#drawing hands with a mouse is fucking evil because you have to keep joints and anatomy in your head and move around a thing that is very cou

[luckyspike]

The Past Informs the Future - a Good Omens fanfic

in which anathema has something to tell crowley, but she feels it’s very important to figure out why he hated the 14th century, first

mild angst with ample fluff

anathema and crowley are best friends forever i will fight you over this.

--

“What happened during the 14th century?” Crowley, who is lounging upside-down over the couch, joint smoking lazily between his fingers, blinks once or twice. Anathema puts her head to the side. “You always talk about hating it, but you never say why.”

“It was terrible,” he answers automatically. “You don’t want to know.”

“You discorporated, right?” She knows that much, had gleaned the information from cast-away remarks here and there throughout the years. “Three times?”

“Yeah.” He rolls over, languid, and looks levelly at her. “Book-girl, believe me, you don’t want to know.”

“What if I do?” she challenges. “I asked, didn’t I?” He is glaring, but she meets him eye-to-eye, and rests her chin on her hand. “Why would I ask if I didn’t want to know?”

“Why do you want to know?”

That question slows her roll for a second: why does she want to know? Certainly, she considers Crowley her friend, but he is an interesting character with his foibles and his inconsistencies and his iron-clad but completely incomprehensible values. He has his secrets, thousands of them, and she is more than happy to let him keep most of them. But something about the 14th century pulls at her, and she wants to know. Needs to know, because the future is looming, and it’s the only thing about Crowley that gives her pause when trying to incorporate him into it.

It’s become more pressing recently, too, she thinks. She has a good idea why. She is changing, and he is a demon, and she needs to know.

“Because you’re my friend and it bothers you,” she says finally, mostly honestly. “You talk about how awful it was, like you want us to ask, and then when someone does you balk at it and change the subject. Does Aziraphale know?”

“You - yes, he knows.” He looks puzzled. “Book-girl, I’m being very serious. It’s … weirdly kind of you to want to know I suppose, but you do not want to know.”

“Crowley.” She leans back into the chair, and draws her knees up to her chest. “I have something I have to tell you. I want to tell you, anyway. But I need to know … you have to tell me why you hate the 14th century.”

That gets his attention. Slowly, graceful, snake-like, he slides off of the couch, dumps the joint into the ash tray, and stalks across the living room toward her. He is examining her, like a doctor sizing up a patient, or like a snake sizing up a mouse; she can’t quite decide. “You alright, Book-girl?”

“I will be.” Her belly is roiling, and suddenly, pinned under those snake eyes, she regrets this. She still wants it, but she also wants to avoid it. She could avoid it, really, but then she wouldn’t be able to … She let that train of thought trundle off, and jumped onto the next one. “You don’t have to tell me specifics. I just need to know why. Basically. Beyond the discorporations.”

She never saw him sober up, but there isn’t a hint of anything but diamond-sharp clarity in him now. “Not enough for you? Looking for some juicy gossip?”

“For what?” She snorts. “My advice column? A blog? No. I just … Just tell me why you hated it so much.”

“It was hell.”

She rolls her eyes. “Well yeah, obviously, if you hate it that much -”

“No, literal Hell. With a capital ‘H’.” He swallows. “S’where I go when I discorporate.”

“Right.”

He stares at her for a minute, when it becomes clear that that answer had not satisfied her. His jaw works for a minute. And then, quietly, he says, “I have only ever told Aziraphale about this.”

“I promise it doesn’t leave this room. I will tell you why, but you have to tell me, you have to be honest, Crowley. Please.”

He sighs, and puts his head in his hands, suddenly cross-legged on the carpet in front of her seat. “You know what they do, when you discorporate too many times in a certain time frame? They punish you.”

She nods. She had rather thought it would be something like that. “I see.”

“The first time wasn’t anything - fill out form BD663 in triplicate, here’s your new body, don’t do it again. The second time in a century they make you wait, maybe ah ... “ He makes a vague sort of motion with a hand. “Maybe a light flaying. You know. ‘Be more careful next time’.” He swallows. “Didn’t think I was going to get to come back up here, after the third time.”

She folds her hands. “But you did.”

