#i DO want to see Aziraphale succeed in heaven?? at least in the beginning??? | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

vidavalor · 1 year ago

Text

Hi @iammyownproblematicfave ooh ok. I can do that. :) This sign actually is in front of Give Me Coffee the whole season. It's visible when Crowley parks The Bentley in front of it and goes in to meet Aziraphale in 2.01. Like a lot of the messages in/around the coffee shop, I think they're meant more for us than for the characters' observations within the story. Throughout the season, there are little hidden messages in the coffee shop that are meant for us. There are in-jokes on the wall inside Give Me Coffee that's visible behind Crowley in 2.01. There's the 'C&A' with the heart on Nina's menu board. That said, well... you could see it as some kind of 'message from God' that maybe Aziraphale might have noticed in that moment. I tend to think he didn't see much beyond Crowley but... I kind of hope that it was one and that he did see it because of what I think has actually happened to him and it's a far cry from getting a job as the Supreme Archangel of Heaven... The name of the coffee shop itself is a message in and of itself, as it shows how to decode how coffee is being used symbolically, since it's a play on Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty or give me death", and that's to what I think the sign refers the most.

By making the shop name 'Give Me Coffee or Give Me Death', they've obviously swapped out the 'liberty' with 'coffee', right? This, along with the way that coffee is used in the series, illustrates that, in Good Omens, coffee is symbolic with liberty-- so, with freedom. The whole point of being American has always been that anyone can be one. It's an idea as much as it is a country, which is what makes it unique. Nina's coffee shop with a Statue of Liberty figurine by its cash register and named after an American Revolutionary sits in the middle of *London* lol, selling symbolic liberty in cups as a kind of independent outpost of symbolic Americanism abroad, right? So we're saying that, in Good Omens, coffee is America is freedom.

To drink coffee is to claim liberty or to at least attempt to, then, right?

It's why Crowley's so anxious and desperate to be free of Heaven and Hell that he's giving himself an anxiety attack with this heavily symbolic order:

This is largely for show. Not to say that Crowley doesn't want to be free because he does and is in every way he can manage but when he drinks coffee in other scenes in the series, he drinks a normal amount like a sane being. Aziraphale's like dear, this cannot possibly be healthy for your anxiety disorder and Crowley's like no shit-- Someone Bless America, angel lol

The humor here is that he then downs the six shots of espresso to go back to find the Supreme Archangel of Heaven in his bookshop safe space, symbolizing the exact problems that he and Aziraphale have highlighted in neon, bolded and italicized. They can't fully move forward in a life together the way they want to because they're trapped by the system of Heaven & Hell, who hold all the power.

So, by this measure, what does it mean if life begins after coffee?

It's saying that life begins after liberty, isn't it? It's pointing out that they have a life together but it's not a life they're fully in control over nor is it the life they'd choose and liberty is freedom is choice and it's a message to us that their life together begins when they're free. It's very much saying that they eventually will be. (Some super South Downs foreshadowing there.) We know that the only way they can be is if they can get free of the Heaven/Hell system so the implication here is that not only that they will try but that they will succeed.

So, here's where we get into The Metatron's coffee, right? Since that's the most significant coffee of S2 and the series as a whole.

Like we said with Crowley above, how people take their coffee has symbolism to it and you surely can look at Maggie as "Skinny Latte" and Aziraphale's "large oat milk latte with a dash of almond syrup" and get into the oats, the milk, the almond and find interesting things there but for my money? The key bit about the coffee on this show that's very particular about language (in an amazing way) is actually the difference between what The Metatron ordered from Nina versus what he said was in the cup when he gave it to Aziraphale... it's the "dash" versus the "hefty jigger."

The coffee isn't poisoned or drugged. That is just Aziraphale's usual coffee order and it's creepy af that The Metatron knows what it is (and I think Aziraphale thinks it is as well, of course) but a 'large oat milk latte with a dash of almond syrup' is what Aziraphale orders at Give Me Coffee. Aziraphale loves his dashes ("... with a dash of nutmeg"). There are two points to this scene and neither of them have to do with the coffee itself. They have to do with a few of Good Omens' favorite things-- food/beverage symbolism and use of language... so, the symbolism of this particular coffee and The Metatron's use of language when delivering it.

When The Metatron orders this drink from Nina for Aziraphale, he orders it correctly. He orders it without hesitation, knowing the correct, modern terminology. To Nina, The Metatron just looked like an older man who was pretty with it, right? He did not look clueless. As a result, the coffee Nina made that Aziraphale thinks is delicious *is* delicious because that's just Aziraphale's regular coffee order, ordered the way he takes it. However, when The Metatron recaps to Aziraphale what the drink is when he hands it to him, all of the ingredients in the drink remain the same-- oat milk latte, almond syrup-- but he changes the measurement of the almond syrup, right? He ordered "a dash" but he tells Aziraphale that the coffee contains "a hefty jigger" of almond syrup. Why?

Because, as a result, he looks clueless to Aziraphale, when he's actually far from it. He wants Aziraphale to think him as ignorant of Earth as some of the other angels of Heaven. He wants to fool Aziraphale into believing that he's needed-- that Heaven really might need him to explain how things on Earth work-- when, in reality, The Metatron could give a fuck how things on Earth really work because he's trying to get the troublemakers out of the way for his ArmaBloodyGeddon 2.0: Second Coming. The Metatron's strategy here was to come to the bookshop with a coffee and play Aziraphale's old dad who needs the prodigal son to come back home and save the day, right? It was a sympathy ploy. It's a dark attempt at manipulating Aziraphale's inherent kindness and exploit his desire to be good. It made The Metatron look weaker than he really is in an effort to make Aziraphale think he had more control over the situation than he really did. The Metatron was going for Oh, look at Dad, he brought me a coffee when he barely knows the words to order it because he's not on Earth and well, that's something, I guess... maybe he might be trying and maybe I should listen and it would be good of me to maintain hope that something could change...

The Metatron lets Crowley come back from Heaven, lets Gabriel & Beez seem to get away free, yells at Michael in Aziraphale's defense, and brings him a coffee, all to attempt to look more trustworthy to Aziraphale.

