#crowley takes a really long nap

[calcifiedunderland]

The Prefect’s Kiss~!

—When a Night Raven College housewarden falls under the Sleeping Curse, only one person can wake them up.

Leona Kingscholar, Vil Schoenheit, Idia Shroud, Malleus Draconia x gn! Reader

Riddle, Azul, Kalim ver.

“Oh! How terrible! Oh woe is me! How could this happen?!”

Crowley wailed at the news, sobbing fake tears beneath his mask. “What will I tell the parents?! The press?! How will I be able to afford vacation- I MEAN funding for my wonderful students?!”

Crewel rolled his eyes. He’d actually feel sorry for the Headmage if he was actually crying tears. The tissue clutched in Crowley’s fist was still dry.

Trein sighed, “this is the antidote recipe for Sleeping Death. Although, the materials are extremely hard to come by.” Crewel scanned the paper, noting the ingredients. “The recipe is possible, although they are quite expensive.” Crowley cringed, “how much will it be?” He screeched at the amount Trein said.

Meanwhile, Crewel muttered to himself. “The only other option is possibly true love’s kiss.” He looked up, “well, I’ll get the ingredients first thing in the-“ He stopped. Where Crowley was standing, was now a few black feathers fluttering down to the carpet. Crewel’s face fell, “oh no…”

In Ramshackle dorm, the Headmage chuckled nervously, sweating. You stared in disbelief, “I… honestly can’t believe that happened?” You were beyond shocked to hear that a Housewarden of all students had been knocked out with Sleeping Death. Crowley nodded wisely, “And I have decided to generously ask you to do the honors!”

“Huh?!” You stared incredulously at the Headmage as he ushered you out the door. He looked cheerful, “ah, aren’t I so gracious? I’m reuniting you with your true love!” You stared at him, jaw dropped, “HUH?!”

Leona Kingscholar

💛 “Are you sure he’s under a sleeping curse?” you asked, before Crowley shoved you through the Savanaclaw mirror without a second thought. You were left with more questions than answers. Namely, could you actually be his true love? It wasn’t like Leona really showed a lot of affection to anybody really. Sure, he didn’t chase you away when you bothered him in the greenhouse. And you supposed that he did help you a lot on your homework, even though he grumbled under his breath.

💛 Your own crush on Leona was painfully obvious. Sometimes you’d go out of your way to the greenhouses, or take some tasks from Ruggie to deliver things to him. You tried to keep your feelings in check. Despite his laid-back attitude and nonchalance, he was still a prince. And you were just a herbivore, as he always reminded you. Too bad you’d pout and look away every time - otherwise, you’d notice the soft look on his face when he called you that nickname.

💛 As you walked through the common room, you saw how panicked Jack looked, tail thumping against his legs. Ruggie lead you to Leona’s room without a single joke or clever comment, You noted how agitated he looked - his hair was a mess from running his hands through it.

💛 To be honest, if you didn’t know otherwise, you would’ve thought Leona was fine. But the moment you stepped foot into his room, you didn’t hear Leona’s light snores or see his chest moving as he breathed. He was completely still.

Sunlight streamed in, catching on Leona’s hair. You brushed some of it aside, thumbing one of his braids absently, “how long has he been like this?”

Ruggie sighed heavily, carding a hand in his disheveled hair. “Not sure. We… we all thought he was just napping.” He swallowed thickly, “just… get me if you need me. I have to wash his laundry.” You watched as Ruggie hefted a basket and left. Your attention went back to Leona.

“You’ve got everybody so worked up,” You bit your lip, surprising yourself as your eyes began welling up. “You’d probably think it’s funny. But I…” You gulped. “…miss you.”

You took a deep breath and softly slotted your lips against his. For an agonizing moment you thought it didn’t work. Until Leona groaned. “Hhh- hmm?” You pulled away quickly.

Leona’s ears twitched, and you felt yourself grow flustered when you made eye contact. You gawked, “I-it worked?” He shifted upright, giving you a lazy smirk. “Huh, never took you for the romantic type, Prefect. You went straight for True Love’s Kiss.”

You felt your face grow hot, but you couldn’t find it in you to feel embarrassed. Relief filled you, and you felt yourself relax as Leona loosely wrapped you in his arms. “Yeah whatever, you lazy lion.”

His hand reached up to cup your cheek, thumb brushing away a tear. He brought his forehead to yours with a soft grin, “Ha, you really are just a herbivore,” he said fondly.

Vil Schoenheit

💜 The moment Rook burst into your dorm, Crowley suddenly vanished. Before you could react, Rook was already leading you down to the Mirrors, bringing you up to speed on what happened. The nervousness didn’t really set in until Rook began singing when you entered the dorm, “finally! Le Roi du Poison’s savior has arrived!”

💜 Apparently, Vil thought he was drinking apple juice from the fridge, but it was actually Epel’s mislabeled draught that he made as his potion. Oh how the tables had turned. At least Epel knew it worked. Task failed successfully?

💜 Everything you learned in Crewel’s class about Sleeping Death was swirling in your head. True Love was no small thing. Especially when it came to Vil. It didn’t matter that he seemed to soften whenever he looked at you, or that he paid extra attention to how you carried yourself. Or how often he had ‘extra’ beauty products and clothes that just happened to be your size.

💜 Epel was looked dejected when you saw him, and looked away from you. Rook solemnly led you to Vil’s room, and bowed as he opened the door “True love will prevail, mon cher trickster! I have no doubt in your abilities!” Thanks Rook, you’re not helping. Look, (Y/N) is even more nervous now.

Even in sleep, Vil looked picture perfect. You quietly padded into his room, perching softly next to him. He laid on his back, and hands were clasped over his torso. It looked like a scene out of a movie, you thought.

You gently brushed some hair out of Vil’s face, “it’s so unlike you to make careless mistakes,” you said out loud. Silence hung in the air. “Even Epel wants you back, y’know.” You frowned, pursing your lips.

“I… I really hope this works,” your voice cracked. You didn’t know what you’d do if it didn’t. You never thought you’d actually kiss a celebrity, let alone Vil, but somehow you were here. “Please don’t be too mad at me if… when you wake up.”

You took a deep breath and softly kissed him. You gasped and pulled away when you heard him breathe deeply, and Vil’s eyes fluttered open. “Prefect? What are you doing here?” Vil sat up and you felt your mouth grow dry.

You rushed out, “you were under Sleeping Death, and Rook brought me here-!” Vil shushed you gently, “so, you gave me True Love’s Kiss as the antidote?” You nodded hesitantly. Vil gazed at you, looking thoughtful.

He took your chin, looking at your mouth. “Hmm, it seems your chapstick wore off. No matter, you can use mine.” You were about to thank him when he snatched a tube of balm off his nightstand. You watched, dumbfounded, as he applied it to his own lips before capping it.

“This formula is my own blend,” he said casually before looking back at you with a glint in his eye, “and I’ve been wanting to test how it transfers.” He put a finger under your chin, tilting your head so you’d look at him. He had a soft, fond smirk, “you’ll help me, won’t you?”

Idia Shroud

🩵 Halfway through Crowley’s speech about True Love, Ortho burst through Ramshackle and began dragging you to Ignihyde. You probably would’ve been upset at the intrusion (and the bill to fix the door), but the robot boy looked so devastated. “You have to save big brother!”

🩵 Apparently, Idia thought he was mixing energy drinks together but he ended up putting Sleeping Death in his drink. Through Ortho’s explanation, Idia was pregaming for an all nighter of farming for the new SSR he pulled, and put the wrong drink in his exhausted-gambling-victory haze. You couldn’t say you were surprised. One of the things you liked about Idia was how passionate he could get.

🩵 Whether it was gaming, tech, or programming, it was always a treat to get Ignihyde’s resident shut-in to talk to you, the ends of his hair turning blush pink. Whenever you visited, Idia always had your favorite snacks and drinks. It came to a point where he had a whole gaming setup made for you, with your own chair and headset.

🩵 The two of you would spend hours gaming, taking the occasional break to watch anime or do snack runs. Idia always seemed a little more inclined to get out of his room if it was with you. During those times, Ortho seemed to hum with excitement. Some days, Idia even lent you one of his hoodies after you begged. Now, the lights of Idia’s screens were off, and the room felt even colder.

The only lights in the room were Idia’s and Ortho’s hair, glowing a soft blue in the dark. Ortho hovered anxiously as you walked to Idia. His hair illuminated his face, and he looked almost like a marble statue.

You suddenly realized how long you’d been staring at him, and became aware of Ortho when you heard his joints clinking nervously. “Hey, Ortho,” you said soothingly, “could you wait outside for me? It’ll just be for a few minutes. I’ll do my best to help.” You tried to smile like you had everything under control, but as Ortho left, you suddenly felt the weight of the situation.

Like a moth to a flame, your attention drifted back to Idia. The light from his hair softly cast a blue glow on him, and you sighed softly. You brushed your thumb against Idia’s cheek, moving your face closer to his. “Please wake up,” you pursed your lips, “for Ortho. For… for me.” Softly you pressed your lips against his.

You pulled away with a small gasp, inches apart. Idia breathed in deeply, face scrunching up. His eyes slowly opened, blinking blearily. “H-huh? Prefect?!” Immediately, Idia’s hair whooshed in dark blue flames tipped with scarlet, “What are you doing so close to my face?!” You pulled back immediately, eyes wide.

Ortho zoomed back into the room, “I sensed movement! Big brother! You’re awake!~” Ortho looked up at you innocently, “it looks like you’re his True Love after all!” Idia stared at you for a second, then his hair turned dark pink. “Wh-WHAT?!” The room suddenly felt several degrees hotter. Or maybe that was just your flustered face. Still, Idia’s nervousness lessened when he saw your eyes shine at Ortho’s words.

“S-so, uh…” Idia chewed his lip, “do you wanna stay over tonight?” Ortho looked excited, “do you want to stay forever?” Idia choked, “Ack- ORTHO!”

Malleus Draconia

💚 Saying you were shocked was an understatement. You couldn’t believe that the Malleus Draconia was under a sleeping curse, and you ran to Diasomnia before the Headmage could finish speaking.

💚 You’d thought it was strange that he didn’t show up last night. As per tradition, you’d wait up for him each night and the two of you would walk the grounds, enjoying each other’s company. Sometimes, Malleus would do small magic tricks - summoning balls of light, fireflies, even conjuring some thornless crimson roses and tucking them behind your ears.

💚 You began to look forward to seeing him. You’d watch in awe with your eyes sparkling, and Malleus couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this euphoric. And it was all thanks to you. So he’d try to show it through gifts. A dragon never parts easily with their treasures, but at this point, Ramshackle seemed like his second hoard. Though secretly, you were the most precious jewel there.

💚 When you got there, you saw Sebek wailing and Silver with a panicked look outside of Malleus’ room. “We’ve failed our duty! My Liege!” Sebek nearly broke your eardrums but you couldn’t find it in your heart to hush him. Silver nodded to you solemnly, and let you in the room. Lilia was with Malleus alone. You approached them silently, never taking your eyes off Malleus.

“How did this happen?” You whispered, sitting on the other side of the bed. . Lilia sighed, patting Malleus’ hands, “I’m not sure. He simply went to bed, and…” You bit your lip, feeling your eyes well up.

Lilia watched you carefully, frowning. “Did the Headmage tell you it was Sleeping Death?” You nodded, “h-he said I was…” you swallowed, “he said I could help.” You badly wanted to help.

You sniffled, tears running down your eyes onto Malleus’ cheeks. You whispered “Tsunotarou… you have to wake up,” before pressing your lips to his. You felt the slow rise and fall of his chest, and you slowly pulled away, hopeful. To your dismay, he stayed still, and you choked a sob, shoving your face into Lilia’s shoulder. “Try again, he should wake up soon” he whispered, patting you gently. You slotted your lips on Malleus’ again, closing your eyes.

You weren’t sure how long you were there. At last, Malleus stirred awake, and you pulled away with a gasp. He blinked twice, before realizing you were there. The small smile he gave you made your insides melt, “Child of Man,” he breathed, “to what do I owe this kiss to awaken me?” You sniffled, laughing as Malleus’ hand wiped away the last of your tears.

“I-I thought you weren’t going to wake up,” you wavered, “they told me I had to kiss you awake.” You weren’t completely coherent as you threw yourself on him, making him fall back into the mattress as you clutched him. He rubbed your back softly, hushing you. “Thank you,” he murmured, “this means more to me than you know.”

You sighed, relaxing against him. Slowly, you felt your eyelids grow heavy as the stress of the day wore on you. As you drifted off to sleep, Lilia watched you both with a small smile. “You know Malleus, they were worried about you. And Silver and Sebek were, too.” Lilia suddenly had a small mischievous smile, “perhaps I should use my electric guitar on you, like when I try to wake Silver?”

Malleus hummed as he held your sleeping form, “well, I suppose my ‘Power Nap,’ as you call it, did last longer than the average hour.”

———

Last part is up!!! Hope you enjoyed this is mini-series 😄

Comments, reblogs, and likes are forever appreciated!! Take care shrimpies~~

Xoxo Calci

[rainyyynightssss]

Twisted Wonderland

Reacting to you trying to go back home

Characters: Overblotters

Notes: Yandere/Toxic themes involved

"Crowley thinks he might've found a way for me to get back home!"

Riddle Rosehearts

He looks at your smiling face and something in him breaks. He should be happy for you, he really should. This is what you had wanted from the beginning. To see your family and friends. To be free of magic and almost getting killed by overblots.

But you should've been happy here. He'd order his card soldiers to keep the rose garden in prim condition for you to gaze upon whenever you visited. The birthday parties always included a dish you liked. You got along well with Trey and Cater. Sure, Riddle was strict with his rules, but he grew more lenient with you. Surely, you could see that.

"That's wonderful news. And you're...happy to leave?" He tries not to let his voice crack as he grips one of the legs of the table they had just used to share dinner together. Apparently for the last time.

"Of course, I'll be happy to see everyone back home. It is a bittersweet feeling though. I'll miss you all." He chooses to ignore the 'all' part of your phrasing for a moment. You'd miss him and isn't that enough reason not to go?

"We'd all miss you as well....I, especially,-"

"But I think it'll be good for me to go and be back with my family, you know?" You add and he tenses again. He knows well how important family could be, and he also knows how burdensome they are. His mother forced him to adhere to strict guidelines, and while it shaped him into the respected house warden he is today, it also made him afraid. Terrified, even, that everything would go wrong if the rules were not followed.

Perhaps that's what you needed. A healthy dosage of fear and some rules to keep you in line. You were his perfect rose, blooming and unblemished. You had always managed to drag him away when he got too deep in his studies and talked him down when his face became as red as the flowers in his garden. But now your edges have grown frayed. You're trying to go back to your roots but he'd rip you out of the ground, thorns and all, to keep that from happening.

"Right. Well, it's gotten quite late and it wouldn't be proper for you to walk back to Ramshackle this late at night." He sensed your confusion even before you could voice it. You've taken plenty of late-night walks before and this would hardly be on the top list of most dangerous things you've done at the school.

"I can walk back-"

"I insist. I couldn't let you go...to your dorm! This late." Riddle shakes his head and covers his blushing face with a hand as he stands up from the table. "I have a room for you. If you'll take it?" He offers his hand to you, hoping you will miss the small trembles.

You smile at him again and take his hand, sending warmth even through his gloves.

"Just for tonight." You nod. Riddle gives you a small, though tight at the ends. His rose didn't need to know about the details of their stay, only that it was going to last longer than they thought.

"Of course. Although I must make sure you have an adequate stay. Rules indicate that guests should have the most hospitable experience, no matter how long that takes to fulfill." Riddle answers with ease and you see nothing wrong with it. His rose would blossom even more under his careful watch.

Leona Kingscholar

"And?"

The notion of you leaving was laughable to him. You had already managed to barge your way into his life, ruining his plans at the Spelldrive competition, ruining his nap routines, and ruining his pride as a prince. And he wouldn't have it any other way. Though the latter is still mostly kept intact.

You look at him, seemingly flabbergasted by his dismissal.

"And...that means I'll likely be leaving soon." You tell him. He sees your small frown. You must think he doesn't care that you're leaving. But it was quite the opposite. As much as he would never admit it to himself, he cares so much that he denies any possibility of it happening. He knows you don't actually want to leave.