“Oh, yeah.” He sounds a little strangled. “For a price. By then they started to think I wasn’t doing my job right, although I was, at least at the time. So for a while they had me down in … it doesn’t matter, you really don’t need to know, but then some cult up top wanted to summon up a demon with a real wallop. And I was available.” He sighs. “Better the Serpent of Eden than a Duke of Hell - wasn’t like they really needed me down there for anything anyway, and humans are always impressed by the whole original sin thing.”

“Mhm.” She thinks about reaching out to him, but this is important, and she doesn’t want to stop him. She wrings her hands together instead.

“You know the worst part?” He looks up to her, wide-eyed and unabashedly remorseful. “I didn’t care, was the worst thing. Because I was back up here, I wasn’t in Hell, and if they wanted to bind me to do … dark bidding or whatever the fuck it was, that was better. So I did it.” He holds up a hand, fingers splayed. “Five years. Five years in servitude to some stupid cult in back-country Italy. It wasn’t hard work, mostly meant looking scary and killing someone occasionally.” He closes his eyes, pressed the heel of his hand against the bridge of his nose. “Then they wanted me to kill a kid.” She inhales sharply, and he snorts. “S’what I said.

“And, you know, five years isn’t that long, not for me. Is for humans, though. And they’d slipped on keeping some of the bindings together. I probably could have slithered out of there a year or two earlier, but it would’ve been work. Wasn’t fun as it was.” Sharply, he hauls the right side of his t-shirt up, and points to a broad web of scars slashed across his hip and ribs. “Got that for my trouble. But I did not kill that kid.” He doesn’t look at her when he says, “Was about the only one there I didn’t.”

She releases the breath she’d been holding, and leans forward. “Crowley -”

“You wanted to know,” he snaps then, and she sits up. “So let me finish. Because after I got out of there, who do I run into but Aziraphale, and after the run I’d had it was a good thing he was the angel I met up with because any other one would’ve … Anyway, doesn’t bear thinking about.” He smiles, a little bitterly and a little fondly. It looks strained. “He helped me burn all the books on summoning we could find. Scoured all over Europe. I’m sure we missed a few, but no one’s dared try anything serious since then.” He forces a little laugh. “And it was the last time I discorporated, you can bet on that.”

Anathema nods, and then pauses. “But … there are summoning books still. I’ve seen them.”

“Nothing that can bind you,” he says quickly. “Summoning is one thing, binding is another. If you see anything that mentions binding, I’d be obliged if you got rid of it.” He sighs. “Nah, summoning is different. Last time I got summoned I ended up helping three college students in Massachusetts with a group presentation. And they didn’t even put me on the Powerpoint.”

Anathema takes a moment to wonder how that would have gone over. ‘Presentation thanks go also to the Demon Crowley, who was surprisingly helpful for an infernal being of temptation and sin.’ Probably, she thinks, not well. 

“Anyway,” he says, with a sort of gruff finality, “that’s your answer. Now why the fuck did you need to know so bad?” He’s half-glaring at her, and she can’t tell if he’s angry or relieved. She wonders how many other humans he’s told about this, decides the answer is very likely a definite ‘0’, and she shrugs.

“I’m pregnant.”

“What?” He stammers for a little while, eyes flicking from her face to her belly and back-and-forth. “How is that relevant?”

“Well.” She sits back, and laces her fingers together, resting them on her crossed knee. She looks to the ceiling for a minute, thoughtful, and tries to think of a way to explain this that doesn’t make her sound absolutely unhinged. “Crowley, we’re friends, right?”

“I should hope so.” He sneers. “Hate to think you just twisted the worst 100 years of my life out of me if -”

She waves a hand. “It was rhetorical, but fact established. So that being the case I … well, I’ve been thinking a lot about what’s going to happen after I have a kid. About who I wanted to have around.”

“Oh.” He looks away. “Makes … Right. I get it. Don’t exactly have the greatest record with babies.”

“Mm, not recently, but I’m considering that extenuating circumstances. Plus,” she adds, “according to Aziraphale, you were a really good nanny when you weren’t trying to get the kid to be evil.”

“Does he know about this?”