A 'hefty jigger' does not *exist*. There is literally no such thing. A jigger is a device used to measure out liquids in cocktails and it maths out exactly. They literally exist to keep bartenders from over-pouring-- that is how exact they are in terms of how much they hold. A jigger is not improvisational. It's not like a dash, which is just a flick of the wrist or a quick pump and isn't precise. If you went into a coffee shop today and ordered "a hefty jigger of almond syrup" in your coffee, the barista would look at you like you were mad for a whole slew of reasons. It's always been a measurement more closely associated with cocktails than with coffee, for one. You wouldn't likely use a jigger to measure out a sweetener like almond syrup. People don't use the term in ordering drinks at all and, even if they tried to, they'd have to specifically say *what size jigger* they were looking for and could not just order "a hefty" one.

The point of The Metatron and the coffee is that if The Metatron just lied to Aziraphale about the coffee order to make himself look more vulnerable and try to gain Aziraphale's pity and trust, then how can you trust a damn word he says? You can't. There is no Supreme Archangel job for Aziraphale. It's all a scam. It's a hefty jigger-- it doesn't exist.

So, now, combine that with the coffee symbolism in the season. We said above that coffee is liberty but what happens when the coffee is delivered to you by the villain? What happens when he stands there and says:

And it is theoretically your choice except that it's also really very much not?

Aziraphale doesn't have a choice. He has to take the coffee. He has to drink it. He has to go with The Metatron. He's trapped. He has a cup of coffee but it's just a cup of coffee-- no liberty-- because it's given to him by his oppressor.

Does anybody ever ask for death? asked The Metatron of Nina. While some kid probably has to try to order 'death' from Nina every other day, she answered The Metatron's question with actual wisdom-- no one ever really asks for death. No one really wants to die. They want to live. They want comfort, joy, pleasure, love. They want their beverage of choice. They want to be free to make the choice as to what that is. Give me coffee or give me death-- a lack of freedom is so oppressive that its alternative is death. So what does it mean when Aziraphale drinks his coffee-- the same kind of coffee he orders every day-- but it's given to him by The Metatron?

The large oat milk latte and its dash of almond syrup symbolizes Aziraphale's autonomy and independence. It's his choice of coffee. It's his regular coffee order. It's the freedom he has on Earth and with Crowley. He and Crowley are not truly free, though, as they are still stuck in the web of Heaven & Hell. They are still threatened with potential death-- frequently phrased in S2 as a threat to their existences. They could not just die-- cease to exist-- but they could be erased from The Book of Life-- which is to have never existed in the first place.

The Metatron shows up and seems to offer freedom, right? He brings symbolic liberty, made just the way Aziraphale likes it to try to get him to trust him. He flatters him and while Aziraphale, at Marguerite's, resists the offer that The Metatron makes-- which we know doesn't exist at all because there's no such thing as a hefty jigger so he's a lying liar who lies who is attempting to manipulate Aziraphale here... while Aziraphale resists it, as The Metatron knew he would, because Aziraphale likes the actual freedom he has on Earth... which he winds up wording as "But I don't want to go to Heaven... where would I get my coffee?"... The Metatron keeps at it until he hits upon the one freedom that Aziraphale doesn't have on Earth. The one thing he wants.

He wants to be free with Crowley. He wants them to be together forever. He wants Crowley to survive the next Armageddon and be with him for eternity. He wants Crowley to be safe. He wants him to have more peace than Aziraphale can currently give him because they have a life that is precious and peaceful to Crowley but it's also always been fragile. It could end at any moment.

The Metatron offers Aziraphale a deal to get him in the elevator: you come with me and run Heaven and you can keep Crowley.

This deal doesn't exist.

It never existed. It's as fake as The Metatron's 'dad's getting old and needs a hand with the family business' whole "hefty jigger" routine. It's complete bullshit. The Metatron might recognize that Aziraphale is a leader-- and that makes him trouble. That makes him something that shouldn't exist, as far as The Metatron is concerned. Four days ago, The Metatron ordered Gabriel's memories stolen for voting against The Second Coming... and we're to believe that The Metatron decided to replace him with the angel that was responsible for actually stopping Round One? Yeah, no.

Whether Aziraphale bought any of it or not or whether or not he's lying and planning on playing The Metatron for a sucker or any of that... ultimately, it kind of doesn't matter in terms of our understanding of the ending because by the moment he overhears The Metatron say "we call it 'The Second Coming'", we know for sure that he knows he's got no way out. He knows that The Metatron lied but he's still got to get into the elevator with him because there is nowhere to run where Heaven & Hell can't find him and Crowley and it might all just be over. The Metatron tried to say he could be free and brought him symbolic freedom in a cup but it was a lie because it's not what Aziraphale asked for and the one person who cannot grant you freedom is the one keeping you from having it in the first place.

You gotta dump the tea in Boston Harbor and revolt or you're not free. You've got to declare independence.

There's an interesting exchange between Aziraphale and Shax during the attack on the bookshop about this. Aziraphale tries to declare that the bookshop is "an independent embassy" and Shax states that he's "an outlaw", highlighting how a sense of independence really requires enough power to be able to rebel to achieve it. Aziraphale can declare the bookshop an independent colony but if Heaven & Hell only see him and Crowley there as threats to the order of things, then Heaven & Hell still hold all the power. They're the ones who decide the rules and who hold all the control.

It takes strength in numbers and unusual alliances-- something that S2 takes time to set up and begin to suggest. Life begins after coffee-- after S2, which begins with Crowley and Aziraphale meeting in Give Me Coffee and Crowley first passing that sign in 2.01 and ends with The Metatron's false promises of freedom coffee. If they can beat The Metatron and overthrow Heaven & Hell to a point that they have enough power to declare a kind of supernatural America here-- actual independent outposts, the kind of democracy that Aziraphale was throwing down in the bookshop in the group scene in S2-- then Crowley and Aziraphale's life begins after coffee, right? And the sign they kept showing us suggests that it will.

yeah we all know aziraphale looks back at crowley one last time before he steps into the lift, but we are so distracted by our own emotional destruction that we don't really pay attention to what he is seeing.

because sure, there's crowley, but you know what else there is? oh look, a nice little chalk sign for nina's coffee shop, i wonder what it sa-

oh.

oh no.