Leona watches you sit up from his bed that both of you had been lying in for the past few hours. He grasps your wrist before it can leave the sheets. His grip is tighter than usual. Leona had always been like that. He demanded respect and expected you to follow. You, of course, were not so willingly submissive to him but that made it all the more fun for him to make you.

"Ruggie isn't going to be back 'till later tonight. I've got more sleep to catch up on. Especially after you bothered me last night." Leona tugs your wrist to bring you back closer to him while he rests his other arm under his head.  Last night you had came to him, clearly anxious about something and didn't want to be alone. Anyone else he would have turned away with a scoff, but he's found over time that he has a hard time refusing you. As long as it didn't involve you trying to run away from him.

"Are you even listening to me?" You narrow your eyes at him and he smirks.

"I have and it sounds like a buncha nonsense. Go back to sleep and maybe you'll forget your dumb ideas in the morning." Leona grumbles and pulls you to his chest. He hears you huff but you don't resist, lying back down beside him. He doesn't know exactly why you're having these kinds of thoughts but it doesn't really matter to him. If you want to run, he is glad to give his precious prey a chase.

Azul Ashengrotto

Azul's hands freeze in the air, his fork and knife about to cut into the juicy salmon that had been plated beautifully in front of him. He glances up at you, his smile also frozen on his face, as you were just talking about how much you enjoyed Night Raven College and the Mostro Lounge. All until you abruptly switched to this topic he thought he was doing a good job at evading.

"Ah, isn't that...delightful?" His words would have come off as calm to anyone else, but you notice the slight strain in his voice. You always seem to see right through him.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you-"

"Upset me? No, quite the contrary. I think it's wonderful the headmaster has finally secured your passage back home." Azul muses and goes back to cutting his salmon, though it's obvious that his cuts are a bit more jagged.

"Yes... he said it could be any day now." You respond carefully. You try to offer him a smile as you take another sip of the drink he gave you on the house. He could see the small ounce of hope in your eyes of going back to your world. That wouldn't do.

"Is that so?" Azul takes a bite of his food, swallowing before adding, "It's really too bad you won't be able to go then." He continues eating, ignoring your confused eyes as if he didn't just say the strangest thing.

"Why wouldn't I be able to go?" You ask slowly. "I mean, the transportation might be difficult but-"

"It has been a while so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised you forgot." Azul sighs and dabs his face free of any smudges with his napkin. "You may not step out of the bounds of Night Raven College by any means, including the Dark Mirror."

"According to who?" You let out a disbelieving laugh.

"According to Article 3 Section 5 of the contract you signed." Azul takes another bite of the salmon, not letting himself react when you slam a hand on the table.

"What contract?! I never signed anything!" You snapped. He remains as calm as ever. This time, you couldn't read him, couldn't even see his eyes through the glint in his glasses.

"You must remember when you agreed to work in the Mostro Lounge for a couple months. I had you sign an employment contract. I warned you about reading it through to the end. A suggestion I don't give to most poor, unfortunate souls in this school." Azul answers.

He did indeed give you the small packet to look through and recommended reading it all. It wasn't his fault that Floyd made a commotion in the kitchen just as you started reading the end portion. Azul urged you to sign it while he dealt with the mess that Floyd undoubtedly caused and you did, just missing the statement that required you to be on-call even after your employment ended, and being on-call meant you always had to be within a certain range of the lounge.

"You can't be serious." You utter quietly with wide eyes, realizing exactly what he was talking about.

"I'm afraid I am. But don't fret too much. I think you'll come to like it here." Azul smiles again. A smile that's hardly recognizable.

He watches you jump up from the table and storm out of the lounge, passing confused customers who glance back at him. He takes a drink from his glass. Azul isn't worried about you walking out. You couldn't leave here, leave him, anyway. And if you tried to hide from him, he would just send Jade and Floyd to hunt you down. You have become one of his prized possessions, and he isn't going to let you go that easily.

Jamil Viper

"Really? It's about time." Jamil comments as he starts chopping the vegetables you prepared in a bowl.

He had invited you to try some new recipes with him that he'd then distribute to the Scarabia students. For the past few months, you had been inviting yourself into their kitchen, much to Jamil's annoyance. You always offered to help him and he always declined, especially when it came to Kalim's meals. He was not going to lose his job over a pretty face. You respected his refusals but you still liked to watch him for some odd reason. Today, he finally decided to let you help him.

He appears to be half paying attention to your words while you're stirring the stew. "Haven't you been waiting a while?"

"I have. Crowley's been pushing off researching but I finally made him go through with it!" You look quite proud of yourself and if Jamil wasn't so irritated, he might have thought it was cute.

He simply hums in response and continues swiping his blade through the onion, each cut sharper than the next. He should be fine with you leaving. People come and go, after all. It would make things easier for him as well. He would stop getting distracted so easily, riddling his fingers with knicks from the blade when his thoughts drifted off to you.

"Kalim also promised to help me pack my stuff. He's eager for me to see my family." He sees you smile absentmindedly as you stir. Jamil's hand clenches tighter on the knife.

"Of course he did." He mutters to himself. Kalim got everything we wanted, didn't he? He got the wins, the praise, the Housewarden title. And now he was going to send you off. Jamil bet he was even encouraging you to go and like always, Jamil would just have to accept it. Only this time, he wouldn't. Jamil never got anything he could have to himself, always having to share with Kalim. You would be the one thing he could keep just for him.

"That reminds me, I needed to ask you something," Jamil says and you look back at him. He takes a step closer to you and leans forward, whispering the name of his unique magic. His lips widen into a smirk as he watches your irises fade to red.

"You'll be staying here, won't you?"

Vil Schoenheit

He raises a perfectly trimmed eyebrow as he works to pluck yours with tweezers.

"Hm? That's not the line, darling," Vil says. In your hands is the large packet of paper that contains Vil's script for his upcoming film. He had asked you to practice lines with him. You agreed and in exchange, you asked him to put some makeup on you. It was something he's been wanting to do anyway so he obliged. All was going well until you dropped this bombshell on him.

"I know, I was trying to figure out how to tell you and I accidentally just blurted it out," You sigh.

"Mhm. And Crowley has- Close your eyes, now - provided a way for you to get back home safely?" Vil asks as he moves on to your eyes, brushing an eye shadow across your lids that matches your skin.

"I don't know if anything about that man is safe, per say, but he did seem pretty confident about this." You respond as you keep your eyes closed for him. Vil shakes his head with a small 'tut'. The headmaster didn't exactly have a track record for reliability. He voiced exactly this to you.

"Crowley may just end up sending you on a one-way ride to nowhere. There's no telling where he could send you, why not wait for a few trial runs?" He places a hand under your chin. "And besides, why do you need to go home so badly?" Vil puts the palette back down and takes a tube of lipstick in his hand.

"Well, I want to see my fam-" You're forced to stop talking until he finishes applying the lipstick, "I want to see my family and finish everything I had going on there."

"If that's the case, I don't see what you could do back home that you're unable to here. And if you want to see your family, shouldn't you make sure your travel is safe so you can get back to them in the first place?" Vil questions as he wipes the small smudge of lipstick from the bottom of your lip with his thumb.

"That's...true." You nod reluctantly. Vil smirks a bit as he moves his hand towards the back of your neck, his thumb tilting your head up so you can look at him properly.

"Correct. And if I'm not mistaken, you've built quite the life here, haven't you?" He watches you slowly nod and he soothes the back of your neck with gentle fingers.

"You really want to throw that all away?" Vil looks down at you with questioning eyes even though he already knows the answer. You shake your head.

"No...but I also know that's something I'll have to do if I want to go home." You tell him firmly. Vil lets out a sigh and turns away from you for a moment.

"If you say so, but at least let me leave you with a parting gift." He turns back towards you and presents a small perfume bottle with a fancy font across the lid that you can hardly. It would no doubt cost hundreds in the market.

"My own creation that I've been working on. You're the first to have it." Vil says as he hands it over. You take it with a bright smile.

"Thank you! I'll try it on as soon as I get back to Ramshackle." You respond excitedly as you move to stand up from his makeup chair but he places a gentle hand on your wrist.

"I'd like to hear your critique as soon as possible. You are my perfect model, after all." He says with a glint in his eyes. You didn't seem to have any problem with that and sprayed a few spritz of the perfume on yourself, promptly passing out in the chair. You would get it through your head eventually that you belong here. You just need a little more convincing.

Idia Shroud

"Hold up, what?"

Your sudden words caused him to press the wrong button and his character gets brutally killed by one of the forest monsters in the game. You wince and put down your controller, turning towards him on his remarkably soft couch.

"Yeah...sorry to tell you so late but it looks like it could be soon." You say and Idia tosses his controller to the side, facing you as well.

"So you're gonna go? Just like that?" He asks in shock. You only recently just started playing video games with him in his room. Before, you had to practically beg him just to play a game with you when you were both in different dorms. It took a lot of convincing but he soon gave in after some persuasion from his brother. Once, you showed up to his room to see if you could play in person and he stared at you with wide eyes for about five seconds before slamming the door in your face, apologizing later over text.

He was unbearably anxious around you at first but he got used to the idea that you wouldn't judge him so easily. So he showed you another side, his more competitive and ill-mannered side to see if that would make you go away. And you still didn't. You instead embraced him for it. So why now were you just going to forget about all that?

"I-I mean I have to," You were clearly caught off guard by the intense look in his eyes, "I have a home and a family and friends-"

"Yeah, yeah, sure but what about everything you have here?" Idia insists.

"Everything I have here?" You ask.

"Y-Yeah, those first years, Grim, your dorm, me- many other things!" He stammers out. It would be way too cringe to mention himself deep down he hopes he's one of the things that could keep you here.

"Of course I'll miss everyone, but I miss everyone back home too," You say. Idia sighs deeply as he throws his head back on the couch.

"You're reallly set on this, huh?" Idia asks. You bite your lip and nod.

"But I still-" You try to add but he cuts you off.

"No, I get it. I wouldn't wanna be around me either." Idia sighs again. You look at him with wide eyes and fervently shake your head.

"No, it's not like-"

"You must have better friends back home if you're so desperate to see them again." He adds as he looks away with a frown. You don't notice him peeking back at you. You sigh and tilt your head so you can fully meet his gaze.

"Look, I'll talk to Crowley, see if he can push it back a bit." You tell him. He looks at you curiously.

"Are you sure? I don't wanna pressure you if-"

"No, it's okay. I want to spend more time with you and everyone anyway." You give him a small smile and he smiles back. He could play the pity card all day if it meant you'd stay.

Malleus Draconia

Malleus pauses in his steps, looking at you with a wide, curious gaze.

"You're leaving?" He utters. The two of you had been enjoying your nightly walks together back to Ramshackle. After one too many fights and attacks happening after hours on campus, he thought it best to escort you back home. He could easily teleport you both back to your dorm, but it gave him a good excuse to be around you more.

"Yes, hopefully it'll be soon. I'm excited to go back!" You smile enthusiastically and Malleus can only offer a grimace back.

"I suppose you could say I'm a little surprised. I thought you were happy here. Did I assume wrong?" He asks as he continues walking you to your dorm. Normally you would have never been able to keep up with his pace but he always kept a slower one for you.

"Oh no, I am happy here. My friends have been wonderful and I'm glad I'm friends with you. There's just some things I could do without." You mention offhandedly as you gaze up at the moon. He looks down to see it reflected in your eyes. The moon is wondrous but all he can see are the eyes that pinned a man who could never yield so deeply. You managed to befriend a dragon who is intimidating in every manner. That kind of connection isn't so flimsy that it could be dismissed by thoughts of departure.

"Things such as what?" Malleus perks up at the idea of solving one of your problems. As powerful as he is, there are a number of things he can't help you with. He couldn't do anything about your assignment getting deleted after your internet 'crashed' or about the friendship problems you once had with the Heartslabyul boys, but he's always eager to listen, just as you always do with him.

"It's just some rowdy guys from Savanaclaw who are still mad about the Spelldrive competition. They've been bothering me a bit but it's not a big deal." You tell him and he stops the both of you this time with a hand on your shoulder.

"Bothering you? For how long?" Malleus didn't mean to turn his hard glare on you but he couldn't help the fury building up inside of him. Many of the students already noticed your looming shadow that often followed you around like a lost puppy, which was usually enough to keep them from trying anything. Malleus isn't naive enough to believe that students at this school are always on their best behavior when he has his own business to deal with in the Diasomnia dorm. However, he swiftly and discretely took care of any nuisances that he happened to notice. He didn't think you were keeping anything from him.

"Like I said, it's not-" You try to soothe him but his glare only hardens.

"For how long?" Malleus repeats and he doesn't plan to a third time.

"For about a month now...but I can handle it myself!" You insist but he ignores the latter half of your sentence as his face morphs back into a gentler one.

"So that's what's been burdening you? I wish you'd have told me sooner but it's no matter. I'll take care of it." Malleus assures you.

"I mean that's one thing, but I have other reasons-" He cuts you off with a pat on your head as the two of you stop in front of Ramshackle's doors.

"You don't have to ruminate on it any longer. Do try to tell me about any other troublesome students in the future. I'll handle them and anyone else who tries to ruin your happiness here at Night Raven College." He vanishes in a flurry of lights before you can say a word. Any serious notion of you leaving is unthinkable to him, and if you do come up with more reasons, he'll make sure to take care of those as well.

[himasgod]

I want to see Idia help dying reader(cancer perhap) keep it a secret from other. Only Idia know that reader dont have much time!

IDIA X READER

Where you are terminally ill.

Where you spend your last moments with him

I really hesitated to write this one, as it's a very, very sensitive topic. Of course, these types of illnesses shouldn't be romanticized, so I haven't added any sugar coating to this fic under any circumstances. They should be treated with the respect they deserve. If this content is triggering for you, I ask that you not read it.

Your diagnosis came quietly.

No dramatic crashes, no outbursts.

Just you, sitting in the sterile nurse’s office with that white paper crinkling beneath your hands, trying not to cry when you’re told that magic and potions can only do so much.

Stage four. Late discovery. Spreading like wildfire.

You were running out of time. Months, if you were lucky.

You told Idia first—not because it was easy, but because it was necessary.

He noticed things others didn’t: the way your fingers trembled when you held your books, how you started taking longer naps in his room, and how you felt weaker each day.

He listened that night, shoulders hunched, blue hair dimming to a dull sickly hue as you explained it.

"I don’t want anyone else to know,” you had said. “Just you.”

And he had nodded, eyes glassy, trembling like his fingers were already typing out a thousand lines of code to try and find a solution that didn’t exist.

The world still turned.

NRC still buzzed with chaos.

You still went to class, laughed when Grim made a fool thing, and lived in Ramshackle like everything was normal.

Like you weren’t quietly dying from the inside out.

Only Idia knew.

You’d sneak away between classes to rest in his room, curled up beneath a blanket while he played games beside you, pretending not to glance your way every few minutes just to make sure you were still breathing.

"Y'know... you're just farming sympathy buffs from me at this point," he mumbled one evening, awkwardly pressing a warm mug of tea into your hands.

His fingers lingered too long.

“I should be charging mana for all this emotional damage.”

You smiled, weak.

“I’ll pay you back in hugs.”

“Not fair... That’s like... an SSR-tier bribe.”

Sometimes, when you were too tired to speak, he’d talk to fill the silence. About his game progress. About the latest manga chapters.

About Ortho, who had no idea you were fading.

You never asked him to lie to Ortho. But he did anyway.

“I told him you’re just really busy,” Idia murmured once, sitting on the edge of his bed, fingers digging into his sleeves.

“That you’re helping Crowley with secret work or whatever.”

“That’s a terrible lie.”

“Yeah, well… it worked. He believes in you more than, like, 99.999% of people. And I guess I do too.”

He paused, voice cracking.

“So maybe I’m lying to myself too.”

“Idia…”

“I know. I know, okay? You don’t have to say it. Just… stay. Here. With me. For as long as you can.”

The days blurred.

You stopped attending most classes.

Everyone thought you were simply burnt out or finally fed up with the school’s chaos. Even Grim didn’t suspect much, too busy enjoying the tuna and the quieter dorm without having to fight ghosts or deal with overblots every weekend.

But Idia knew. He always knew.

He watched the color drain from your face, the way your body moved slower than it used to, like you were stuck in molasses.

The way your coughs grew harsher and more painful, and how sometimes, when you tried to speak, the words didn’t come out right.

And yet you still smiled for him.

“You’re still here,” you whispered one night, curled into him under the flicker of his room’s neon lights.

