heard it.

I’m happy with anything from there, but yes, the raspberry ones are the best by leaps and bounds.         

Read 1:35 PM

alright angel. raspberry it is.

It was 2 o’clock, and Aziraphale was growing a bit impatient. Crowley always got to the bookshop earlier than he’d predict, especially on days when they hadn’t seen each other, or spent the night before at the other’s place. He wrung his hands and debated going out to look for him, but firmly decided against it. There was no use being a worrywort over Crowley, he could more than take care of himself. Besides, the roads are slick, he’s probably just caught up in traffic. Hopefully whatever accident he’s stuck behind isn’t too serious.

Aziraphale set out the tea and curled up with his favorite copy of The Picture of Dorian Grey, hoping he wouldn’t apear overeager when Crowley saw how his chair faced the door.

Text Message

Thursday 2:21 PM

My dear, are you alright? Are you caught up in traffic? Please take care, you know how cross you get whenever your Bentley gets nicked.

Sent 2:21 PM

Crowley, I’m starting to worry. Where have you been? I know traffic must be terrible, but surely you could miracle yourself here if it’s this bad?

Sent 2:26 PM

Crowley, are you alright?

Sent 2:32 PM

Crowley?

Sent 2:34 PM

Crowley?

Sent 2:37 PM

It was becoming exceedingly difficult to reassure himself. As the clock ticked down to 2:41, he grabbed his overcoat, laced up his sturdiest pair of shoes, and hastily threw on his thickest wool scarf. Once Aziraphale had crossed the threshold, the wind sent a flurry of snow through his door and into his face. It was snowing even harder than before. He roughly brushed it away, and miracled himself to Crumbs and Doilies.

The Bentley was parked outside. He pushed into the bakery, ignoring the annoyingly cheerful bell on the door. He was hoping to see or sense Crowley’s comfortingly familiar presence somewhere, but there was no sign of him in the entire shop. It was as if the demon had never been there at all. There was, however, a faint trace of of spring rainfall and thunder in the air. It’s almost as if… oh, God.

Aziraphale ran back through the door, nearly leveling a couple of tourists in his wake as he sprinted along the trail of angelic signature still hanging in the air. He was beginning to pick up Crowley’s presence, too, the earthy smell of soil and vintage wine with the barest hint of brimstone. Why couldn’t they come after me? I mucked up their precious war! The invisible tracks led him into increasingly dark alleys and sidestreets. The angelic trace grew stronger as Crowley’s grew increasingly fresh. 

Finally, he came upon a dead end, with a small, golden leaf of paper lying at his feet. It said, in the neatest caligraphy Heaven had to offer, “To Aziraphale, courtesy of the Archangels”. Hardly daring to look up, his eyes met with starry black essence swirling with red blood. 

He’d Crowley waiting in the snow with Death’s infinite patience.

His presence was fading. There were traces of it, sure, but Crowley had gone long before Aziraphale had arrived. There was nothing left now but his broken corporation sitting in a pool of it’s own blood. Whatever they’d done, they’d done it to inflict the most pain imagineable. What was once the body of a beautifully sauntering demon was now a contorted husk that didn’t even resemble the original. There wasn’t enough of Crowley left to hold, so Aziraphale held himself and sank to his knees, waiting for God to take him away from this new nightmare of an existance.

Snow. That’s all that Aziraphale could see: snow clouding his vision in a blinding sheet of white. His eyes hurt, and he’s not sure how long he’s been sitting here, shuddering with cold and tears. It’s better than looking at what lies in front of him. It’s as bright as the surface of the sun, burning through his tears until all that’s left is a blank slate for his howling, raging grief to paint red.