well, that can't be good. let's hope this has no lasting effect on aziraphale's last memory of crowley or his new job in heaven! :)

#ineffable husbands #good omens #crowley #aziraphale #good omens 2 #good omens meta #aziracrow

3K notes · View notes

on-our-own-side · 5 years ago

Photo

This fandom has TONS of lovely fanfiction, of which I am a greedy consumer. I’m still making my way through it all (old and new). Here are just a few of the ones I’ve read that have really stood out to me. Expect many more posts like this in the future as I continue reading. (Also, recs are always welcome)

Edit: Part two is here. If you want to have a Full List of the ones I’ve read so far (at least via AO3) you can see my bookmarks list Here.

a city wall and a trampoline by kafkian

Summary: In their cottage in the South Downs, when Crowley eventually succeeds in getting Aziraphale to use a laptop, it takes Aziraphale literal hours to get past the default Windows screensavers of picturesque locations because 'oh, look, isn't it lovely, Crowley!’ - 5 times Crowley knows he’s in love with Aziraphale + 1 time he knows the reverse.

and, so on by PaintedVanilla

Summary: Crowley doesn’t remember heaven, but Aziraphale remembers him.

every angel is terrifying by punkfaery

Summary: “Why does it bother you?” Crowley asked. “Even if you can’t get to them in time to wipe their memories, it’s not like anyone’d believe them. Kid goes running to her mum saying Ooh, I’ve just seen a bloke with three heads and a sixteen-foot wingspan, what do you think’s going to happen? Chances are they’ll just pat her on the shoulder and tell her what a vivid imagination she’s got.”

“That’s not what worries me,” said Aziraphale.

First Feast by reserve

Summary: “Do you feel different?” Aziraphale asked. His gaze was intent, flicking between Crawly’s mouth and eyes. He was twisting his plump, fruit-reddened fingers in the folds of his robe like he couldn’t manage to keep still. He was squirming. “Give us another taste,” he whispered.

Crawly dropped the forbidden fruit. Crawly lunged for him.

Five Times Aziraphale Saves Crowley (And One Time He Fails) by Captain_Kieren

Summary: Basically what it says on the tin.

1. Holy Water 2. Exorcised 3. Thrown 4. Stabbed 5. Demon Hunter +1. Betrayed

how deep the sand by Handful_of_Silence

Summary: After the Apocalypse, and with characteristic slowness, both Crowley and Aziraphale think there might be something they need to sit down and talk about. And then Aziraphale disappears.

In the (Second) Beginning by cherryfeather

Summary: As their lunch stretches on Aziraphale slowly comes to realize that Crowley is—enjoying him. Enjoying Aziraphale’s conversation, and company, far more openly than he has in most of Aziraphale’s memory. And Aziraphale knows that he himself is just chattering on, letting conversational tangents carry him along, and—it’s definitely relief, for him, knowing for the first time in a long time that they aren’t being watched, that no one is keeping score for now. - Aziraphale realizes that Crowley's been saying something rather loudly for a week.

listen (he's already told you five times) by darcylindbergh

Summary: Not everything Crowley says is said out loud. Aziraphale doesn't always hear him at first, but he's learning to stop being surprised.

Love Conquers All by Lord_Overlord

Summary: "You can stay at my place, if you like." Aziraphale and Crowley spend the night after the Apocalypse-That-Never-Was at the demon's flat. It's all quite well and lovely.

The Dance by seraph5

Summary: Aziraphale suspects there might be more to sex than meets the eye and Crowley goes missing for an alarming amount of time.

#fic rec #my post #good omens #Ineffable Husbands #Ineffable Partners #good omens fic recs #ineffable husbands fic recs

3K notes · View notes

lady-divine-writes · 5 years ago

Text

Shedding Facades (Rated PG13)

Summary: Afraid that their marriage might feel like a lie if he weds Aziraphale in his human form, Crowley makes a bold, last-minute decision … (2237 words)

Notes: Written to include @drawlight’s ‘31 Days of Ineffables’ prompt 'wrapping paper’.

Read on AO3.

“I object.”

Stunned silence follows – gaping mouths, bugged eyes, the comical expressions of an audience thrown for such a phenomenal loop, they may not even be standing on planet Earth any longer.

“You what now?”

“I … uh … I … object. I’m sorry.”

“H—how can you object!?” Anathema asks, strangling the book she’s holding in her hands as if it had spoken those blasphemous words instead. “This is your wedding!” She glares at Crowley, eyes broiling on behalf of her good friend, poor Mr. Fell, himself staring at his betrothed with the depth of shock that comes from discovering that every person you’ve ever known and loved has been executed all at once on the exact same day when their severed heads arrive on your doorstep by post, collect-on-delivery.

But that’s exactly what Crowley is doing – the evilest thing he’s ever accomplished as a demon.

Destroying Aziraphale’s world.

If he’d ever wanted to discorporate Aziraphale in an instant, those words at this particular moment would do it.

Crowley doesn’t look up to face the consequences, even though he knows he’s expected to. He’s been silently staring at his and Aziraphale’s joined hands since the ceremony began.

And that’s where his eyes stay.

“I can’t,” he repeats. “I can’t do this. I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

“Wha—what?” Aziraphale has plenty more to say, but when it comes down to it, that’s all that will come out. “What are you …?” He shakes his head, trying to rattle more words together, but he doesn’t succeed. “What?”

“I can’t do this,” Crowley says a bit more firmly. “I can’t marry you this way.”

“But I …” Aziraphale looks at the party gathered – an intimate group of their closest friends, linking hands and forming a circle around them, standing so close there would be no mistaking what Crowley just said.

He looks at the ridiculously elaborate venue Crowley had insisted upon; at the fairy lights strewn over everything that wouldn’t move to complement the miracled constellations over their heads; at an ocean of flowers covering every conceivable surface; at the banquet table full of gourmet food waiting to be eaten; at the red velvet runners, the golden candlesticks, the miles of white tulle; the string quartet, sitting in a far corner, waiting for their cue. And the cake – the twelve-tiered wedding cake humorously crafted to display the nine levels of Hell, each ring adorned with tormented souls rendered out of fondant, and a staircase leading up to Earth, with Heaven cascading above, an angel in white robes and a devil in black hovering in the accentuated space between.