“Of course I am. Where else would I be? The... "final boss fight" hasn’t even started yet…”

“Idia, there’s no final boss. Just… a game over screen.”

He flinched, the words slicing through the layers of deflection and sarcasm he used like armor.

“I’ll... I’ll find a way,” he said, pulling you tighter.

“I don’t care if I have to hack into the underworld or bribe Hades himself. I’ll use forbidden code, I’ll glitch the world—hell, I’ll write a patch for reality. Just... don’t go. Please.”

You rested your head against his shoulder, eyelids fluttering.

“I didn’t tell anyone else because I didn’t want them to look at me differently. I just wanted to be me. Just… me and you. Like always.”

“And that’s all I want too,” he whispered, tears he never let himself cry sliding down his cheek.

“Just the two of us.”

And the final week came faster than either of you could have prepared for.

You could barely stand anymore.

He carried you everywhere now—not that you were heavy, just that your legs forgot how to move most days.

He set up a custom bed in his room, surrounded by screens playing soft ambient music from your favorite games.

Ortho wasn’t allowed in, which hurt, but Idia had made some excuse about “anti-virus calibration zones.”

You both knew this was goodbye, even if you didn’t say it.

And on the last night, when your breath was shallow and uneven, he held your hand like it was a lifeline.

"I’m scared. I don't want to die, Idia...," you whispered as you looked into his dark-circled eyes for the last time..

“I’m not,” he said, even though his hair had turned the color of ash and his voice was shaking.

“I’ll keep you here, in every memory, every save file, every photo, every saved profile. I’ll talk to you every day. In my head. In my dreams. You’ll be part of my world always.”

You tried to smile.

“Even after the Game Over screen?”

He squeezed your hand.

“Especially then.”

You looked away from his eyes and up at the fading ceiling.

"Idia… meeting you and loving you was the best thing that could have happened to me."

And when your breath slowed, your grip loosened, and your eyes fluttered shut for the last time—

Idia didn’t scream.

He didn’t cry out.

He just held you, silently, for hours.

His screens blinked around him. A still frame of your favorite game lingered on one of them.

“Yuu has left the world. Yuu has left me.” he whispered.

But deep down, he believed—you were just waiting for him at the next checkpoint.

One where it was just the two of you.

[arent-i-the-fairest]

Hi! I'm not sure if your request is open but I will still try to do a request and I'm really sorry if I requested something that doesn't go with your rules! So my request is how would the nrc boys react to there s/o going back home? Like Crowley finally found a way to open the portal that will bring them back home, how would they react to it?

(Sorry if my english is bad it's not my first language)

𝐩𝐢𝐞𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝

author’s note : thank you for the request! off home we go…

i really do wonder what it’ll be like in game when mc finally gets to go back home.

in just the blink of an eye, you were gone, and the portal closed—never to be opened again.

heartslabyul

you leaving was a massive hit to riddle’s heart. he tries to remain the same stern, strong housewarden he’s always been, but there’s no hiding the pain. all much to his distress, he’s noticeably more deflated, there’s less energy in his tone when he speaks, and he zones out when he shouldn’t. he can’t help but wish he spent more time with you and was more affectionate. he should’ve made more time, especially since you were of such high priority to him.

trey struggles to hide his constant sadness. he still has to be a reliable vice housewarden, but it’s hard when everything is weighing so heavily on his mind. he’s always helping others relax, but he can’t seem to get himself in a lighter mood now. how ironic. when he thinks of your relationship, he has some regrets about always being kind of reserved about his feelings. he was a good boyfriend, for sure, but his heart aches thinking about how he never did show the full extent of how much he loves you while he had the chance.

cater finally made a deep, meaningful connection with someone, and it’s over. just like that. and for the first time, a good relationship didn’t end because of him being forced to move. he’d laugh if he wasn’t so heartbroken. he just can’t win. he’ll spend hours every day, nearly every bit of free time he has, scrolling through the hundreds of pictures and posts he made with you. they comfort him, but they’ll never be enough.

ace knew this day would come for a long time. he’s been dreading it, but he’s always just pushed thinking of it away, deep in the back of his mind. can’t avoid it now, though. when you said your goodbyes and left, he confidently told himself he’d take your departure like a champ… that didn’t last long at all. very quickly, he was in shambles. ace stops caring about nearly everything outside of the situation for a while, only doing the bare minimum of what he needs to. he can only think of you. he really, really misses you. he wants you back here. he wants to go on adventures with you again. they were chaotic, but he’d do it all again.

deuce struggles very heavily with his feelings after you’ve left. he tries desperately to pick himself back up, because you wouldn’t want him moping around all the time. that’s right… he has to do good for you. he’ll get back on his feet at some point. and he’ll become the honor student he always said he’d be. he swears on it. and he’ll pursue all the stuff after graduation he wants to do! even though you’re not beside him anymore, he knows you’ll be cheering him on from your world. he’s cheering you on, too.

savanaclaw

leona remembers the way you’d always talk to him about something or do something in the background whenever he tried to nap. he’d always tell you to pipe down so he could enjoy the silence. that silence isn’t so relaxing now that you’re gone. everything in general feels shittier. there’s a lot less of him sleeping and more of him lying down while reflecting. in the times he can fall asleep, he tends to dream of you. his herbivore still gets to bug him in his dreams. he never complains in them. the only way he can be with you now is in that head of his.

naturally, ruggie is crushed. every day alone feels like another stab in the chest, yet he’s gotta keep going on. he has to work hard, get money, and make sure he can eat as always. memories of you always creep into his mind when he’s trying to be at peace. and especially when he’s working. you used to help him around a lot, so of course not having your presence around anymore is very hard to ignore. you better not be slacking off over in your world! but more than that, you better be happy. make all this hurt in his heart at least somewhat worth it.

underneath jack’s uncaring demeanor is a whole lot of longing. he knows the portal can’t be opened again, but he thinks about if it could be a lot. it sure would be nice if it could. wolf beastmen typically only date and have one special someone for their whole lives, and he’s happy you were his. if somehow, some way, you manage to come back, he’s loyally waiting here for you.

octavinelle

azul is completely devastated. he needs to get it together as soon as possible, he knows. but it’s just too difficult. that emotional side of him can’t take this. he finds it difficult to even look at the items you left behind for him, because all he feels when he sees them is misery. the only thing that comes to mind is how he wants you back with him. bringing you into a contract or preventing you from leaving through other means would’ve gone against your trust for him, but he selfishly finds himself wishing he had. he had so many plans for the future with you.

jade, when asked how he’s doing now that you’re gone, always says he’s ‘a bit upset, but managing’… that doesn’t even begin to explain his feelings. he regrets not destroying that portal when he had the chance. he does a remarkable job at continuing to fulfill his duties despite the pain, but he’s constantly burning with longing and frustration on the inside.

floyd will never forgive you for leaving. you didn’t like him enough to stay, huh?! sure, it’s a huge ask to leave your whole world behind, but he kind of convinced himself that you still would’ve done it for him and your other friends. he should’ve grabbed you by the heels and pulled you out of the portal before it was too late. day-to-day life becomes dull. bleak. the things you two used to do together are no longer fun. he comes to realize that the activities themselves weren’t fun. it was you that made every day enjoyable, and he’ll never get to experience that kind of life again.

scarabia

kalim has been feeling kinda guilty. he should be nothing but happy you got to return home, he believes. and he is glad! … but he’s so miserable, too. he wants to remain positive through everything, but all his attempts just keep falling flat. this party is so much fun…! but he’d feel livelier if you were attending. he’s learning so much in this class! … but he wishes he was able to study with you later. his mind just always circles back to you. he surrounds himself with people all the time and has the most fun he can to try coping, but it still all feels wrong. he misses you so much.

jamil got a taste of a happy life, and it’s over. he feels defeated. the day you’d return to your world was something that plagued his mind often. he knew it was coming for a while, but it didn’t make it hurt any less. there’s nothing to be done now—he can’t bring you back here—so he just sort of buries his feelings as he desperately tries to move on. ‘if i just focus on working and my duties, sooner or later, i’ll feel at least somewhat normal again,’ he tells himself. ‘there’s no time to be sad anyways.’ he’ll never move on, though. he couldn’t when you meant so much to him.

pomefiore

you’re gone. vil hates to mope, but he can’t escape it. his head and heart both ache constantly as he gets through days as best as he can manage. routinely, he lets all the sadness out at the end of the day, when he’s alone. all this crying is unbefitting of him, but it’d be worse for him if he kept it all bottled up. and he did always lecture you about the importance of both a healthy mind and body, so he can’t be a hypocrite now. he wonders how you’re doing all on your own…

rook mourns like you’ve died rather than gone home. the circumstances feel somewhat similar to him, though. wouldn’t you agree? think of it: he can’t speak with you, spend all day by your side, or so much as see your beautiful face again. all he has left is the many photos he took of you, as well as the journals about you he had spent time working on and collecting. and he’ll continue to write and think about you. truly, you’re the most beautiful person in every sense to him. you’ll be his muse forever.

epel is so bitter. he didn’t give you an easy time when he heard of your decision to leave, as well as the time leading up to your actual departure. he kept to himself more, sulking. when the time came for you two to say your goodbyes, all his tears of frustration and sadness came out. he really was wishing you’d stay forever. he understands that you can’t abandon your world, but he’s still so frustrated that there’s not a solution where both of you can be happy.

ignihyde

idia doesn’t know how he could even begin to get through this. he wants to just shut down, but he can’t even do that. every second of every day, he’s thinking of you. there’s hardly any coping with video games or media he likes, because he can’t take his mind off everything. he wanted to be considerate of your feelings, so he let you leave, despite the thought of being without you ever again making him nauseous. if he could go back in time and beg for you to stay instead, he would.

diasomnia

malleus is in a constant state of pain and longing. forgive him for his selfishness, but if things went how he truly wished, that portal would’ve never been opened. he spends a lot of time in ramshackle, reminiscing. he’s tempted to take the items left behind by you—incomplete letters addressed to him, pillows, even objects as mundane as your pencils—but he doesn’t. he leaves them just as they are, lying in your dorm. it makes it look as though you still live here. as if you’d come in at any time, and the two of you could spend another evening together.

lilia tries to think and act maturely about your departure. he had been emotionally preparing himself for it ages beforehand… but unfortunately, it still hadn’t cushioned the blow very much at all. he’s glad you get to reunite with your world, and he doesn’t want to sulk, but it hurts. with hundreds of years of being alive, lilia has made lots of memories, both joyful and sad. you certainly go down as both. how painful it is to think of how you’re gone now... but. he’s glad he met you.

sebek, for a while, holds almost a kind of resentment towards you. you’ve left him. logically, he knows he shouldn’t have expected you to leave your world behind for your life here in twisted wonderland, but he’s still just so bitter. it takes a lot of effort from the people around him to talk him out of that bitterness. but eventually, he starts to crack. he gave you quite a hard time about your decision to leave, and the guilt is getting to him. he thinks about your relationship often. he loves you a lot, and he’s sorry he was never quite good at expressing it properly while he had the chance.

silver is as heartbroken as you’d imagine. the good in his heart always tells him to be happy that you’ve returned to your world. your home, that you’ve been waiting for so long to go back to. it helps. as much of a nuisance his constant dozing off is to him, he’s now able to find a sort of comfort in it. that’s because he dreams of you a lot. and even if it’s not the real, physical you that he’s talking to, touching, and spending time with in those dreams, he can only take what he can get now. it hurts a little more each time he wakes up.

[katiefrog217]

Crowley learned a lot about human civilizations today. Or, at least he thought he did. Truthfully, he was too busy watching Aziraphale's rapidly shifting expressions as he gleefully explained how a human had discovered some ruin of a civilization that had been lost to time. Crowley had zero recollection of this one, perhaps it has sprung up and fallen during one of his extended naps? Aziraphale, however, seemed intimately acquainted with them, if the stories he interspersed between his long, rambling explanations were any indication. Crowley really didn't give a shit about humans he had no involvement in, but he was content to not interrupt his angel (except the one time to make some sarcastic comment on their choice of architecture, which earned him a rueful glare).

I was working on an art piece for my fic From The Confidential Journals of A.Z Fell, but decided that it was going to take WAY too long to work out, so dragons it was haha.

Will post a short process video of this later!

The book Aziraphale is holding is an in-joke between me and my GF, involving a few personal OCs of ours.

Check out the Art Process HERE

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE 🫵 EEL BUTLER AND LION SIMP. Now that we know how you feel about their new idol fits, can I ask how does your OC feel about them? iirc she’s not a sona or self insert so her thoughts might be different than yours.

[Referencing this post!]

First of all, I think it's just really funny to think about Crowley having his students wear school-sponsored/mandated idol outfits and sing on stage 🤡 The opening story to the Blazing Jewel event confirms that Crowley’s having them do a musical live for an acquaintance of his who was impressed by their VDC/SDC performance. "It's good for your futures!" he'll insist. "And good for attracting generous donations and sponsors!" "No more complaining from you boys! Get into those suits, slap on your makeup, and I'll see you out there on the bright, shining stage!" ☆～（ゝ。∂）(The boys all grumble about how much they hate this asdasvufvyofqevyefabi)

Assuming that's the situation, maybe poor Miss Raven is told to assist Professor Crewel with making sure the boys are complying (since they're usually argumentative) OTL so she's rushing around doing makeup, adjusting their outfits, etc. She apologizes to everyone along the way--after all, it's because of her uncle that they're being inconvenienced 💦

Of course, Miss Raven does think that everyone looks good, (she especially loves all the shiny bits on the outfits, how they catch the light and sparkle) but she's still plagued by the guilt of knowing most of them don't want to be here. Makes herself glance away or stare at the wall if she thinks she's been looking at someone for too long; she knows that's awkward and impolite. She has to stay professional!

Jade would find it all amusing--it's different than the usual everyday, so he welcomes the change in pace. He plays along, behaving like the perfect little angel (excluding some teasing).

"... You seem awfully pleased about this," Raven remarks as she fiddling with some chains. They've twisted, and she's beginning to suspect he purposefully knotted them to prolong the time she spends with him.

"Fufufu... Well, it does take me back to my middle school days. Floyd, Azul, and I used to play in a little jazz band of our own. The contrabass, in fact."

She quirks a brow. "You? In a band? That's... surprising. This isn't another one of your deceptions, is it?"

He laughs, and it sounds musical itself. "Is that really so difficult to believe? Music is considered a precious gift to merfolk. Being able to share a song with the world means more to me than you can possibly imagine."

"Oh, is it? That's interesting. I had no idea that music held such significance to your people. Many birds share a similar sentiment; songs and special calls may be used to find partners, so it has more of a romantic connotation."

"My, how... fascinating." His mismatches eyes glitter with mirth. "Perhaps we are more alike than I initially thought."

She sighs. "... Please do not get ahead of yourself and focus on the task at hand. This performance needs your undivided attention."

Jade leans in, his nose and hers almost touching, his smile razor-sharp. "Then I do hope you whole-heartedly accept my gift to you, Miss Raven."

Leona's the opposite; he's pissed off that he got woken up from his nap to do what is essentially a friggin' PR stunt to make the school and the headmaster look good. Bitches and moans the entire time.

"You aren't making this easier for anyone, Leona-san. Certainly not for yourself," Raven gently scolds him. He's fighting with the buttons of his dress shirt, which strain to contain him. "I understand that this is an annoyance, but please bear with it for the time being. It will go by that much faster if..."

The buttons finally give up and come free. His shirt spills open to the valley of his cleavage.

Raven frowns, raising a hand to shield her eyes out of respect. "I'm not sure that's appropriate for our purposes."

"You're soundin' an awful lot like Kifaji, Canary." Leona shoots her a scathing glare. She balks, her resolve wavering. "I gotta breathe, don't I? And 'sides, if it's publicity the headmaster's after, he'll get his damn publicity."

Raven raises a finger, but quickly lowers it and clamps her mouth shut. It's not worth it to argue with him. He's cooperating for now, just nod and move on. "... Very well, so long as you get approval from Professor Crewel before walking on stage, it should be fine."

She spins on her heel to head to the next student--but a commanding voice calls out, pinning her in place.

"Not so fast."

A shadow falls over her. Raven dares not move.

"The headmaster, Crewel. I don't care what either of 'm thinks--but what about you? I need the little assistant's approval too, don't I?" Leona steps into view, tugging on the lapels of his jacket. "I'll need ya to appraise me real carefully."