“Not yet. I figured you could tell him. But he’s mentioned it in passing.” She takes a breath. “Anyway, I know that you don’t hurt kids. I know that. But, I dunno, when I found out about … all this … I wanted to make sure it wasn’t because something happened and it made you that way.” Her mouth twists. “It’s weird, as soon as I found out I started thinking about things I never thought about before. Wondering about stuff, planning for things, that kind of stuff. I still don’t want the book,” she adds, because she sees the way he’s looking at her, and she knows what he’s thinking. “But … Yeah. I had to make sure.”

“Hm.” He watches her for a long, long moment, and then nods. “So what’s this mean, now?”

“You wanna be its uncle?” She raises a finger. “You have to promise not to try to make it evil.”

“No problem.” He looks thoughtful. “I think godfathers is more typical -”

“No, that’s outdated and kind of cliche, at this point.” She waves a hand. “Besides, my brother lives in San Diego, and Newt doesn’t have siblings, so the poor kid’s gonna need some aunts and uncles anyway.”

“Fair.” 

She softens, and leans forward. “Crowley, I’m sorry to push, but I had to … I just really needed to know that there wasn’t anything, you know -”

“Extra evil?” He sighs. “I get it. There was, but not in a way that’s going to happen again, alright?”

“Very much so.” 

He leans forward and pokes her in the stomach. “Who else knows?”

“Newt.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“Hm. Way to make a demon feel special. Argh,” he says then, because she has taken advantage of her proximity to grab him and hug him. “You’re only getting away with this because you’re with child,” he grumbles, and she gives him an extra squeeze. And then suddenly, he is trying to pull away, wide-eyed and panicky. “Wait, how pregnant. When’d you find out?”

“About seven, eight weeks. I took a test about a week ago.” He sags with relief, and she laughs. “Why? What was that about?”

“You didn’t see any broad-shouldered feathery assholes with purple eyes then?” She shakes her head. “No one said, ‘be not afraid?’” 

“No,” she laughs, “but it might have helped when I took the first test. Not that I wasn’t sort of trying - we weren’t trying, that is - but when you see the two little lines, you know, it’s kind of … startling. Sobering. All of it.”

“So no Gabriel.”

“Ah.” She chuckles. “Yeah, no Archangels. Just a little stick with some lines on it.”

“Oh. Good.” Miraculously, he suddenly is holding a bottle of wine. The joint is still in the ash tray, no longer smouldering, and she makes a little noise of protest. He waves a hand and it vanishes into the ether or, probably more accurately, into an ash tray in a cottage in the South Downs. “Secondhand smoke,” he says, by way of explanation, uncorking the bottle and taking a mouthful.

“How considerate.”

He grunts, and holds up the bottle. “Not at all. Demon, remember? This is a Caymus cabernet, very delicious, and you can’t have a single drop. You are very jealous.”

“Oh, extremely. Very evil of you.” She budges over, obligingly, and he sprawls into the space on the two-seater next to her. “Want to watch a movie?” She waggles the remote. “I rented The Tide of Blood.”

“Is that anything like Blood Tide?”

“I dunno. Never saw it.”

He takes another swig of wine, and raises an eyebrow. “It’s awful. I’ll get a copy some time.”

“Deal.” She gestures to the TV. “This one’s about a prehistoric sea monster that stalks and eats promiscuous teenagers.”

“Classic. I’m in.” He settles back, and her too. The first teen - a football-playing bully - has been eaten before either of them says anything. “Uncle, hm?”

By this time, she is slouched against his shoulder, the better to reach the shared bowl of pretzels that somehow appeared ten minutes ago. She hadn’t asked. “I figured. Unless you want something different.” She doesn’t look at him as she elaborates, “I mean, chronologically, I could certainly justify grandpa -”

“Oy.” The pretzels are snatched away, just momentarily, although he is laughing. “You have your own parents, use them for that.”

“Right. So uncle.”

“If that’s the alternative, I’ll take it,” he grumbles, and she finds herself with a bowl of pretzels in her hands. “Grandpa, Book-girl, honestly.“ The wine bottle glugs as he takes another drink, and Anathema crunches another handful of pretzels. On screen, another teen fruitlessly tries to fend off the monster with a kayak paddle. “You’re lucky I like you.”

“Hm. Yeah. Yeah, I think I must be.”