Finally, he looks at the demon standing before him, gloriously handsome in a simple black tux and classic rose boutonniere, staring at him from behind Armani sunglasses.

At this point in the ceremony, which Anathema was officiating, they were a few short acknowledgements away from exchanging vows and saying their I do’s. Then they’d be dancing and laughing and cutting into that cake, which he’s heard tell is filled with pitch-black, dark chocolate ganache. He doesn’t know since, like everything else, he didn’t order it. Didn’t plan it at all. Crowley did. He planned this whole shebang, saw to every little detail.

But now Crowley says he can’t go through with it.

After giving absolutely no indication whatsoever that marrying Aziraphale was something he didn’t want to do, he’s saying no.

“I … I don’t understand,” Aziraphale stammers. “Why?”

“Because …” Crowley chuckles “… I’m not dressed for it.”

A pause, then nervous laughter hops from the throat of human guest to human guest, starting with Newt, infecting Madame Tracy, bypassing Shadwell but migrating through Warlock and Adam and the rest of The Them. The only two who have yet to see the humor are Anathema and Aziraphale.

“I don’t understand,” Aziraphale repeats, his voice straying its course, becoming pitchy and weak, only finding its strength in embarrassment. “You picked that tuxedo out yourself. If you didn’t want to wear it, I … what are you saying?”

Crowley sighs. This isn’t going well. Of course, when you object at your own wedding, things will tend to go downhill after.

“I mean me, Aziraphale. Not the tuxedo. Me.”

“Please explain,” Aziraphale begs, beginning to back away. But Crowley, holding his hands like his life depends on it, urges him back.

“Look at me, angel, and tell me what you see.”

“I see you, Crowley! The same you I’ve been looking at for over 6000 years!”

“And what does that look like?”

Aziraphale’s head continues to shake – desperation, exasperation, and every other –tion twisting it side to side. “Red hair, yellow eyes, pale skin, sharp nose and chin …”

“Right. My human form. But that’s not me. Not inside.” Crowley gives Aziraphale’s hands a squeeze meant to comfort him, but he’s far from there. “I’m very fond of my human form but … it’s wrapping paper. It’s not who I really am.”

“It is,” Aziraphale assures him, relaxing when he comprehends. “It’s the way you see yourself. It’s the way you want others to see you and that’s fine.”

“I appreciate you saying that. But this …” He gestures with his and Aziraphale’s hands towards his body “I … run deeper. I have no intention of giving this form up, but it doesn’t feel real to me when I’m about to pledge my life to you. It feels like a lie. And that’s not what I want. Not today.”

Aziraphale swallows hard, his confusion returning. “So, you don’t want to marry me?”

“Of course I do! But not this way.”

Aziraphale glances at their befuddled friends, concerned if Crowley means what he thinks he means … “But how do you intend …?”

Crowley leans in and gives Aziraphale a wink. “I’ve got a plan.” He lets go of Aziraphale’s hands and claps to get everyone’s attention. “Okay, ladies and gents! I’m going to need you all to back up about twenty paces! And … uh … just a head’s up, there’s a sixty-two percent chance that what I’m about to do might melt your brains.”

Fearful eyes snap Crowley’s way. “What!?”

“Or make you go blind.” He shrugs. “Either way.”

“Are you joking!?”

“He has to be joking!”

“Is that a fire exit!?”

“Let’s go check!”

He does get a solitary, “Awesome!” from Warlock, who fishes his cell phone from his pocket, opens the camera app, and waits for the show to begin.

Aziraphale rolls his eyes. “Relax, everybody.” He snaps his fingers. From the constellations above, a sprinkling of silver and gold dust falls upon the onlookers, clinging to clothes and hair and faces till they look like they’re covered in stars. “There we go. Now no one’s brain is going to melt. You may have nightmares after, but I can fix that later on.”

“That’s a relief,” Tracy mutters sarcastically.

“But what about …?” Pepper nods pointedly over her shoulder at the two violinists, the violist, and the cellist watching the proceedings with interest.

“… the musicians?” Brian finishes. “They don’t know about you guys, do they?”

“They won’t see anything out of the ordinary. They think they’re watching a plain, old, normal wedding,” Aziraphale explains, bitter emphasis aimed at his groom. But as his world isn’t coming to an end, he feels free to joke. “They’ll come around right on time to play the wedding march.”

“Sounds good, I guess,” Wensleydale says, moving to hide behind Brian.

Aziraphale looks at Crowley, who has widened his stance, giving himself an invisible boundary for the guests to stay behind. “Are you ready, my dear?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” he replies, striking Aziraphale as more excited than he’s seemed all day. Crowley doesn’t like changing into his demon form. He’s always afraid he’ll forget how to change back so he avoids it when he can. So this must have been bothering him for a while.

All of today at least.

Crowley miracles away his glasses and closes his eyes.

The room falls deathly quiet, the human participants subconsciously widening their circle as they wait for something to happen. Only Anathema and Aziraphale remain inside, more prepared than anyone for what’s about to happen.

Crowley transforms by inches. His hair disappears, falling to the floor in clumps, the remainder oil-slick black. Wings erupt, glossy black feathers immediately shedding to reveal a thin, veiny membrane. Nails grow into sharp, curved claws. Bones elongate, joints popping as they widen to accommodate. He didn’t remove his clothes beforehand so the tearing of fabric is what the guests hear.

It covers for the less-palatable sound of tearing flesh.

Then there are the maggots. As much as he would hide them to lessen the impact on their friends, if he’s going to go through with this, he needs to go for broke. He feels them always, brimming beneath his human façade, squirming and rooting and otherwise being a nuisance. But he knows when they’re seen by the subtle grumblings of discomfort accompanied by the unsettling scritch of them falling to the carpet beneath his feet.

The tips of his wings hit the floor, signaling the end of his metamorphosis. The ache of splitting muscles and reshaping bones dies down, and he opens featureless black eyes. His full form with wings splayed is so cumbersome, it forces him to hunch, his spine curling into a jagged question mark.

It takes him a minute before he summons the courage to look at the faces of their friends watching him, see by their expressions what they think of him this way. It’s not as bad as he’d imagined. But then again, if it had been, he might not be able to call these humans friends.