[vidavalor]

Hiya! I was wondering about Nina saying to the Metatron/Satan "I haven't slept for 36 hours" If the final fifteen was early morning then 36 hours before would be evening. Why would she wake up at that time? (Unless she'd had a nap, I suppose) and why would she then stay up all night the night before the night of the ball? (Unless she was arguing with Lindsay?) Do you think this is important, as time is very wibbly-wobbly in season 2?

I have PROPER Cornish pasties (not the rubbish they sell in supermarkets) scones, jam and clotted cream! ❤️

Hello, Hippest of Hippy Chicks! 💕 Mmm, proper pasties! Sounds delicious. Thank you. 🤗 I do think this is important and related to Nina's relationship with Lindsay, as well as the relationships that parallels. TWs for discussion of domestic violence & related issues.

I did a quick rewatch and Nina actually says that she's been up for 30 hours in The Final 15, which is an even more disturbing amount of time than 36 and I'll show you why, as well as why I think it is that S2 spends a bit of time discussing whether different characters are sleeping or not.

I think that whenever you have magical characters in a story where they're being contrasted with human characters, like is the case with Good Omens? What's being discussed is really always the human experience. The magical characters exist to highlight aspects of those experiences by being just that one, slim step removed from them. In Good Omens, though, the point is that the humans are the magical ones and the magical ones? They're really very human.

This is how you wind up with a story where a human character like Nina and her life running a coffee shop and her abusive relationship with her partner is a story that exists as a major parallel to the struggles of supernatural characters in the story, like Crowley, Aziraphale, and Gabriel. The point of it is that Nina's story isn't much different than theirs because they are really not much different than she is. They're all people.

It's easy for the audience to determine what we think that Nina needs during the season because she's a human person. She needs what we need, right? We're concerned about her welfare and we aren't wrong to say that we know that she needs, among other things, safety, food, and rest, just like all of us do.

If you notice, though... who else is fleeing abuse and in need of those same things, too? Who else's welfare is pretty concerning to us?

Gabriel, yes?

Gabriel flees his abuser, narrowly escapes with his life, and shows up at the bookshop door without his clothes or memories, having a total mental health crisis, and suffering from the cumulative effects of eons of abuse.

Is the result here that Aziraphale and Crowley say that Gabriel is supernatural so he doesn't need the same things as what human people do?

No, it's that they've spent long enough on Earth to know that the angels and demons might have a level of magic that allows them to remain alive without meeting the needs of their human corporations but that they have those human corporations for a reason.

Crowley and Aziraphale know that their human bodies work better if they acknowledge that they are, fundamentally, human, and give their bodies what they need.

They don't treat Gabriel like an angel-- they treat him like the human person that he also is. They then Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs him for the entire season. They give him safety, warmth, food, clothes, drinks, blankets, people to talk to, choice over his name and his profession and his projects and his time. They are picking up where Beez left off in taking care of Gabriel's welfare and making sure that his needs as a person are being met by giving him support and room to start to heal.

And one of the needs being met here for Jim is also one of the most surprising, when we consider that these magical beings are "supposed" to not need human things...

It's that Gabriel spends a solid half of S2 asleep.

Just as we are given timeline markers throughout the week related to Nina's sleep, we're also given the same about Gabriel, and the contrast could not be more different.

Gabriel might not remember Heaven for most of S2 but his body does and he's exhausted. (He's so tired that all six-foot-something of him is sleeping blissfully in the guest room's weird doll-size monk bed lol.)

Both Aziraphale and Crowley-- who references his own sleep in S2 in a way that suggests that he tries to sleep with human regularity-- are not surprised to learn that Jim is tired. Part of helping him during the week becomes just giving him space to rest.

The result is that Gabriel is basically the only character who actually sleeps peacefully through the night for the three nights of the season leading up to Thursday and The Meeting Ball. Crowley mentions to Aziraphale that he heard snoring coming from Jim's room on Wednesday night into Thursday morning-- the same time we're going to see that they made a point to tell us that Nina's rest was disturbed.

So, Gabriel is sleeping well because he's safe in the bookshop with two, decent people whose protection of him includes helping protect his peace and meeting the very human needs that he has in the same way that a human character, like Nina, does.

Nina, on the other hand? Her story is that she spends the week unable to escape her abuser. While Gabriel fled and was given safe haven, Nina knows no peace, especially when she goes home, where she is being abused by her partner. Almost every one of her scenes in S2 is reinforcing this abuse and its impact on her rest, leading up to the revelation near the end of S2 that she hasn't slept in 30 hours.

One of the first things we learn about Nina is actually what time she goes to bed at night, which is something she brings up when trying to bond with Maggie early in the day on Monday. These seemingly throwaway lines becomes a bit more important retrospectively as the season goes on: "We're getting older. Remember when we used to party and stay up all night? Now, we're all in bed by ten."

It already makes sense to us that Nina would need to go to bed early, not even just because she's no longer in her 20s, but because she owns and runs a coffee shop. She has to get up early in the morning. Later in the season, on Thursday morning, we see Nina arriving at work in the morning on her bike and are shown the time on her phone when she checks it just after going inside her shop: 6:47am. This is important to her "30 hours" comment in The Final 15 because it helps us to understand just when Nina was last awake and suggests why.

This means that it's reasonable to assume that Nina opens Give Me Coffee or Give Me Death at 7:00am. On Friday morning, when Crowley gets Maggie and Nina out of the bookshop and walks them over to Give Me Coffee, Nina comments that her shop should have been open "half an hour ago", which establishes that it's about 7:30am or a little thereafter when that scene is taking place.

After this, a few more minutes pass and, by the time that The Villain is ordering The Coffee of Doom from Nina, Maggie is back from the mini-mart with the milk. We're now about somewhere between 7:45am and 8:00am on Friday morning when Nina, showing signs of sleep deprivation, snaps at whom she thinks is just a nice old man but who is really basically evil incarnate that she hasn't "slept in 30 hours."

If it's somewhere between 7:45 and 8:00am on Friday and Nina's been up for 30 straight hours, she was last asleep sometime between 1:45am and 2:00am on Thursday morning. Why does it matter that we know this?

Because, all season, the story is establishing that Nina is not getting a decent night's sleep every single night and this is one of the ways that they're helping us to understand the abuse she's suffering-- a plot which parallels those our main characters have been through, too.

Nina seems tired from the onset when she brings up sleep to Maggie on Monday morning but then she and Maggie get locked into the coffee shop on Monday night. We could tell from what Nina says about Lindsay and from the barrage of abusive texts that come through when the power goes back on that Nina would not have a restful night on Monday night and, on Tuesday, we learn that Nina, in her words, didn't have "a pleasant evening" on Monday.

We learn this when Nina runs into Crowley in the street and they have a moment of like-recognizing-like. While Nina is really a split parallel of Crowley and Aziraphale-- like Maggie, she's a bit of both of them-- she sees herself in Crowley, whose subtle assessment of her to Aziraphale the day before ("charmed") told us he recognized a bit of himself in Nina, as well.

Nina, on Tuesday, comes closer to admitting that her relationship with Lindsay is abusive when she tells Crowley that her prior night was awful. She's also wearing a cardigan that is full of pink, the color of not just love and romance (what Crowley is trying to help her with via Maggie and part of what they're discussing in the scene) but also a color associated with health, which I was talking about in relation to when it appears in Crowley & Aziraphale's story over here.

Nina starting to talk more about what's happening to her is a healthy thing and she picked a good person to confide in, for a reason that has nothing to do with Maggie that we'll come back to at the end of this.

So, we know that Nina was tired on Monday already and then didn't have a lot of rest on Monday night after being locked in the coffee shop. Did that get better on Tuesday night into Wednesday? No.

It appears to have actually gotten worse, based on Nina's scenes on Wednesday. Her lack of sleep is part of the opening of 2.03, preceded by the far cheerier 'Jimbriel makes hot cocoa in his jammies' scene.

Jim's not exactly well but he's got all the resources that one would need to start to heal here. His welfare, quality of life, and coffee, as Mrs. Sandwich would put it, are things he's having help with addressing and so it's him with which we start the episode that is most directly about people lacking those things. Contrasting the peace this poor guy is finally starting to get, we jump to the worse off Nina, who is not yet knowing anything of the sort.

Good Omens also has plenty of discussion around things like food and disordered relationships with it being related to mental health struggles, many of which in the story are born of abuse. S2, in particular, though, pays particular attention to that other, human need of sleep-- likely because of how it relates to a sense of safety.

One of the foremost tactics of abusers-- whether consciously or unconsciously-- is sleep deprivation. It's not just a strategy for soldiers torturing prisoners but also common in domestic violence situations, like the one that Nina is in with Lindsay.

The reasons for it are pretty self-explanatory but it relates to how the human body suffers increasing levels of impairment and regulatory dysfunction the longer it goes without sleep. When a person is tired, they have more difficulty making decisions and they become more compliant in an effort to just get through whatever there is to get through before they can next try to sleep.

Sleep deprivation is a tool used to wear people down. Nina is fully human so she shows signs pretty much all season long of being anxious and cranky as a result of the continual exhaustion of being deprived of quality sleep.

The supernatural characters can endure a longer amount of time but, as we've seen, if they're given the opportunity to get away from those abusers for a spell? They're like Gabriel-- so tired that, if they allow themselves to do so, their bodies pretty instantly shift into sleeping through the night the way the humans with their same corporations do.

So, at the start of 2.03, we jump from Gabriel well-rested on Wednesday morning straight over to Nina, who is exhausted. This is all before she's even in the part of the season where she's going to be up for 30 straight hours.

She was tired talking to Maggie on Monday morning and her Monday and Tuesday nights were both full of dealing with Lindsay's abuse atop her usual work days and very little rest each night. What's worse is that this isn't going away by Wednesday-- it's escalating.

We see Nina making coffee while being the only one on in the shop. She has a line of people out the door and she's working her cash register plus making drinks. Throughout this, she has her cell phone beside her and it won't stop buzzing with texts.

Lindsay is now texting Nina constantly while Nina is at work, something that continues for the rest of the season. The bit of reprieve that we saw Nina have during the day in Give Me Coffee isn't there anymore by Wednesday and Mrs. Sandwich's dialogue shows us that it never really was a reprieve. It's a reminder that Nina is never safe and she never gets a break from this. While Gabriel, Aziraphale, and Crowley have safe haven in the bookshop, Nina has nowhere to go.

The rest of her day gets worse. Muriel turns up asking about her love life and Nina, very understandably lol, kicks them out. Later, we find out when Maggie tries to talk to Nina that Nina has been distant towards Maggie all Tuesday and into the morning on Wednesday. Maggie thinks that Nina is angry with her but Nina explains that it's not really about Maggie. It's about Lindsay, who has been accusing her since Monday of having an affair.

Nina gets the nicest moment of her entire week-- when she and Maggie have a little moment of vavoom-- but then she's soaking wet, like her week could get any worse. After several days of terrible sleep and this rotten day, what Nina could use is exactly what we all want for her-- a nice, peaceful night and some good, deep rest, yes?

It's Wednesday-into-Thursday when Nina goes home, though, and Nina's comments to The Villain on Friday tell us what actually happened.

Nina went home after a long day during a week of abuse and upset and disjointed sleep and she didn't get much sleep this night, either. It's this night when she was woken up sometime between 1:45am and 2:00am and then never slept again through the rest of the season. But it's a scene on Thursday morning-- the 6:47am text-- that showed us why Nina was awake at this time.

The horrible Lindsay wrote: If you had any self-respect you would not have left this morning. I had a lot more to say. I cannot believe how self-centered you are.

This tells us that Nina didn't just wake up in the middle of the night on Wednesday-into-Thursday and then couldn't fall back to sleep. Lindsay's text at 6:47am said that Nina was dealing with Lindsay abusing her prior to leaving for work that morning. The implication is that Nina was dealing with Lindsay for hours, beginning again in the middle of the night.

Nina had gone to bed sometime on Wednesday night but Lindsay woke her up at nearly 2:00 in the morning-- knowing that Nina hadn't slept well lately and that she needed to be up in only a couple of hours to get to work. Not letting someone rest is a form of abuse in and of itself, let alone all the horrible verbal abuse that we saw Lindsay unleash on Nina.

What is just as frightening, though, is that Lindsay is angry at Nina for leaving the flat. This dovetails back to the start of the season and how controlling we see that Lindsay is. She has to know where Nina is at all times and rains down abuse if Nina is more than fifteen minutes late. The 6:47am text feels like an escalation, though, because the Lindsay texting Nina on Thursday morning is angry that Nina went to work. She's berating Nina and saying that Nina should have stayed and dealt with more of Lindsay's abuse.

When an abuser is literally trapping someone and trying to not allow them the freedom to have their own life outside the house and the relationship-- especially when it's so bad that the abuser is trying to keep the person they're abusing from going to work-- it's a major red flag.

This sort of behavior tends to worsen when the abuser perceives-- even if they're far from correct-- that the partner is developing a relationship with someone else from outside the abusive partnership. It's usually a suspected affair but it also can be a close friendship.

What is really happening is that the abuser is concerned that the partner is going to gain access to the resources they have been lacking and escape. It's the abuser feeling like control is slipping from them and it can cause the abuse to escalate, which is what has been happening in the background to Nina all week.

Most of us can see how Nina and Lindsay parallels both Satan's abuse of Crowley and "God's" abuse of Aziraphale (really: more like The Metatron, since it's likely really him who is running Heaven and claiming he can talk to God).

It's on Thursday that both Nina and Aziraphale start to snap from the effects of everything. For Aziraphale, this is his Meeting Ball breakdown that leads into the disastrous Friday morning. For Nina, it's Thursday when Lindsay texts her and says that she's gone to her sister's place and left her. These things collide as Crowley is trying to get Nina to The Meeting Ball.

The scene isn't just about the approaching demons from Hell but first, about both Ms. Cheng (who pauses on the way into the bookshop and turns and looks at Nina, like she can sense something dark) and Crowley (who gets the heebie-jeebies at the same time as Ms. Cheng and ahead of the approaching demons, as if it's a separate thing). They're both feeling a whole other approaching threat-- one that says that Nina is in danger.

Back in 1827, Crowley could feel Wee Morag dying in the moments before she did, and he gets a similar moment of pausing here, even if he can't quite identify what he's feeling besides the sense that Something Is Wrong.

In the midst of this, though, he gives Nina some very, very solid advice that he would be telling her regardless of his sense of something being off and his need to get her to The Meeting Ball:

He tells her not to go home.

Nina definitely deserves to be able to decompress after this horrible week but Crowley was absolutely right to advise our sleep-deprived Nina not to go home. Why?

Because this Lindsay story isn't actually over. Nina thinks it is but Crowley knows that it's not.

Statistically-speaking, the most dangerous time in an abusive relationship is when either the abused partner tries to leave or when the abuser perceives that their partner is going to leave.

Most abusers cannot take this lack of control and will lash out. It doesn't always happen right away. Many will lure their partner into a false sense of security and maybe also act like they've moved on, only to return with the abuse tenfold.

Crowley knows that if Nina goes home alone that she is at risk of being badly hurt or even killed by her former partner.

He doesn't just tell her to go to the bookshop because he and Aziraphale need her to for The Meeting Ball-- he does because he's afraid Lindsay is going to show up and hurt or kill Nina if Nina goes home. He and Ms. Cheng are both sensing a cloud of death around Nina and, as wild as it sounds considering Shax's attack on the bookshop? Nina was probably safer in the shop than she was in her flat.

Crowley knows that you aren't safe in a house where your abuser can get past the threshold.

His old flat? Not safe for him. The bookshop? Safe.

Go back to Nina's sleep parallel of Gabriel and what happened just after he tried to get out by mutinying? His abuser tried to kill him. He narrowly avoided being murdered. He had to go somewhere safe where his Lindsay couldn't find him, just to stay alive.

Crowley sends Nina to his and Aziraphale's bookshop for her safety. The only people who can get into the bookshop are the people the two of them have allowed in. He knows that Nina will be safe with him and Aziraphale and Gabriel and Maggie and Mrs. Sandwich. He doesn't feel the same way about her going home to a place where Lindsay still has keys.

So, the next morning? When Nina is standing there in her shop, telling this seemingly kindly old man that she's been up for 30 straight hours? When she's talking to either The Metatron or to Satan appearing as The Metatron or to some combination of the evil leaders of Heaven and Hell?

She's talking about the effects of her abuse to a character Lindsay exists to parallel.

A controlling, manipulative abuser who has turned up in the aftermath of Crowley and Aziraphale trying to leave and gotten past the threshold.

[aziraphales-library]

Hello :]

Do you have a fic where either Crowley or Aziraphale faints? Maybe they've fallen ill or suffers from a medical condition. I do love fics with angst, hurt/comfort, etc. Human AU or not, doesn't really matter. As long as it ends with them being happy.

Thank you!

Hi! Here are some fainting fics...

To Err is Human (So Don't Be One) by krowtenretsnom (G)

The wall slam scene from episode 2, except Aziraphale doesn’t brace himself in time, and Crowley accidentally gives him a concussion.

Ineffable May 2024 Day 26: Halo by LokisQueen01 (G)

Blowing up his Halo required a great deal of magic and energy. Aziraphale collapses shortly after blowing up his Halo and Crowley takes care of him while he rests.

Stupid reflexes by fan_fics_are_life (G)

Crowley breaks his wing and Aziraphale takes care of him.

A Well-Earned Nap by mikkimouse (T)

"Crowley, is something wrong? You don't look so well." Crowley intended to brush it off, to say he was fine, but instead he said "I'm a bit tired" and promptly collapsed.

We're All Just Looking For a Little Less Crazy by randomramblingsofme (T)

Because isn't it just everyone's dream to pass the fuck out at work in front of their crush. --- Barista/Bookseller AU

Still Farther Off From Thee by EdosianOrchids901 (T)

Reuniting with Aziraphale always cheers Crowley up, but on this occasion Aziraphale is the one in distress. Heaven’s manipulative mind games are taking a toll on him. When Aziraphale collapses from the strain, will Crowley be able to nurse him back to health?

- Mod D

[a-twistedheartslonging]

IM LOVING UR NONHUMAN AU.

Do you think Crowley would be protective of us? Maybe fend off the beasties that try to court us?

That's a cute thought.

Realistically, Crowley is a dick that often leaves the protagonist to fend for their self and pushes them to take care of dangerous stuff that they really shouldn't have to.

But on the other hand…hehe birb dad.

One of the reasons he avoids us is because of the whole us “wanting a way home thing.”

Imagine his surprise when you tell him you would rather stay. Maybe you don't have a family, maybe the family you have is horrible, or maybe it's because our world is a polluted mess with a cruddy economy. Regardless it means he doesn't have to (pretend) to put in the work of sending you home. 

Well, as long as there's a place for you to stay that is. He is sort of your guardian and it would be in the best interest of himself and the entire school if you stayed.

Now a thing I like to think about…this man is likely lonely. I mean, a lot of people don't like the guy. (for good reason) The students and teachers are tired of his shit, though he and Trien seem to be homies and have tea together, the guy’s cat still hates him. Crowley also doesn't have a mate or any hatchlings waiting at home for him.

Combine the guilt trip of having nowhere else to go, add his loneliness, and then butter the guy up. I would say you have a good chance of getting him attached.

Imagine he sees you heading his way and is about to screw off cuz he doesn't want to deal with whatever thing you need to get fixed or have to complain about, you catch the sleeve of his coat before he can, and so he braces himself. But instead of asking him for something or scolding him you simply ask him about his day and how he's doing.

Birdman is shook.

Bit by bit the tasks and chores he gives you are ones where you'll be around him or he’ll randomly pop in to check in on you while doing them. Soon you end up being the preferred person for making and bringing him his tea. He pretends to nap on his office couch while you do his paperwork. May even ask you to help him file his claws on occasion. If it wasn't so dire for you to take care of things at the school he would be half tempted to bring you along on one of his vacations. If you give him anything it's going on his desk and he will brag about it to anyone who enters his office.

His cheap ass isn't going to spoil you but he will bring you small gifts. Usually the random shiny thing and small souvenir from his trips away. You might start finding loose feathers around Ramshackle and more crows around who also bring small things.

He starts thinking up plans for you to stay on as official faculty of the school once graduating. Of course, it's only because you are super useful and not because he’ll miss you or anything…

It doesn't really hit him until after he sees one of the teachers getting all father figure-y with you and he gets jealous.

Displeased bird noises.

Even before he started to get attached to you he did keep an eye on you, your easy prey amongst beasts after all, but he does develop a habit of popping in more when a boy happens to show his interest in you…or anytime he thinks someone is trying to sneak in and swipe his unofficial dad role…he does a lot of that with Crewel and Trien in particular.

Still, even with his affection for you, he’s still very much…him and the boys know this. Not long till he finds the more well-off beasty boys in his office offering donations to the school in exchange for certain things. More info about you, making you a member of his dorm, ect. A few have learned that the best thing to butter him up with is to talk about what a kind and generous father figure he is and how lovely it would be for Crowley to give the perfect away on their wedding day.

As a result, he, and probably Grim, are going to nudge you toward certain preferred suitors.

[quoththemaiden]

@mrghostrat This is now the third time since December that I'm writing about your middle-aged men and their middle-aged-man problems (1, 2). Please come collect them, because they're causing a disturbance.

Or, if you aren't able to wrangle them, then please enjoy this scene inspired by Chapter 10 of Big Name Feelings.

For everyone who hasn't already seen the top portion of this on Discord, know that this is set sometime after the con but before the big bang.

—

"I think your hair might be getting long enough to braid now."

Crowley's eyes snapped over to him. "Braid?"

Aziraphale blinked at the sharp question. "I didn't mean anything by it." He'd still never figured out quite where Crowley's gender identity lay, or if it changed day-by-day. He suspected Crowley's public presentation of his gender was either "whatever's simplest for everyone involved" (around people he didn't know but generally liked, like at the con) or "whatever causes the most problems for everyone involved" (like with a particularly annoying security guard that had left Aziraphale remembering that being middle-aged, white, and extremely stuffy in appearance was its own form of armor). Aziraphale's own perception of Crowley's gender was just "Crowley." What Crowley felt about it was something Aziraphale had never quite managed to parse out. "You can do whatever you like—"

"Do you know how?"

"How...?"

"To braid hair." Crowley's tone was oddly urgent. "Like for your nieces or cousins or—"

"—for crafting, yes. Tassels for bookmarks and such. You want me to—" Crowley practically flinging himself down onto the sofa next to him was answer enough. "Oh."

Crowley's hair really was barely long enough to braid, Aziraphale decided as he gently freed it from its elastic band. He ran his fingers through it slowly and carefully, easing out the light tangles from a day's confinement. Crowley slumped forward in boneless contentment, and Aziraphale had to switch to prickling the top of his scalp with his fingernails to get him to sit up straight enough for Aziraphale to work.

Aziraphale determined his gameplan, then, and gently eased up a few locks of hair at the crown of Crowley's head, smoothing down the top with the flat of his palm. He started working the strands into a French braid, taking it tiny piece by tiny piece to ensure every section was balanced in size. If Crowley were doing it himself, he suspected he'd get it done in just five messy joins, but every strand he brought in gave Aziraphale another excuse to run his fingertips along Crowley's scalp and he luxuriated in each opportunity. "Has anyone ever told you your hair is unreasonably thick?" he murmured, his voice huskier with fond affection than he'd intended. Crowley spared him from a tease by being too utterly sedated to manage more than a vague hum in response. Aziraphale smiled at that and kept his progress blissfully slow and methodical until he had no choice but to tie the braid off at the nape of Crowley's neck — half a French braid, half a ponytail made bushy from having had waves worked into it. He placed a soft kiss to the back of Crowley's head, padded by the thickest part of Crowley's braid and somehow all the more intimate for it. "All done, love."

Crowley leaned back against Aziraphale's chest, tilting back his head to look up at him with eyes made impossibly soft with contentment. "I'm never putting my own hair up again. Just hope you know that."

Aziraphale chuckled softly, just as fond. "I'll manage somehow, I suppose."

—

Crowley's boneless appreciation of the hair braiding had turned into boneless napping, and while Aziraphale enjoyed having Crowley fall asleep against him at certain times of day, he had never been one for naps himself and there was a limit to how long he could stay motionless sans entertainment before even he got antsy. He eased his way out from under Crowley, grateful the other man was a heavy sleeper even during the day, and was left deciding what quiet amusement he could pursue until whenever Crowley woke up and started making noises about dinner. He could always read some fanfics, of course, but his eyes couldn't help but be drawn towards his favorite muse.

His muse who had, he recalled, tempted him into joining a rigged bang and had talked him into getting a digital tablet. Aziraphale still planned to do his official art for it traditionally, because he was sure Crowley's writing would deserve no less... and, if he was allowed to be vain in the privacy of his own mind, because he still remembered the feeling he'd had when Crowley responded to his scans with barely coherent keysmashing. He wasn't in deferential awe of Crowley anymore, although he still loved his writing just as much, but part of him still hoped that Crowley might respond with just as much enthusiasm at getting to see the finished piece in person, textured paper and unprocessed colors and all. Well, assuming he could be gutsy enough to actually give it to him in person instead of just leaving it on the drafting table for him to find, which was really the more statistically likely result. But anyway.

But anyway.

His muse was sleeping in front of him, and a stylus on an iPad would make hardly any noise at all. And if he got good enough at using it, maybe he could draw some extra digital art to celebrate the fic as well.

In any case, sketching Crowley while he slept was one of life's little joys. He didn't think Crowley knew how often he did it, and that was probably for the best. If he did it all in his notebook, it would have been too easy for Crowley to flip through and find the sketches (and removing sheets would have felt damnably like a guilty conscience). With his iPad, however, he was safe to sketch as much as he liked and there was no real way for Crowley to stumble across it. Aziraphale willfully shoved aside the thought that that didn't really sound any less guilty and started setting stylus to screen. It wasn't long until he'd settled into a comfortable rhythm, his eyes flicking back and forth between the screen and where Crowley was lying face-down on the sofa, his new braid highlighted in a beam of afternoon sunlight.

Something Aziraphale did appreciate about digital art was that white could be layered on top of other colors and be shockingly vibrant, which wasn't an effect he could get easily with his beloved watercolors. Something else watercolors didn't give him was the ability to pick out very fine details, and as his sketch started coming together, he found that was exactly what he wanted to do now. While Crowley's hair was a vibrant red in his selfies or on stage, when he'd had the opportunity to run his fingers through every strand, he'd found that Crowley's hair was showing his age just as much as his own was.

The first day Aziraphale had found a grey hair had come as a shock. He'd naively assumed that with his hair being as pale as it was, even if it started greying, he might well never know. Instead, he found that the grey hairs' texture was frustratingly different from the strands that were still blond, and until they reached a critical mass fifteen long years later, they had an unfortunate tendency to stick out unattractively if his cut was anything less than perfect. He had become quite a regular at his barber's.

With Crowley's hair being as long as it was, his grey hairs had worked smoothly into his braid. From even the small distance from couch to armchair, they melded into the red strands perfectly... but Aziraphale had just spent long minutes twining them into neat twists and didn't need to see them now to know they were there. Aziraphale zoomed in close (another marked benefit of the digital display) and set his pen to a thin, sharp line, layering sleek silver strands into the red braid he'd drawn. Following the way they weaved around each other and dipped in and out of view felt delightfully meditative.

Eventually, Crowley made a soft snuffling snort-groan as he roused from his nap, slowly turning to unbury his face from the pillows. "Wha' time'zit?" he mumbled, patting around blindly for his cellphone.

"Coming up on 5:30 now," Aziraphale replied softly, trying not to startle him into full wakefulness too quickly. He rose and fetched Crowley's phone, placing it gently into his fumbling hand. "There you go."

"Mmrrr. Don't need it now." Crowley tucked the phone under his side in what Aziraphale would have guessed would be a very uncomfortable fashion but which Crowley did without even thinking. At least it wouldn't be going anywhere from there, Aziraphale supposed. "What're you doin'?" Crowley made grabby hands at the iPad Aziraphale had brought over with him.

Aziraphale handed over the iPad without even one thought, much less a second. "Oh, I was just waiting for you to wake up, really."

"...Angel." Crowley had zoomed out on the picture (with a completely unsurprising lack of propriety) and was now staring, frozen and much more awake, at the drawing of himself. "You aren't going to post this on Tumblr, are you?"

Aziraphale laughed at the sheer ridiculousness of that, despite the ripple of shock Crowley's tense tone had caused him. "Come, now. When have I ever posted a drawing of you, my dear?"

"When have you ever made a drawing of me?" Crowley retorted. He waved vaguely at the screen, accidentally sparing Aziraphale from having to answer. "I don't mind being old, but I don't want the world knowing my boyfriend thinks I'm old." His frazzled waving turned a little more flaily.

"Crowley..." Aziraphale gently took the tablet back from him and set it down on the floor so he could take Crowley's hand in both of his. "I assure you, I'm not the kind of artist who spends my time drawing things I don't think are beautiful. And that includes every detail I put in."

Aziraphale would have hoped that was obvious, really. The strands of hair he had drawn weren't brittle grey; they were molten silver. They caught the light like a precious metal woven like a ribbon into cinnabar-red hair. Crowley could have been a queen, fallen asleep after a long day in her finery. He could have been a fae whose very essence was beauty, sleeping with no fear that it would be stolen away because it couldn't.

He could have been an ordinary man, who was so deeply, truly loved that even his grey hairs seemed to shine like the soft gleam of a newly-forged star when they caught the last strong beams of afternoon sunlight shining in through the windows.

Aziraphale hoped Crowley could see it, too.

Crowley made a grumpy noise. "I still don't want it on Tumblr. — Not that I can tell you what to do with your art, but—"

Aziraphale interrupted him with a warm smile. "I don't want it on Tumblr, either. I drew this just for me."

"...really? Even though...?"

"Just for me," Aziraphale whispered in confirmation, his eyes seeking out Crowley's and saving him from having to finish that sentence. "I've only ever drawn you for me." I love you to the point of creation, his heart sang. It wasn't quite how that quote went, he knew. It was the only way it had ever gone, for him.

"Hn..." Crowley shifted to look at the iPad where it lay down on the floor. "I suppose... Well. Despite the subject matter, you drew it well, at least."

"Well, thank you for that," Aziraphale jibed back lightly, completely devoid of malice.

"Ngh, you can't blame me for feeling self-conscious about my greys when you haven't got any."

Aziraphale let out a huff of a laugh. "Oh, Crowley."

"What?" Crowley looked defensive, then abruptly switched to looking shrewd. "Wait. Do you dye them??" He leaned forward eagerly, like this was taboo knowledge.

"Oh, where was that compliment two decades ago? No, not at all. Do you know how long I spent getting over feeling self-conscious about them, and now for you to not even realize I have them?"

"No way. You've been holding out on me!" Crowley's eyes had a light in them that Aziraphale had seen sometimes — the look of someone who has been wanting something very much and thinks he's just figured out how to get it. Aziraphale drew back instinctively in trepidation. He had no idea what Crowley could possibly be wanting, though a fluttering feeling in his chest suggested that it was, in some way, him.

Ridiculous. As if they hadn't had sex already.

"I'm going to go get dinner started."

Crowley let out a whine that cut off abruptly enough that Aziraphale suspected he actually hadn't intended to make it.

Aziraphale paused. "What?"

"Ehhh... just envious, s'all."

Aziraphale took a moment to muse about whether Crowley knew the difference between "envious" and "jealous" and decided, firmly, that he had faith that he did. "Of what?" he asked with an incredulous laugh, since he still had no idea what "envious" could possibly apply to here.

"Negghhh, you've gotten to play with my hair enough to know I have greys, and I haven't gotten to touch yours once."

Aziraphale blushed darkly at that, remembering some choice occasions in which Crowley had gripped his hair tightly enough to hurt. He cleared his throat and opted not to mention them. "That feels much more like your fault than mine."

"Just... tryin'a respect your boundaries, angel."

"Why would that be a boundary?" Aziraphale asked, baffled.

"I asked for it and you haven't."

Aziraphale didn't quite remember it that way, but it was a fair enough interpretation from Crowley's point of view, he supposed. "Well, no. It sounds perfectly nice, but I'd hate to bore you with it. I know you're much more fidgety than I am."

"Not bored," Crowley insisted, his eyes urgent. "Never bored when it's you, angel. Siddown."

Aziraphale laughed breathily. "Too late. I'm already up to cook dinner."

"Angel."

"You'll just have to wait," Aziraphale teased in a singsong lilt, casting a smile back at Crowley over his shoulder.