“O…kay,” Newt whispers, but that’s all.

Madame Tracy throws a hand over her mouth - in disgust, Crowley imagines, but there are tears in her eyes and a wobbly smile on her lips.

Shadwell, who doesn’t know how to react, puts himself a step in front of her and gets his finger ready, just in case.

“Cool!” everyone under the age of thirteen says, unprompted and at relatively the same time.

Anathema clears her throat. “Good. Fine. Now that that’s resolved, may we continue?”

The demon Crowley, in his true demon form, limps towards his fiancé, one leg dragging with a grating nails-on-chalkboard noise, dulled for the humans by Aziraphale’s miracled star armor. Crowley stops in front of Anathema, swaying like a snake, balancing his weight on legs that should be too thin and brittle to support him.

“Where were we?” she asks, opening her book and doing her best to appear unfazed. She’d taken the liberty, after their Notta-pocalypse encounter, to study up on demons, learn everything she could about them, seeing as she was now personally acquainted with one. She’d read ancient texts, examined old drawings. She thought she was ready to face whatever Crowley might dish out.

She may have been wrong.

“The vows, I believe.” Aziraphale’s gaze never leaves his demon’s face. He raises a hand to it, cheeks damp and eyes moist.

“Of course. Who wants to go first?”

“I will,” Crowley snarls unintentionally, but he’s out of practice speaking through these pointed teeth and with this forked tongue.

Anathema nods, relinquishing the floor.

“Aziraphale,” Crowley hisses, “will you take me, me the way I truly am, to be yoursss – your ssspouse, your partner, your sssignificant other, for as long as we remain on this planet, in Heaven or Hell, or up in the ssstars? Even if …” And this is where he stumbles. Later, Aziraphale will reflect on this, come to the conclusion that this may have been what it was all about, what Crowley was sincerely afraid of “… for sssome horrible reassson, one day, I end up sssstaying this way? Will you marry me?”

Crowley reaches out skeletal claws and takes Aziraphale’s soft, pink hands in his.

Aziraphale stares into the stony black eyes of the demon looming before him. He’s never seen Crowley like this. In all the years they’ve spent as friends, Crowley as a demon, as a monster, is something Aziraphale never had to witness. On the flip side, Crowley has yet to see Aziraphale’s true form. But Crowley was an angel once. He would know what angels look like. It should be old hat to him.

But Crowley is a sight to behold.

Aziraphale doesn’t speak, doesn’t nod, doesn’t indicate an answer in any way. He is struck dumb not by Crowley’s physical form, but by his vulnerability – his willingness to expose the part of himself that he fears the most to not only Aziraphale, but their room full of friends, just so their marriage might not be deemed illegitimate.

Well, if Crowley is going all out, he might as well, too.

The seams of Aziraphale’s jacket rip. Rays of light bleed through, forcing them open. A set of white wings springs out from underneath, then another, and another, slicing through like scissors. The remaining fabric of his fine, white coat falls to the ground in a tattered heap at what should be his feet. But he has no feet since he is no longer human shaped. He is formless, wings and eyes surrounding the spiritual essence of the Principality Aziraphale.

He is a golden light. A holy light.

He is infinite.

And soon, he and Crowley will be infinite together.

“I will.”

#good omens #good omens fanfiction #ineffable husbands #31 days of halloween #aziraphale x crowley #crowley x aziraphale #frankie writes

186 notes · View notes

shipaholic · 4 years ago

Text

Omens Universe, Chapter 11 Part 2

Link to next part at the end.

(From the beginning)

(last part)

(chrono)

---

Chapter 11, cont.

Crowley purred upon seeing the Bentley. It was a little obscene, but he didn’t care. He hadn’t had a day off in ten years. Going for a drive was one of Earth’s greatest pleasures, as far as he was concerned,[1] and he’d been sorely neglecting it. He stroked the door lovingly before letting himself in.

“Don’t get anything on the seat,” he told Adam.

“Er,” Adam said, peering through the back window.

Crowley leaned back to wave him inside and saw somebody already sitting in the back seat.

“Hello,” she said.

Crowley’s mouth dropped open. “Who the Hell are you?”

Aziraphale leaned his head in through the passenger door. He blinked at the woman in the back, as if unclear whether Crowley had left her there by accident.

“My name is Anathema Device,” the woman said.

She was wearing a dramatic green coat and prim, thick-rimmed glasses. Despite the Wiccan-ish aesthetic, there was something stern and school-teachery about her. Crowley had the impression he was about to be told off.

“You’re two minutes late,” she said. Ah. There it was.

Adam decided he might as well sit down. He slipped into the back beside Anathema. She smiled at him.

Crowley made a decision there and then. No more tagalongs. Whoever this person was, she could get lost.

Anathema leaned forwards, business-like. “I’m here about the Antichrist.”

Adam looked offended. A lot of the people he’d met today seemed to have spoken to his mother.

“Nope. That’s it. I’m done with this. I’ve already processed everything I’m willing to hear today. Whatever revelations you’ve got, you can keep. I’m content not knowing everything, I don’t need whatever you’re selling. Get out of my car.”

“You’re going to want to hear this.”

“I definitely won’t. Angel, get in.”

Aziraphale got in the passenger seat. He gave Anathema a polite smile. “Hello, my dear.”

“She’s not your dear. She’s a woman who’s broken into my Bentley and spread patchouli everywhere.”

Anathema sighed. “Please. I didn’t break in, it was unlocked.” At least, it wasn’t locked very well.

“I don’t lock it for a reason. Because nobody touches my car.”[2]

“I remember you,” Adam said to Anathema. “You came round the house. You were trying to give us magazines. You talked to the head of security for ages. Most people don’t get that far.”

Anathema brightened. “Um, actually yes. I was trying to speak to you.”

“Oh. I was round the corner on my Gameboy,” Adam said.

Anathema had spent an interminable forty-five minutes keeping the security guard talking, hoping to catch a glimpse of Adam. “...Oh.”

“I read the magazines, though. They were cool.”

“Oh! I’m glad.”

“We’re actually in a hurry, if nobody minds,” Crowley said, to no-one in particular.

Anathema straightened up. “Right. Allow me to explain. I’m here to prevent the End of Days.”