Crowley flung himself back on the couch with an impatient whine, leaving Aziraphale feeling very smug about his attempt at whatever the romantic equivalent of foreplay was. Crowley sounded very much like he was being left with blue balls. "Bastard."

"Only as much as you deserve, my dear," Aziraphale sang back as he went into the kitchen, acutely aware of Crowley's eyes following every step.

—

It wasn't really in question, at all, that Aziraphale would end the evening snuggled on the couch with Crowley's hands in his hair. There was also no question that he'd enjoy it thoroughly, and he also knew it wasn't the kind of thing that was likely to lead to anything more. So, instead, he just relaxed into it and let his thoughts drift.

"...do you really think I'd mind if my red fox turned into a silver fox?" he mused. The thought was languid, easy, relaxed. Crowley spluttered in incoherent surprise anyway, and Aziraphale laughed softly. "Yes, I know. There's a reason I'm not the writer of the pair."

"Y'are, though. Don't think I've forgotten that you are."

Aziraphale blushed a little at that. "Oh."

Crowley's hands resumed their meditative motion through Aziraphale's hair. "But... yeah. I'd rock it, wouldn't I?"

"You would," Aziraphale murmured with a smile. "And I'm quite looking forward to seeing it someday, my dear."

[most-normal-eccles-cake-ignorer]

Good Omens: Lockdown, Aziraphale’s SAD-ASS desk, and how they get to 'Our bookshop' in S2

Welcome to part 2 of me reading reeaally far into the Good Omens: Lockdown video! (part 1 from Crowley's POV here) This post assumes the item choices in the Lockdown visuals are intentional. What follows is going to be my headcanon regardless, but if you're into the Word of God, Lockdown is canon 'If you want it to be.' and I want it to be, sooo checkmate! >;D

Also this is something of a long boi (~13 minute read without following the links >.>), so if you're into unhinged analysis of details and literary references that indicate Aziraphale is in his longing era and want to learn more about author and fave-of-Gaiman, G.K. Chesterton, either get comfy or mark this to read later when you have time!

C: What? A: *somehow surprised even though HE CALLED* A-ah, hello. It's me! C: I know it's you, Aziraphale. A: *regaining composure* Yes, well, just calling to see how you were doing in lockdown.

The video starts with shots of Aziraphale and Crowley's da Vinci sketches (and some sushi remnants)... Babygirl is flipping through the time-goes-too-fast-for-me version of a facebook album, thinking about his crush. vERY chill of him. (also the paper looks new and he's eating on top of them, suggesting these are prints and he has multiple copies of them... sooo normal)

If we look closer at the still of Crowley's portrait, we can see part of the spine of a book that reads Kei- Chesterto-. This is, of course, author Gilbert Keith Chesterton, to whom Neil and Terry (and Crowley) dedicated Good Omens:

The authors would like to join the demon Crowley in dedicating this book to the memory of G. K. Chesterton A man who knew what was going on.

In this post by @azfellandco about Chesterton, you can see a photo of the dedication page and also read the book excerpt where Crowley describes Chesterton as 'the only poet in the twentieth century to even come close to the Truth'.

C: I'm bored. I'm so very very bored - transcendentally bored. There's nothing to do here!

As Crowley is explaining his nap contingency plan, we get a shot of Aziraphale picking up his mug of hot chocolate, then the image below of the 2/3rds gone bottle of Courvoisier cognac (i mean maybe he is baking with it let's not jump to conclusions), and then the stack of books beside a framed woodcut print of witches dancing with devils...

...that I used reverse image search to trace back to page 17 of a book from 1720 called The history of witches and wizards: giving a true account of all their tryals in England, Scotland, Swedeland, France, and New England; with their confession and condemnation.

Interestingly, the text above and below the picture reads:

At their Meeting they have usually Wine, or good Beer, Cakes, Meat, or the like; they Eat and Drink really: When they meet in their Bodies, Dance also, and have Musick...

Beside the framed print of Aziraphale's idea of a really great night out is a stack of books that includes (going from top to bottom):

Homer's The Iliad, Book 2

Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton

Forbidden Rites: A Necromancer's Manual of the Fifteenth Century by Richard Kieckhefer

a book by Hilaire Belloc with no visible title

The Club of Queer Trades by G.K. Chesterton

The Iliad (according to sparknotes) has the following major themes:

....Interesting, ok. Book 2 in particular starts with a god (Zeus) messing with someone (Agamemnon) via a dream that says he will be successful in taking Troy if he launches a full assault, balls to the (city) wall. Agamemnon, who is supposed to be leading the Achaean army to conquer Troy, believes the dream but then in a weird twist decides to test his army and be like 'jk actually I'm giving up and going home' and then is mad when the soldiers are like 'sick, to the boats!' Then Odysseus, who sparknotes tells me is the most eloquent of the Achaeans, gives an impressive speech to inspire the troops and reminds them that they vowed 'that they would not abandon their struggle until the city fell.' ...No way that could worsen Aziraphale's internal conflict about being a bad Angel who thwarted the Great Plan. >.>; Orthodoxy we'll get to in a second.

Then there's Forbidden Rites which is a medieval necromancy guide translated from Latin with added commentary - Aziraphale is perhaps studying occult topics in an attempt to understand Crowley better? And then there's the Hilaire Belloc book on top of the second Chesterton book, a collection of related stories/episodes?, The Club of Queer Trades. The book's Wikipedia page says:

Each story in the collection is centered on a person who is making his living by some novel and extraordinary means. To gain admittance [to the Club of Queer Trades] one must have invented a unique means of earning a living and the subsequent trade being the main source of income.

Aziraphale and Crowley have rather novel/extraordinary jobs and they're both peculiar-queer and gay-queer. Neat. The narrator in the book is named Charlie "Cherub" Swinburne - also neat. >.> He goes on an adventure with his friend, a retired judge and president of the Club of Queer Trades, Basil Grant, (who Oct 2021 GoodReads reviewer Cecily said is "described as mad, mystical, and a poet, with almost no friends, but who “would talk to any one anywhere”) and Basil's younger brother, a private detective named Inspector Constable Rupert Grant. The last line of the book is:

Thus our epic ended where it had begun, like a true cycle. (something something "It starts, as it will end, with a garden.")

Anyway, the Belloc book and The Club of Queer Trades are placed back to back in such a way that they almost look like they could be one book with two different aesthetics, or... two halves of a pantomime beast?! (stay with me I needed a segue)

Belloc and Chesterton have what is essentially a ship name:

It was coined by George Bernard Shaw (if you are like me and didn't know why you've heard of him: he wrote, among other things, Pygmalion, which was adapted into My Fair Lady). Shaw apparently liked to gossip about Belloc and Chesterton with H.G. Wells (again if you're uncultured like me: he wrote, among other science fiction-y things, The War of the Worlds).

In the Feb 15, 1908 issue of The New Age newspaper, Shaw said:

He continued:

"Chesterton and Belloc are so unlike that they get frightfully into one another’s way. ... They are unlike in everything except the specific literary genius and delight in play-acting that is common to them, and that threw them into one another’s arms.”

Shaw says Belloc is 'a bit of a rowdy', and 'cannot bear isolation'. Hmm. Then he says Chesterton is 'friendly, easy-going, unaffected, gentle, magnanimous, and genuinely democratic'. HMM.

“They share one failing—almost the only specific trait they have in common except their literary talent. That failing is, I grieve to say, addiction to the pleasures of the table.”

Ok ok I think we can see where this is going.

(^ from Staged S3E6)

Now, someone did ask Neil Gaiman about this similarity, and he said the Lockdown video was filmed by Rob Wilkins in Terry Pratchett's library, and that he suspects 'Belloc is there because he was on Terry's shelves beside Chesterton.' And it MAY VERY WELL BE that NONE (0) of the book titles are meant in any way other than 'these are books from Sir Pratchett's library that looked nice on camera and ofc we wanted some Chesterton refs and maybe some demon-y stuff for Crowley' but that is WAY less fun so I am choosing to take them as intentional: these are books Aziraphale is actually reading (along with the sushi and many cakes he is actually eating). Let's put ourselves in Aziraphale's shoes and try to imagine how it would be to read this stuff during lockdown while you pine for a demon with slinky hips after you got in big trouble at work for Armageddoff (and work happens to have defined your worldview and general purpose in life).

C: welll... ngk then people might follow my bad example and get ill. Or even die—

As Crowley acknowledges that he ought to be out making peoples' lives worse, we see Orthodoxy by Chesterton open on the desk.

Orthodoxy is described as a ‘spiritual autobiography’ and is considered a classic of Christian apologetics, i.e. the religious discipline of defending religious doctrines (in this case, Catholic) through systematic argumentation and discourse. Wikipedia also says Chesterton's The Everlasting Man contributed to C.S. Lewis' conversion to Christianity, so overall it sounds like he must've been fairly convincing. (and so maybe reading it also poked at that work-related-but-religious-trauma-adjacent stuff Aziraphale has going on?)

You can read Orthodoxy (and probably any of the books I mention bc theyre all old) on project gutenberg but I will include this part of what is shown on the righthand page bc it just reminds me (and so probably Azirapalala as well) of a certain angel squeaking happily at a nebula:

"I felt economical about the stars as if they were sapphires (they are called so in Milton's Eden): I hoarded the hills. For the universe is a single jewel, and while it is a natural cant to talk of a jewel as peerless and priceless, of this jewel it is literally true. This cosmos is indeed without peer and without price: for there cannot be another one."

Ok great, so Aziraphale is diving into the works of one of Crowley's favorite authors bc he misses him, that's cute. What else? Oh he already wrote him a letter right before calling - THE WICK ON THE WAX STICK FOR THE SEAL IS STILL SMOKING. sO CASUAL asdashgfjds

something something 'either call on the phone and talk, or appear mysteriously; don't do both'

When Aziraphale gets to 'I've never had so few customers, not in two hundred years!' We get a close up of this glass of cognac with droplets still on the side — I take back what I said about baking, Aziraphale is drinking it~

He's not drinking a wine, eg Châteauneuf-du-pape, which would be ~14% alcohol by volume (ABV), or a sherry (15-20% ABV); he is drinking Courvoisier cognac, a hard liquor (40% ABV). Crowley's Talisker whisky is 48.5% while we are on the topic. This is stronger than what Aziraphale usually drinks which means... he could be a bit tipsy.

As Aziraphale starts talking about the would-be cash-box burglary, we get this wide shot of the desk:

In the top left hand corner, we see two stacks of books, most (all?) of which appear to be Chesterton when I zoom in. Some of them have Chesterton's name visible on them, others have the publisher name 'Darwen Finlayson' on them, which according to my googling is a house that published several of Chesterton's works. If Chesterton was truly 'a man who knew what was going on', then perhaps this is Aziraphale seeking not just to feel closer to Crowley, but also to make sense of the warring ideas in his mind. Interestingly, Chesterton has also been described as 'The Eccentric Prince of Paradox'.

C: *clearly amused* Did you smite them with your wroth?

The screen then shows two occult-y books and a flickering candle (lower left image). Then Aziraphale explains about his cake~, and as Crowley cuts him off because he's about to nervously ask to come over bc he is so so lonely & down bad for a certain angelic bookworm, we see a map of Oxfordshire on top of Pilgrim's Progress (lower right image).

The two books beside the candle are Satanism and Witchcraft (presumably the 1862 book by Jules Michelet that comes up when I search the title), and another called Magic: An Occult Primer.

Satanism and Witchcraft is described on Wikipedia as 'notable for being one of the first sympathetic histories of witchcraft' and says 'Michelet was one of the first few people to attempt to show the sociological explanation of the Witch Trials.’ Sympathy for people who like to eat/drink/dance with demons, if you will?

Magic: An Occult Primer is a 1972 book by David Conway, a Welsh (CACHU HWCH!) magus and is described as 'a seminal work that brought magical training to the every-magician'. It also includes an appendix called The Occult Who's Who, which is somewhat reminiscent of Hastur's Furfur's book about angels. In Chapter 11: A Word About Demons, it says in regard to summoning them:

"Assuming that the form has turned up in the right place, it will soon begin to act and talk in a very friendly manner; do not forget, however, that its winning ways conceal a sinister intention-- namely, to get the adept out of the circle, and into its clutches.”

...okay?? Aziraphale's desk has a flickering candle on it throughout the video, and we get a close up of the flame when Crowley offers to slither over:

and just like that, Aziraphale has summoned a demon~~

Naturally, he freaks out:

A: *panicking*Oh I— I— I— I— I'm afraid that would be Breaking All The Rules! *nervous breathing* Out of the question! I'll see you… when this is over.

But why? Isn't this what he wanted? Let's go back to the Pilgrim's Progress shot from right before the successful demon summoning and zoom in:

In a similar vein to Orthodoxy, Pilgrim's Progress, by John Bunyan, is an allegorical Puritan conversion narrative. Christian is the main character / stand in for anyone who wants to be in the allegory and Hopeful is well, hopeful, from what I gather. A slightly larger continuous excerpt is here for the curious, but here are some bits I thought were especially interesting in the part of the book shown above:

Christian: Why, what was it that brought your sins to mind again? Hopeful: Many things; as, If I did but meet a good man in the streets; or, If I have heard any read in the Bible; or, If mine head did begin to ache; or, If I were told that some of my neighbors were sick; or, If I heard the bell toll for some that were dead; or, If I thought of dying myself; or, If I heard that sudden death happened to others; But especially when I thought of myself that I must quickly come to judgment.

Perhaps the pandemic is bringing Aziraphale's "sins" to mind again, on top of the whole choosing faces thing to avoid 'quickly coming to judgment'. And then:

Hopeful: I thought I must endeavor to mend my life; for else, thought I, I am sure to be lost forever. Christian: And did you endeavor to mend? Hopeful: Yes, and fled from not only my sins, but sinful company too, and betook me to religious duties, as praying, reading, weeping for sin, speaking truth to my neighbors, etc.

UM??? While I can't say about the praying or weeping for sin, he has definitely been reading and the whole 'giving a good talking to' the burglars could be 'speaking truth to [the] neighbors'...?

Anyway to recap:

Aziraphale has been poring over books about dark magic and demons as well as a ton of books by an author that Crowley loves and who formed a partnership w a very different person in a sort of yin-yang, pantomime beast situation

He has been looking at pictures that remind him of their fun times w Leo in Florence and eating sushi and cake cake cake (and forgiving sinners) and drinking hot chocolate and cognac trying to fill a void but now he's tipsy so he wrote Crowley a letter, stamped it with a wax seal and then thought 'I should call her' BUT

His recent brush with attempted death penalties, the death toll of the pandemic, and some of the religious books he was reading have also filled him with guilt/fear over disobeying Heaven, who he knows could still be watching him and Crowley, so he feels much more conflicted than usual AND

He probably has some inkling that he wants to go ape shit on that ox rib if it comes over to hang out (lol editing to add bc i remembered ox rib discourse: ape shit in an emotional way! whether you hc them as ace or not I just think he really likes him and I’m using ox ribs as a stand in for general forbidden joy/love, not specifically sexy stuff)

So he has to say no.

Anything else might cause him to spontaneously discorporate into a plume of pining and cognitively dissonant gay smoke, which may be all well and good if you only think there's a God, but if you KNOW it and the angels are absolutely recording you and Heaven just tried to kill you and your wife colleague, it's... kind of a big deal.

C: Right. gnnehh. I'm setting the alarm clock for July. Good night, angel. *dial tone*

We don't get to hear Aziraphale's response, but besties you and I both know he is not feeling tickety-boo. He spent like a month putting off calling Crowley (UK lockdowns started end of March, the call is at the beginning of May), finally got drunk and said what the Hell, it'll just be a fun flirty chat in between his temptations, and then it turned out Crowley was depressed and not going anywhere and Aziraphale made him even sadder. And then it got worse because it wasn't all over in July, or in October, even.

I think Aziraphale ends up with a lot of time and brain space in which to think about how Orthodoxy and Pilgrim's Progress were only written to guide *mortals* and how it really wouldn't be so bad if he spent more time with Crowley, would it? Heaven hasn't reached out in actual years again, things feel safer. Crowley is essentially Good and spending time with him would be sort of ministering to the downtrodden and afflicted, and Aziraphale does miss reporting his good deeds (lol you know, whatever rationalizations you need to get you there).

More than anything, he thinks about how hollow everything feels without Crowley; how no mouthful of food or drink tastes as satisfying in his absence because it wasn't ever just about the 'gross matter'...

So when lockdowns end, Aziraphale begins to summon his demon again, but this time with much less inner struggling. It all comes so naturally, when you let it. By the beginning of Season 2 in 2023, they seem delightfully comfortable with their shared routines and places (see also this lovely post by @nightgoodomens). Our car. Our bookshop.

Aziraphale might take longer to catch up, but he does get there.

(SHHH DON'T THINK ABOUT EPISODE 6! STOP! I'M HANGING UP!)

“The way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost.” ― G.K. Chesterton

[dolleffable]

LIKE REAL PEOPLE DO .ᐟ

PAIRING. Aziraphale x Crowley GENRE. Fluff with the tiniest bit of angst. REQUESTED? No. WORD COUNT. 2.8k SYNOPSIS. Crowley's going a little stir-crazy after the whole ordeal with Jim (or can he finally call him Gabriel now?). Nina and Maggie know the perfect solution. WARNINGS. Minor mentions of anxiety. Crowley is a bit OOC. Some parts and dialogue are taken from the actual show.

NOTE. Takes place during Season 2, after Gabriel and Beelzebub's disappearance, with some minor changes. Metatron never comes to offer Aziraphale anything. A.K.A., what should have been the ending (in my opinion).

Crowley feels restless.

It’s odd, really. Even during the most stressful, chaotic moments, Crowley would never break a sweat (do demons even sweat?). His confidence rarely falters, even in the face of adversity. He’s one for keeping his cool— always the relaxed one, especially in comparison to his angel companion.

But for some odd reason, Crowley feels restless now. After everything’s done and gone— Beelzebub and Gabriel are off to god knows where, both Heaven and Hell have finally left him and Aziraphale alone (with the exception of Muriel, who was unfortunately punished for aiding a demon in Heaven by being tasked to keep an eye on the two, not that she minded), and Crowley could want for nothing else.

Except, he does want something, maybe need? He’s not even sure. But he knows there’s something wrong, something missing in this whole equation of his. Things are finally falling into place but still, he feels anxious, like there’s something in the back of his head keeping him from ever relaxing.

It’s quite frustrating, really.

Most days, he tries to quell the feeling by dampening his brain with alcohol. It’s always been a trustworthy method of shutting up the voices in his head. When the alcohol doesn’t work anymore or he finds himself out of stock, he usually ends up in the confined space of his Bentley, napping his days away. If he still had his old flat, he could probably pull another 19th-century and sleep a couple years off. Alas, the backseat of his vehicle was one too small for him to ever feel comfortable curled up in.

So, some days, when there is no alcohol left and sleep feels impossible to come by, he’s left with facing the emotions and the thoughts head on. It’s a tragedy, really. He’s a demon, why is he feeling all these sorts of anxiety and paranoia? And why now, exactly?

He speculates that maybe his body’s reactions were delayed, or maybe he was far too focused in the past week, adrenaline keeping him going when he decided to visit Heaven a millennia after his Fall.

Or maybe… there was something else.

MORE UNDER THE CUT.

It’s been an entire week since the whole ordeal blew over. Things have fallen back into place. Aziraphale’s back in his bookshop, tending to customers with the help of Muriel. Heaven has yet to bother any of them. The Metatron took a minute to converse with the angel but they had left soon after.

Hell hasn’t reached out to Crowley, either. He’s heard news that Shax is now the new Grand Duke of Hell, but he couldn’t care less what was going on down there, as long as he wasn’t involved.

The days are quieter. He hasn’t had the time to visit the bookshop again, but it’s only been a week. He has half the mind to take a quick look and check up on the angel, but the overall dreaded feeling keeps him at bay. For some reason, thinking about Aziraphale makes the feelings worse. He’s not really sure why, maybe Hell or Heaven placed a curse on him before they left him alone. It was the only logical explanation he could think of. Granted, he knows it’s improbable, but what should the demon think?

Usually, during times like these, where he’s unsure of himself, despite being aware of his intelligence, he runs off to Aziraphale for advice or even a listening ear. But since Aziraphale is part of the equation of this problem, he holds off on asking for his guidance.

Which is why he now finds himself sat in a familiar coffee shop, chugging his second cup of espresso (six shots, he’s consumed about twelve or thirteen shots in total now), trying to quell the anxiety (and also the hangover) hammering in his head.

He slams the cup down on the table, grunting as he feels the espresso doing it’s job (it took thirteen shots to make him feel something, but he’ll take the win). He’s got a hand on his face when Nina comes by the table to pick up his used cup.

“Another cup for the gambling man?” She quips, picking an empty tray from another table.

“No,” Crowley replies. “I don’t suppose you offer alcohol in this establishment?”

He’d ran out of alcohol hours ago, which is why he’s here. Caffeine doesn’t do much for his system, but it’s better than nothing at this point.

Nina shakes her head. “Nope. You could try the pub down the road though.”

“Nah,” Crowley replies, running his fingers through his hair.

“If you say so,” Nina responds. She’s about to walk off and leave, but decides to stay at the last minute. “Why are you here by the way? On your own, I mean. You’re usually in the bookshop. Or with Mr. Fell.”

Crowley shrugs, unsure of what to say. He looks through the window, right across the street and sees the bookshop. He can faintly make out the sign by the front door. ‘Open,’ it says.

Nina, now intrigued with the situation, continues. “You guys had a fight?”

The demon shakes his head. “No.”

“Hm,” Nina wants to say something else, but a customer calls out her name from the other end of the cafè. She turns to Crowley, who is now staring off into the distance.

“We don’t have alcohol, but I can offer you something better,” she says.

Curious, Crowley replies. “What is it?”

“Love advice,” Nina is smiling, almost as if she was teasing the demon. “Looks like you need it.”

“Oh, bollocks,�� Crowley groans.

“Stay here til’ after closing, I’ll phone Maggie,” Nina says, and the customer calls her name out again, and the human is off.

Crowley is tempted to leave, to camp out in his Bentley again just to avoid confrontation, but he thinks it through. Although he’s been around for more than 6,000 years, he’ll admit that he’s not really good at making sense of his emotions, and besides, Maggie and Nina seem to know a lot more than he bargains them for.

So he decides to stay.

Closing comes by faster than he’d expect. Nina’s cleared out all of the tables and pushed the chairs under. She’s just flipped the sign out the door to ‘Closed,’ when Maggie walks in.

“Hello, Mr. Crowley,” she greets with a chipper smile. He replies with a mere nod.

“So,” Nina settles herself. “What’s the matter with you lot?”

Crowley grunts. The two humans stare at him, awaiting response. Truth be told, Crowley doesn’t even know what to say. Even if he wanted to tell the two, he doesn’t know where to begin.

“Did you and Mr. Fell have a spat?” Maggie poses for him.

Crowley shook his head. “‘s not that.”

“Then what is it?” Nina goaded. “You’ve been hiding out here for hours, you’ve not stepped into the bookshop for days— and don’t lie, I can see you sleeping in your Bentley every night. What gives?”

Crowley can feel himself internally cringing.

“It’s not what you think,” Crowley replies. “Aziraphale’s not— he didn’t do anything.”

There’s a period of silence between the three. Maggie and Nina share a look, before Maggie’s holding her hand out to leave a soft touch against Crowley’s hand.

“Tell us,” she poses, Crowley sighs.

The demon runs a hand through his hair in frustration. “Past few days, s’been..” He takes a pause, clearing his throat before continuing with his tangent.

“Do you ever… feel like things are gonna go wrong at any moment? Like things have been better than before but you’re worried they won’t last that way for long.”

“Like you finally have something good, and you feel like someone’s gonna take that away from you…” Nina adds, all the while taking a long look at Maggie. The latter takes a glance at her, as well, reaching out to provide a comforting touch to Nina’s hand.

“Yeah,” Crowley’s voice is low, and his eyes gleam with unshed tears. It’s completely uncharacteristic for the demon to be open and vulnerable like this to a bunch of random humans, but he can’t help it. He feels like he’s on the edge.

“Why won’t you tell Mr. Fell about this?” Maggie asks after a short while. “I’m sure you’ll feel much better if you open up to him.”

Crowley shakes his head with a scowl. “We haven’t…”

“You should,” Nina mutters. “Talk, I mean. You and Mr. Fell never talk to each other.”

"We talk all the time," Crowley objected. "We've been talking for millions of years."

"You never say what you're really thinking." Maggie pointed out. A moment of silence passes between the three, and Crowley could hear his own breath.

Maggie takes a glance at Nina. "It was all we needed. It's what you two need as well."

And much to Crowley’s dismay, he thinks she's right.

A day passes, then two. He’s still stuck in the Bentley, curled up in the backseat, with an arm thrown over his eyes, shielding away the sunlight beaming through the windows.

He’s busy snoring the day away when a tap by the window disrupts him.

A quick annoyed glance at the window reveals Muriel, still clad in her all-white police uniform. Crowley groans, but hesitantly decides to open the door and step out.

“Wot,” he asks, trying his best to clean himself up after spending so much time in the cramped space of his car. He smooths the creases of his clothes down.

“Ello, ello, ello,” Muriel greets. “Aziraphale has been looking for you.”

“Yeah, well, ‘m busy,” Crowley mutters under his breath.

Muriel’s eyebrows furrow, glancing behind Crowley, at his car. “In there?”

Crowley nods, hands in his pockets. “Mhm.”

“But Aziraphale wants to talk to you,” she says. “He's been looking everywhere."

The demon rolls his eyes. “Fine,” he mutters through gritted teeth.

"Oh, good," Muriel gives him a grin, probably excited to have provided help for the other angel.

Crowley steps onto the sidewalk and begins trekking toward the bookshop, with Muriel in tow. It takes a couple minutes of silence before the two find themselves by the front door.

Crowley asks one question before either of the two can walk in. "How has he been, by the way?"

"He's alright," Muriel responds timidly. "He's been looking for you, though."

"Mm." Crowley vocalizes, and the two finally step into the bookshop.

The bell by the front door dings and Crowley is immediately met with the image of Aziraphale sitting behind the desk, back facing him. He's preoccupied with something, probably annotating a book or organizing some files for the shop.

"Muriel, is that—" the angel begins, but stops mid-sentence when he looks to the side and sees the demon by the door. "Crowley."

Aziraphale calls his name much like all the other times he's done. Soft, gentle, almost like the demon's name was far too fragile and must be uttered with nothing but tenderness.

Crowley tries his best to maintain composure and merely steps into the shop, acting indifferent. "You were looking for me?"

Aziraphale nods. "Ah, yes. Thank you, Muriel." The angel bids her thanks, and Muriel walks off into the backroom, probably to look at another book.

Aziraphale walks out behind the counter and into the room by the couch, still facing Crowley. He takes a seat on one of the chairs, and Crowley follows, settling on the sofa across him.

"Actually, Nina and Maggie came by yesterday," the angel informs him. "They were acquainting me with a few things."

"What things?" Crowley queried.

"Just.. things," Aziraphale reinstated. "They said we needed to talk."

The demon sighed. "They told me that, too. I dunno why they'd say that—"

Aziraphale cuts him off before he can finish. "I'm not blind, Crowley, I can sense something's wrong."

The angel wasn't incensed, but Crowley could feel his frustration. He supposes he hasn't done a good job hiding his emotional turmoil, then.

"So what, if there is?" The demon chided. He didn't mean to sound upset, but the aggravation he's been feeling the past week were starting to accumulate.

"Then you must tell me." Aziraphale disputed. "It isn't fair that you go ghost on me after Gabriel and Beelzebub disappeared. I was starting to think you were being imprisoned in Hell!"

Crowley muffles a laugh, a little amused at the notion that he'd be cast away in Hell after everything that happened. But he doesn't respond after that. He takes a moment to think, trying to find the right words.

"Crowley," Aziraphale calls out once more, leaning in towards the demon's space. "Talk to me."

The demon takes a moment to clear his throat. "Right, okay— yes," he sat up, preparing himself mentally for what he was about to say.

"So," he took a deep breath feeling his throat close up, his mouth drying with how nervous he felt. "We've known each other a long time."

Aziraphale remains seated, looking both confused and intrigued with Crowley's words. The demon continued. "We've been on this planet a long time, I mean. You and me."

The angel wanted to nod but instead continued to listen. "I could always rely on you, you could always rely on me. We're a team. A group— group of the two of us."

The demon could feel his eyelids burning, and it took a moment for him to realize that tears were accumulating in his eyes. The feeling of his throat closing up was the telltale sign that at any moment, he could break down and cry in front of the angel.

Despite that knowledge, he carries on. "And we spent our existence pretending that we aren't." His voice breaks a little at the end of his sentence.

He looks to the aside, afraid to meet Aziraphale's eyes in case he starts crying. His lips are pursed, and he's holding himself back from falling apart. "I mean, the last few years, not really."

A quick glance at the angel in front of him shows a confused expression. Aziraphale is unsure of where Crowley is headed, of what exactly he wants to say. He wants to say something, maybe to provide comfort, as he can feel that Crowley is in pain, but he remains quiet.

The moment of silence ends, as Crowley, still trying to avoid Aziraphale's gaze, resumes his speech. "And I would like to spend—" he pauses for a second, grunting, almost as if he didn't want to continue. He heaves out a sigh.

"—I mean, if Gabriel and Beelzebub could do it, go off together, then we can." Aziraphale's eyes widen a little. "Just the two of us."

The statement leaves Crowley breathless. Just the two of us. The phrase repeats itself in his head, and it's almost too good to be true. He never really believed that they could ever be together, just the two of them, but now, even the mere suggestion of it leaves him agog.

"Crowley," Aziraphale utters his name again, and the demon finally gathers enough strength to look at him.

The two share another moment of silence, Aziraphale taking in everything that has been said, and Crowley trying to calm himself down. The angel licks his lips, trying to gather his thoughts.

A hand is placed on Crowley's own, right above his knee. The touch is soft, much like everything Aziraphale does. A moment of vulnerability washes over Crowley, and he grasps the angel's hand tight in his, almost as if he was afraid to let go.

"I am here," Aziraphale offered. "I'm not going anywhere, my dear."

Crowley swallows the lump in his throat, sad eyes staring right at Aziraphale's. "I know."

"We don't have to go off anywhere," the angel comforts. "We could stay right here."

"And if Heaven comes back? Or Hell? Or Gabriel and Beelzebub or the Metatron, or—"

"Crowley," the angel stops him with a squeeze of his hand. "They won't."

"How can you be so sure?" The demon pressed.

Aziraphale takes a breath. "Even if they do, we'll be here, and we will figure it out. Won't we?"

Crowley nods in hesitation. Aziraphale takes his hand up to his lips, pressing a comforting kiss against Crowley's knuckles.

"I—" I love you. Crowley wants to say, but the words get caught in his throat. "Thanks."

Aziraphale gives him a soft smile as if he knows without having to hear it from him. "Is there anything else you want to talk about?"

A pause. Then, Crowley swallows. "I want to—" He pauses, unsure if he should continue.

Aziraphale looks at him expectantly, waiting for him to finish.

"I want to kiss you," Crowley says. "Can I?"

Crowley had expected him to recoil in shock or disgust, but the angel merely smiled before nodding, already leaning in closer, his breath fanning against Crowley's skin.

Another pause. A split second of doubt flashes through Crowley's head, but when the angel's lips press against his, time stops, and all the voices in his head go silent.

An angel and a demon remain in the bookshop, and if you listen closely, a nightingale begins singing, and the troubles of a young demon begin to fade.

NOTE. I have so much emotional constipation I decided to write it down and project it. I hope this is okay! Send requests if you like <3

© dolleffable 2025

[crow-crystal]

Song: I'll Make a Man Out of You

¡¡¡---¡¡¡---¡¡¡---¡¡¡---¡¡¡---¡¡¡---¡¡¡---¡¡¡---¡¡¡---¡¡¡---¡¡¡---¡¡¡

Friends and Fighting

!!!---!!!---!!!---!!!---!!!---!!!---!!!---!!!---!!!---!!!---!!!---!!!

     It was easy to forget that, no, Yuu wasn't from this world. They had a life before all this, and no one seemed to know what it was. However, Yuu was far more focused on training at the moment to realize they had an audience.

"Let's get down to business."

Yuu always did find singing a comforting thing, especially now since they had no other reminders of their own world. They hadn't thought they would need to train, but with all the overblots, and the obvious fact most people here will somehow do something to make their life worse? Yea, they wouldn't let themselves get away with slacking off.