Crowley and Aziraphale exchanged glances.

“Oh, that’s not a real thing,” Adam said, confidently. “That’s just stories an alien told me when I was a kid.”

Anathema looked up, sharply. “An alien? There are aliens in the Book…”

She hefted a much-thumbed, elderly tome onto her lap and flicked through it. Aziraphale’s bibliophilic senses rang a faint bell.

“Yeah, I like books with aliens,” said Adam. “This alien was real, though. Actually, there were lots of them. They kept telling me I was going to grow up and destroy humanity and burn the planet to a crisp. And then Hell would defeat Heaven and blah blah blah. I was a bit worried about it all.” Adam scratched his head, near his gem. Anathema’s eyes zoomed in on it. “But it all makes way more sense now I know it was aliens.”

“Oookay. This is pretty big, actually,” Anathema murmured. She was staring at Adam like a rare specialist who had just made the find of their career. “I wasn’t positive, even after everything… but it’s really you, isn’t it?” Her eyes shone with various emotions. Awe was in the mix. So was fear.

“Nanny was definitely an alien,” Adam said, darkly.

Anathema’s eyes flicked down to the open Book on her lap. They fell onto prophecy 1011, And the devile dide saye: we doe notte have time for alle this nonesense.

“We don’t have time for all this nonsense,” Crowley said.

“I know who you are,” Anathema blurted. “Agnes says you’re going to take the Antichrist away. The family don’t all agree where, there are a few different readings, but the important thing is that you won’t succeed. Listen to me. Armageddon will happen here, at this house.”

Crowley and Aziraphale exchanged tense looks.

“No human prophecies have come anywhere near predicting any of this.” Aziraphale craned his neck, trying to get a glimpse of the Book. “Did you say Agnes, my dear -?”

Crowley didn’t like this. Who cared what a prophecy said? He didn’t need strange women popping up and putting him off before they’d even set out.

“You two are in this whole batch of prophecies. You can set things right if you just listen to me and don’t leave. Your only hope to save the Earth is if you do exactly what I say -”

Crowley snapped his fingers. Anathema vanished.

“Crowley!”

“She was wasting our time. And we haven’t got much of that left.”

Crowley gunned the ignition. The Bentley sputtered to joyous life. He jerked the steering wheel and veered out onto the road. He almost took out a pillar box that mysteriously leapt into the air and settled safely a few feet down.

Aziraphale shook his head. “All her things are in the back seat. What if she needs them?”

“Should have thought of that before she touched my Bentley.”

Crowley took a corner at an alarming speed. He mumbled something about the emotional violation.

“I’ll be very cross if you’ve sent her somewhere bad.”

Crowley waved the concern away. He tore down the street. It had been too long since he’d done ninety in central London.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

Aziraphale finished crossing himself and clutched the roof of the car in the apparent hope that he could jimmy himself in place in the event of a crash.

“My old bookshop, if you would be so kind,” he said.

In the back seat, Adam picked up the Book and flipped through it.

~*~

Newton Pulsifer, Witchfinder Private, perched on the edge of the discoloured sofa belonging to his employer, Sergeant Shadwell. He was just starting on his third hour of daily newspaper clippings when a woman tumbled out of the air and landed on top of him.

There was chaos. There was screaming (mostly from Newt). There was shouting (from Shadwell). There were accusations of foul sorcery and witchcraft (from Shadwell; for once in his life, he was spot on).

Eventually, things calmed down enough that Newt noticed the woman was rather attractive, and that she seemed annoyed but not surprised to have teleported to a first-floor flat in Tower Hamlets.

Her name was, apparently, Anathema Device. Well. Why not. Newt recently learned he had an ancestor called Adultery Pulsifer. He wasn’t about to judge.

Anathema surveyed her new lieutenants in her stand against Armageddon. A cigarette-charred man with an ambiguous regional accent and a scowl that could cut rocks. A nervous young man who was vaguely threatening her with a pair of scissors, but who was obviously likelier to injure himself with them than her. And some kind of “painted strumpet” (not Anathema’s words) across the hall who hadn’t shown up to the proceedings so far, but who they could tag in later if things went badly. Not a promising start. Lieutenants might be too strong a word. Sidekicks, then.

It frustrated her, leaving all her possessions behind in the car. Losing the Book would have devastated her, but Agnes had predicted it, so Anathema was prepared. She had compensated for its loss by memorising the remaining prophecies that seemed relevant.

“OK, guys. Is everything clear so far?”

Shadwell glowered. He held something that was apparently a Thundergun. It slightly resembled a bass trombone. He made no move to shoot her, and she doubted anyone had reloaded it any time in the last century, so his grip on it seemed to be for comfort. Newt had put down the scissors as a gesture of magnanimity.

“I think I’ve followed so far,” Newt said. “The world’s going to end. Um, there’s a boy called Adam Dowling who’s the key to everything, but he’s out of range now and there’s nothing anyone can do about that - er -”

Anathema nodded encouragingly.

“- And our job is to take care of stuff here, and hope that the people with this, er, Adam do their part, because otherwise the Earth is doomed,” he finished. Luckily, he’d passed through the barrier of absurdity and into the vista of calm that lay beyond.

“That’s about it, yeah,” said Anathema.

“So - what should we be doing now?”

“Now we need to stop the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.”

“Great,” Newt said, weakly.

Anathema nodded, satisfied. It was coming together. She hoped.

It was the two men, or men-shaped-beings, with the Antichrist she worried about. They had to do the next part on their own. And if that went wrong…

She’d known there was no genuine hope of diverting them from their course to escape… wherever they were planning to escape to. But Agnes said she would try to stop them, so she had to try, no matter how vain the attempt. She had hoped to see more evidence that her words were sinking in before the goth one banished her from his equally goth car.

What they did next was out of her hands, so there was no point in worrying. She turned to her new sidekicks. There was work to do.

---

[1] Specifically, speeding.

[2] Crowley got pretty far, normally, assuming that no-one would dare break into the Bentley. He was mostly correct. Witches, however, were unimpressed by demons.

(Link to next part)

#omens universe fic #omens universe #good omens #good omens fic #ineffable husbands #steven universe

5 notes · View notes

luckyspike · 5 years ago

Text

God should have made a universe full of nebulas - a Good Omens fanfiction

i wanted to write about Crowley’s fall so I did. party on.

Link to AO3 if you’d prefer to read it there

He hadn’t meant to Fall. He really, honestly, hadn’t. He had said as much to Aziraphale, once, twice, four hundred times over the years, but he was pretty sure the angel never really believed him. After all, it sounded idiotic. Who Falls by accident? It’s definitely something you mean to do, brought about by a willful wrongdoing without a hint of good intention in your heart. ‘Ah, but,’ the casual observer may say, ‘the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.’ And certainly there are good intention rest-stops along the way, but everybody knows the road to Hell is actually paved with frozen door-to-door salespeople. And, thanks to the ever-changing nature of the world, telephone scammers.

They were in the back room of the bookshop some months after the Nahpocalypse. Azirpahale was sitting on the couch, smiling contentedly and sipping his moscato, one of Crowley’s legs in his lap and the other draped over his shoulders. His wings were out, draped lazily over the back of the furniture, primaries spreading out on the worn floorboards like a bridal train. The demon was lounged back against the arm of the couch, glass of red wine in hand and shoulder-length hair in his face, wings out as well, although not nearly as full as the angel’s: the left one, the better one, was splayed across the floor while the right one, twisted and contracted, broken by the Fall, was cocked between the demon’s shoulder and the couch cushions, the few feathers remaining warped by the awkward positioning. He was lightly drunk, and he hadn’t yet devolved to declarations of love for the world and Aziraphale, so he was still in control of his faculties. “Did you know,” he said, in a lull in conversation, after Aziraphale had finished a cathartic rant about internet sales, “that I Fell by accident?”

Aziraphale nodded, and made a point of not shifting awkwardly. Crowley often mentioned his Fall in an off-hand way, usually with some degree of pitch-black humor or sarcasm, the same way humans joked about the deaths of loved ones, or horrible tragedies being personally inconvenient in petty ways. “You have mentioned it before, yes,” he replied, trying to keep his tone light.

Crowley looked into his wineglass pensively. “Guess I have done, yeah.” He swallowed another mouthful. “You wanna hear the story?”

“I -” he paused. His brow furrowed, and he debated sobering up a little. Crowley couldn’t be serious - demons didn’t tell stories about their Falls. At least, not that Aziraphale knew of. Not that he had a lot of experience with demons outside of Crowley and a few vanquished foes from back in the Mesopotamian days. “You’re drunk,” he concluded, reasonably. “Not a good time.”

“Not a much better time, you ask me.” Crowley nudged Aziraphale’s cheek with his knee. “C’monnn, I know you’re curious.”

“My dear, I rather think this is a subject better saved for a more subdued situation,” Aziraphale said quietly, running his hand through the feathers in Crowley’s bad wing. “I wouldn’t want to upset you.”

Crowley groaned, and momentarily went limp. “Aziraphale. You’re killing me.” He looked up to catch the angel’s puzzled expression. “I’m offering, angel! ‘M not that drunk, I assure you I’m fully consenting or whatever to this. I saved the bloody world with you - okay, I was there with you when the world was saved, you can stuff it - for Someone’s sake. We’re going to buy a house together.” He made a face. “Like a couple of pensioners. You were in my body!”

A sigh. “Well, when you put it that way. But if it’s going to upset you …”

“It’s upsetting me how you keep assuming I’m gonna get upset!” Crowley propped himself up on his elbows, ticking points off on his fingers. “Was it traumatic? Yes. Awful? Absolutely. Do I miss God? Sure, I guess, just like everyone else. But!” He held up the other hand. “We have the other points: I met you, got forgiven by you which means way more than some distant authority figure by the way, all great. I get to be me, fantastic. I don’t have to talk to Gabriel ever, the best.” Aziraphale was watching him, and, slowly, Crowley’s expression softened. “I wouldn’t go back to being an angel, angel. ‘Member what I said to you when we were talking about the apocalypse? Back when I’d just dropped off Adam?”

Aziraphale thought it over. “About the dolphins …?”

“No, Aziraphale, honestly, that’s not even pertinent.” He waved a hand. “You said, ‘well I’ll be damned’, an’ I said, ‘it’s not that bad, when you get used to it.’” He raised an eyebrow and shrugged. “I‘ve had a long time to get used to it. An’ … an’ you’re around which, you know. Doesn’t hurt.” There was silence in the bookshop, and the two studied one another, both thoughtful. “If it’s gonna upset you -”

“No.” Aziraphale held up a hand. “I mean, it might. I … I do not like hearing about bad things happening to you my dear but …” He took a breath. “Crowley, if you want to tell me the story, I’d be honored to hear it out.”

“I want to.” He sat up, and then laid back down, face-first, across Aziraphale’s lap. Absently, the angel buried his fingers into the soft scapulars, and Crowley hissed happily. “Jus’ keep doing that, though. An’ top me off, first?”

Aziraphale did. “Right. You can stop any time if you want to, you know.”

“I do.” He took a breath, and another gulp of wine. “Right. Okay, so -”

In the Beginning (or rather, Some Period before) …

The stars stretched out before him, lightyears away and yet practically in his lap, all at once. In his hands, stardust like clay, clinging to his fingers and wrists, slick and gritty. He swirled a palm-full of stars, and watched it move thoughtfully, and considered.

Raphael had said they needed more asteroids, planetoids, comets, all that tosh, and less stars. No more nebulas, he had been told firmly, with a disapproving look, as the Archangel sighed and looked over the lesser angel’s work. It’s a nice nebula though, Raphael said. I’ll find somewhere to put it. Just … stop making them. Try a comet, they’re kind of the same.

He had tried a few comets. They were not the same. They were, well, boring. They didn’t do anything besides slingshot around a galaxy, messy and dribbling. A nebula - a really good nebula - now that is a big interesting star factory, swirling around and bouncing on its own, doing what it likes once you let it go. It makes things, things which nobody in Heaven has anything to do with - totally independent. Some explode in a shower of ions, that’s always disappointing, but sometimes, oh, the ones that succeed are so worth it. Gorgeous and glorious and amazing.