"To defeat, the huns"

It was basically the backyard of the Ramshackle, and if Crowley decided this wasn't allowed, they had plenty of blackmail by now. It was kind of funny how Yuu didn't even notice when the others came. They'd made a lot of friends when they thought of it. Ace and Duece were confused as they opened the back door of the dorm and saw their friend.. training? Of course, like always, it didn't take long for them to want in. Yuu letting them try and copy their moves.

"You're the saddest bunch I ever met,"

Both of them winced at that, Yuu rolling their eyes and finally focusing on them. Helping fix their forms and repeat the moves they were trying (failing miserably) to recreate. Malleus teleporting right then and there, like always, ramshackle was a comforting spot. However, the scene seemed to suprise him as well. Sitting to the side to watch, enamored by the fact his human friend knew this.

"Mr. I'll make a man out of you."

Lillia, no one would question where he came from, smiled. The old man probably remembered training soldiers or something. It seemed a lot of people ended up gravitating to Ramshackle. Silver was probably asleep somewhere, honestly. Sebek no doubt soon to appear in search of Malleus.

"Tranquil as a forest, but on fire within."

Yuu was focused, doing their own thing really, yet they were skilled. Ace and Duece did pretty well following, even with Grim laughing at them from the background. Silver, as expected, woke from whatever nap he'd been taking and ended up walking to Yuu's dorm as well. Watching surprised before he decided to join his friend as well.

"You must be swift as a corsing river."

Playfighting, as childish as it may be, was fun, and Yuu couldn't help but smile. Duece and Ace practically a ball of cartoon banter on the floor. Silver was surprised with how well Yuu fought in hand to hand combat. Lillia was laughing joyfully as he watched.

"With all the force of a great typhoon,"

Yuu always enjoyed this, doing little things that they missed from their world. They couldn't help but feel happy as they sparred with Silver. They had friends here, and as chaotic as it was, things like this made it feel like home.

"With all the strength of a raging fire,"

They didn't win, but considering Silver was training to be a knight, they weren't surprised. Laughing as they decide to take a break to get Duece and Ace away from each other. Everyone is sitting down and just.. talking. It was nice, Yuu couldn't help but smile brightly as they laughed at Ace and Duece arguing over who won.

"Mysterious as the dark side of the moon!"

Yea, this is worth fighting for.

¡¡¡---¡¡¡---¡¡¡---¡¡¡---¡¡¡---¡¡¡---¡¡¡---¡¡¡---¡¡¡---¡¡¡---¡¡¡---¡¡¡

[justcallmecj]

Seeing Your Dragon Form: Staff

There's nothing romantic about these interactions. I left the ones with the boys kinda either romantic or platonic, but for the staff, it's strictly parent/child dynamics. Here, you are just close with these staff members for whatever reasons (they know other students are scared of you because of what you are is how I'm gonna write it for my own sake) Anyway, they all have parent/child dynamic with you. Also, these may suck because I don't have a very good grasp on the staff's personalities.

Headmaster Crowley

Honestly, Crowley still doesn't know how you and him have gotten so close. And, neither do you really.

But, he's not complaining. He actually sees you as nice company compared to the interesting students of Night Raven Collage and his fellow staff members.

Now, Crowley is (probably) an old soul and has seen his fair share of things from all over Twisted Wonderland. But, much to his own shame but also not his fault, he hasn't seen a draconic fae be a dragon. Fae keep to themselves and draconic ones are few and far between.

Because of this, while he will never admit, he was thoroughly frozen (pun unintended) in shock and amazement when he just so happened to across you mid transformation when he was taking a midday stroll in the woods.

He understands that you are a taller student and he understands that a part of that is because of your dragon lineage, but the thought that that might translate into the size of your dragon form didn't cross his mind.

He also didn't know what to do. This whole thing was a chance meeting and as far as he knows, you're unaware of his presence. Should he step into your line of sight and attempt to speak with you? Or should he continue to stay behind this tree and either leave or watch from a distance.

He opted to stay and watch, not knowing how you'd take to this ordeal and his own curiosity getting the best of him.

To bad for him, both your dragon and fae senses picked up on his presence even before transformation, you simply didn't care.

You turned around, icy wings spread out onto the forest floor, and faced him, making direct eye contact.

The Headmaster yelped in surprise, but not fear. Deciding there was no reason to stay hidden now that he knew you were aware of him, he stepped out and came forward.

Crowley was loud while he held a one-sided conversation, which was expected, but he was also calm and slow, which was surprising. Because of his prideful attitude and overall personality, it's sometimes easy to forget that this man is still an educator and a man who has kept this school running for who knows how long.

Looking back on it, long after he went back to work and you took a nap in the forest, he seemed to know exactly what he was doing in his own actions. Maybe it's the constant handling of rowdy beastmen or his extensive knowledge of Twisted Wonderland's people and abundant species, but he was quick to adjust to the situation while giving on air of someone not even trying.

"Now, aren't I oh so gracious? Taking time out of my busy day to see you and even learn some new things?" You knew he was lying, that he had been out here on a pleasure walk. But, the way his smile under the crow mask curled up in genuine happiness, you could let it pass.

Crewel

Crewel is really fond of you.

This started when he managed to get you to agree to modal and help design clothing for people that have animalistic features. He'd been struggling to design clothes that worked with people that have wings or large tails and you were happy to help.

Because of this bond, he became a type of protector when he realized your fellow classmates were either messing with you or scared of you due to being a draconic fae. He'd scare off any students who tried to mess with you and let you stay in his classroom after class or after school if you needed a break.

Crewel voiced his curiosity of your dragon form one day when you and him were in his room discussing some mechanics to help wings fit through clothing without it tearing. And, since you had come to trust this man and he treats you like a father, you decided to indulge him.

He had to use his coat to cover his face when the cold mist swept over him.

The first thing that caught his attention was your wings, the very things he had been studying earlier today. They were much larger than when in human form and even had sharp, icy spikes on the tips that were only slightly visible in human form.

Would he have to take into account any transformations when making his new clothing line or does magic protect all clothing when it happens? Oh well, that's something he'll have to find out later.

He truly couldn't understand how other students could be scared of you. You were very beautiful in human form, your features not being the only thing that convinced him to ask for your help. But, even in dragon form, that beauty remained, albeit in a very different light.

The smoothness and pale color of your scales, the glistening ends of your horns, the spikes running down your back and even the glint in your e/c eyes. It was a type of beauty he was unused to, animal in nature but also strikingly human.

Really, how could someone ever be scared of you or ridicule you? Maybe you could be dangerous, if prompted or your life was in danger, but he knew you were a gentle soul.

After transforming back into human form, he carefully studied your clothes (some he had designed with your helpful insight) and beamed with pride when he found no tears or stretches. "Well, I must say, I think we did our job wonderfully, Little Pup."

Trein

Trein only got to know you the way he has because you started talking to Lucius(if you remember one of my earlier chapters, I had Y/N take Animal Linguistics) and the cat familiar seemed to take a liking to you.

I vaguely remembers Professor Oski mentioning you one day in the teacher's lounge, something about teaching you his snow cloud spell.

You two got to talking after that, usually with Lucius starting the conversation and it evolving from there, until you and him eventually started conversations on your own.

Sometimes, you remind him of one of his daughters. Lucius was the one who told him your relationship with other students and he couldn't help but think of when one of his daughter was in a similar situation.

When Lucius told him that he wanted to go see you in dragon form, because you had told him that's what you were doing after school, Trein really couldn't say no to the fond look in his familiar's eyes.

Trein has seen many animals and creatures, from house hold pets to magical familiars, but a full grown dragon is not one of those creatures. However, when someone else may be panicking at seeing a creature the size of you, Lucius was not fazed in the slightest, and, him being Trein's familiar and the two having a spiritual bond, it calmed Trein's own human instincts of fight or flight.

Plus, he could still see, in those large, sharp eyes, the young fae he has been teaching all your long. The child who never hesitated to talk to Lucius despite how other students see it as weird that the cat seems to mimic it's master's words during lessons. The child who spoke cheerily of the friend's they've made. The child who reminded him so much of his own daughters.

"See what I was talking about, Trein?" Lucius meowed. Trein truly did see why his familiar was so fond of this child. Staring up at the long snout pointed at him, he saw no difference between this dragon and the child he's taught in his classroom. "Right as always, Lucius."

Vargas

Vargas took an interest in you on the first day of school.

He immediately understood you were a fae, and he knows that fae are known for their incredible strength even when they look unassuming. Take Lilia Vanrouge for example.

He had high hopes for you in this class, and he was right to do so. He encouraged all his students to never hold back in their talents, so it came as no surprise to him when you quickly outran most of your classmates and were capable of lifting more than them for longer periods of time.

One class, he even pulled you aside and requested that you start training more with your wings during class so he can make sure you are truly making full use of all your strengths and capabilities.

At first, you didn't think he'd be able to properly train you due to him being human but he quickly proved you wrong. Apparently he hasn't been teaching at NRC and not picked up a thing or two from the non-human students.

He even, actually quite happily, agreed to your request to stay after school some days to further your own training. It was on of these days that you, while deciding to mess with your coach for pushing you just a little too far recently, suddenly changed forms mid-flight.

You actually knocked him onto his butt when your giant form hit the ground and he was still stuck in shock at the transformation.

But, even that didn't faze him for long. He quickly jumped to his feet, dashed over and began inspecting the new form, trying to pick out just how strong you'd be in this form compared to before. (Quite a bit stronger if you're wondering.)

This new revelation, which you thought may spook him enough to go a little easier on you, did quite the opposite. Instead, he encouraged you to take the form more often during your after-school training sessions. To practice flight and see if spellcasting was manageable. Heck, he even set up some different training supplies for you to practice your ice breath and powerful tail on.

Unbeknownst to you, he wasn't only doing this just so your could get stronger. Trust him, he's heard the whispers of your fellow classmates whenever you showed them up in class and got praise for it. The harsh words so carelessly thrown at you.

And he knows that, if he can hear them, he has no doubt you can too.

So, he does this so you become more comfortable with yourself. Improvement starts with your own image of yourself! And, when all is said and done, when he's pushed you to a limit or you've beat a new goal, he gives you a hardy pat on the back while handing you a water bottle, praising you for your improvements.

Sam

Sam met you when you first came to his shop sometime during the first week of school.

Him, being the only shop owner on campus and having a reputation for having anything and everything, means he meets everyone eventually, and that's a lot of different people.

Usually, he relies on his Friends On The Other Side to quickly figure out what a student needs so he's not overworking his own mind trying to remember things. But, when he met you, he (and his friends) just knew you were going to be an interesting visitor.

And he was right. You come to Mr. S's Mystery Shop for an array of items, from normal groceries to scale care items.

It was during these frequent visits that the two of you began talking more, even to the point where he'd ask about whatever drama was flowing between the students and you happily spending however long it needed to explain it to him.

His Friends On The Other Side also became quickly fond of you, especially after finding out your senses could faintly pick up on them, capable of telling where in the shop they were hiding in. Sam himself took quite an interest in this.

It didn't take long before you became his "Favorite Imp", the one who provided him knowledge of what goes on inside the schools halls and classrooms. Sorta like gossip buddies at this point.

One day, after you'd fallen asleep in the woods one night in dragon form (your dormleader was not pleased), you had to make a stop at Sam's shop because the morning dew, while not bothering you due to being an ice dragon, had made the ground muddy where you were sleeping and now you needed to clean your scales. Again. Man, sometimes being a dragon is hard.

It was this day that Sam's friends, who you had learned to listen carefully enough to hear their words, tried to drag you out the back door so they could see what a dragon looked like.

You ended up indulging the friends, Sam having to come along to keep an eye on the rascals. He was a bit shocked, but with all the weird things he sells and even the ones he keeps put of stock for safety purposes, it wasn't the strangest nor the most astonishing thing he's seen. But it was new.

He's never been a big dragon fanatic, but he has sold some dragon related items, even to Professor Crewel who needs things for potionology, so it was actually really cool to see a dragon in the flesh.

But he also couldn't help to be a little sad. His Friends On The Other Side, and even himself, have hear the rumors about you on campus. About how there's a terrifying dragon student walking the halls, who glares at everyone in sight and refuses to be near other people.

He also knows that that's not you. You're his gossip buddy. And sure, he probably shouldn't be gossiping with a student, seeing as he's an adult, but he's still a young man at heart who years to have fun, which is why he took up a job at NRC.

So, just why would someone take a look at you, the student who keeps their wings and tail tucked in tight and politely apologizes when they knock something over, who plays games with his mysterious friends and looks freaking awesome as a dragon, and still think you're scary and mean?

"Now now my friends, let's not keep my Favorite Imp waiting." His friends, heading his call, quickly rush back inside and settle into their own shadows. When you walk past him, preparing to leave, he whispers to you. "Thanks for putting up with them, Little Imp. They appreciate it!"

Idk why Vargas doesn't have a speech after his section, but there wasn't one on Quotev and I don't feel like making one for him now. I did write in a note originally that I didn't proofread this bc is was so late at night, so that's probs why. Oof.

[weirdly-specific-but-ok]

pardon me good sir, but uh... my friends are officially rationing my acess to gomens content (they claim they are trying to prevent spoilers but I think they simply hate me now) Sir, please, I am begging you. What is (are)? the final fifteen? Are they the remaining fifteen of the death tournament? ALSO THEY KISS??? IF THEY KISS SHOULDN'T THAT BE GOOD?? WHAT HAPPENS AFTER THEY KISS TO RESULT IN SUCH AN EMOTIONAL REACTION FROM THE FANS??? WHO HURT MY BLORBOS??????????

Don't worry anon maggot! Your friends want the pain to hit unexpectedly, but I've got you! Let me tell you about the final fifteen so you are completely prepared. The only person more well versed in the final fifteen than I am is Neil himself, but he's a busy man, so I'm overseeing the spoiler department.

We find out that your uh blorbos are not who we thought they were. "Aziraphale" as we knew him in the first season is gone to start a chinchilla farm in Glasgow with the descendant of Elspeth, who it turned out was a long-lost fae princess.

The Aziraphale we see in season 2 is not he, it is a marsh-dwelling shapeshifter by the name of Dottie. Dottie, you see, is engaged in a decades-long feud with the British finance ministry, and in an effort to overthrow them, she took Aziraphale's form and began her residence in London.

Crowley meanwhile is off having a century-long nap because the 21st century got simply too tiresome, poor bloke. He asked a demon Sadie to take his place lest Hell get suspicious, and owing him a debt, she did. But [MAJOR GOOD OMENS SEASON 2 SPOILER ALERT] Sadie and Dottie in a shocking twist of events fall in love. But the marsh-dwelling shapeshifters have come to find Dottie and suddenly no one knows who the real Dottie is.

The final fifteen is in fact a callback to Cinderella's ending. One by one through rigorous tests, Sadie, desperate to find her love, eliminates the other shapeshifters, narrowing them down to just fifteen contestants.

The final fifteen.

Does she find Dottie? Well really my good chap I can't spoon feed you everything you will have to watch the show. In life, sometimes kisses are quiet, gentle and romantic. And sometimes they are rough, masochistic and desperate. Sometimes kisses are a please stay, and sometimes they are a goodbye. Will Sadie and Dottie find each other against all odds? Or will they have to make peace with knowing this is goodbye?

You'll have to wait and see. Watch Good Omens 2, now streaming on Amazon Prime, to find out.

[actual-changeling]

me? writing fluff? without any pain???? incredibly rare but it happens.

———

Crowley loves to nap, and although it is technically a choice to be in need of sleep in the first place, his body often takes it upon itself to make that decision for him—usually whenever they share one bottle of alcohol too many.

Tonight has been one of them, filled with an incredibly good wine and hours of time to waste, even though neither of them would ever consider an evening in each other's company anything but an enrichment. After centuries of conversations with topics all over the place, stretching from current political events to what exactly She was thinking when She made platypuses, they still find new things to discuss or rehash the ones that have already escaped both their memories.

About halfway through the third bottle, Crowley began sprawling out in earnest, claiming his usual spot on the sofa instead of continuing to pace, and even his arms, which had previously been moving all over the place and come precariously close to knocking over Aziraphale's glass, eventually stilled.

There is a perfectly usable bed in the flat above the bookshop, yet Aziraphale cannot bring himself to move Crowley from his spot on the couch, let alone wake him. The evening has long but faded into the early morning hours, and he luckily does not care about opening the shop on time, or ever, really, so there was no argument against allowing him to rest.

read the rest on ao3