God should have made a universe full of nebulas, the angel thought. He looked back to the stardust, still twisting in his hands, and breathed on it. It ballooned - they always did, if you knew what you were doing - and formed, and lo, a new nebula was born. He smiled at the thing, and hung it in storage. That would be Raphael’s issue, later.

If they didn’t want more nebulas they shouldn’t have made them so bloody delightful, the angel thought. He didn’t say it, though. Not then, anyway.

“What’re you doing?” He jumped and turned to see another angel - a familiar face, although after the Fall he wouldn’t be able to recall her name, only that she is now called Amii - watching him intently. “I thought old Raphael said no more nebulas.” A quizzical look. “I distinctly remember something about comets.”

The angel sighed. “Yeah. Yeah, but, you know, comets … comets are boring. Not much of one for comets, me.” He shrugged. “And what’s an extra nebula or two, when you get down to it? Space’s big.”

“Space is big,” the other angel intoned, thoughtfully. “But Raphael is an Archangel, with orders straight from, you know.” A cocked eyebrow, or at least the impression of one - forms were more a loose concept in Heaven, in that time before time. “You don’t want to go against those, eh?”

The lesser angel hedged. “Well, no, obviously, but you know … Well, it’s not like anyone’s checking up. If it was really supposed to be comets only, don’t you think I would be like, incapable of making anything else? I mean why not just make me forget nebulas? Or just … instill me with an overwhelming love of comets?” He crossed his arms. “Way I see it, until someone tells me to stop -”

“Raphael did.”

“Well …”

The other angel chuckled. “You sound like someone else I know. It could get you in trouble, you know.”

“How?” the lesser angel challenged. “She is a being of true love and forgiveness, isn’t She? What, I’m going to get a stern talking to and maybe a transfer to a different department? Hah, ok, I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing until then.” He stopped, and then wheedled a little. “You know everyone likes a nebula.”

“They do.” The angel-now-demon-known-as-Amii looked to the stardust residue coating the lesser angel’s hands. “Clean your hands off, I think you ought to meet someone.”

“Who?” but even as he asked, he was shaking the stardust loose into the cosmos, forming clouds and smears of light that drifted away.

“You ever met Lucifer?”

He raised his eyebrows. “The Lightbringer? No, not me. I’m not nearly important enough.”

“I think he’d like you.”

“Do you?” he asked, with genuine surprise.

The other angel nodded. “I do. I think you two should talk. Here, follow me - I’ll introduce you.”

And she did. Lucifer was everything you’d expect from someone called ‘Lightbringer’: charming and charismatic and easy to talk to, easy to go around with. They drank of the manna together*, surrounded by a pack of other angels of all sorts of ranks, and talked about the universe, about stars, about God, and a lot of other things in between. “Makes you wonder if Creation really is infinite, you know?” the starmaker said to Lucifer once. “Or is that just, you know, a rumor. I mean, why limit what all we can make, what all we can put it in if it’s infinite?”

“It does make you wonder,” Lucifer said, thoughtfully. “I’d like to get answers if I could, I think. I’d like to ask, anyway.” There was a chorus of general agreement. He turned his attention back to the starmaker, and nudged his shoulder. “You know, I heard She is working on something new. A new planet.”

“What? All by Herself? You’re having me on.” He laughed. “Why would She do that?”

“Another good question,” Lucifer said, a glimmer in his eye. “Gabriel says he’s seen Her working on it. Supposedly -” he lowered his voice, and the assembled angels leaned in, although in this place, where time and space and sound were optional, they didn’t really need to. “Supposedly, She is making new life to live there and only there. A new Creation. A microcosm of our Host. And She has a Great Plan.” Murmurs of confusion, surprise. Questions of ‘why?’ and ‘what’s wrong with us?’. “Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?” Lucifer asked. “I reckon, if She’s so omnipotent and infallible, why would She need to replace us? She created us. Theoretically, we should be perfect. But, I guess not.” He stood, spread his hands. “If we need replaced, after all. So is She really infallible?”

“I mean maybe it’s like a reboot?” the starmaker suggested. Lucifer turned his attention to him, and he realized, suddenly, that he wasn’t sure what a reboot really was, which rather hindered his ability to make a simile. “You know, like Angels 2.0, all the good stuff plus some upgrades.”

“Upgrades,” Lucifer said flatly.

“Yeah, you know.” The starmaker wilted a little, suddenly the center of attention, but he plowed ahead anyway. “Maybe more wings or something.”

“And then what of us?” Lucifer asked, voice low. Suddenly, this was not a light conversation. This was not just idle questions in a group of like-minded people. “When there are Angels 2.0? Are we obsolete? Or just playing eternal second fiddle? A piece to be moved around in this … Plan?”

“I …” He stammered. “I don’t know.”

“Wouldn’t you like to ask?”

He paused. “I suppose I would, yeah.” He thought about it, and then, surprised, found his resolve hardened. “Yeah, you know, you have a point. Why would She do it all again?”

Lucifer nodded. “Be a lot easier if someone could ask. Be a lot easier if we could … talk it over. Maybe She needs a little more input in decision-making.” There were murmurs of agreement. The starmaker, with a sinking feeling, frowned. “Angels, brothers, sisters - I hear your concerns. And, you know, as a member of the first circle, well …” He gave the impression of drawing himself up, and the light flaring off of him burned brighter. “I think She and I need to have a chat. I think we deserve answers.” Lower still, he added, “And I think we need to know if She has them.”

The chat, as evidenced by the heaps of mythology, did not go well. But you know that part, broadly. The angels who had gathered around Lucifer - including the starmaker - were hunted down in Heaven. Some, angry that their questions were to remain unanswered, or furious that they were to be replaced by Her newest creation, fought back. Blood was shed. Angels, flaming swords gripped in their hands, swarmed unto other angels, who parried, or ran, or were unmade.

The starmaker ran. He ran as far as he could, to the furthest reaches of space, but it was no use. The others had seen him. “You never were good at following orders,” Raphael said, flaming sword held aloft. It would have been easier if he looked angry, but he didn’t. He was crying. “I should have known. I should have - I should have known.”

“I didn’t mean it.” The angel held his hands up, placating. “I’ll make all the comets you want, Ralph, really, I promise, no more nebulas.”

“No. No, you had your chance.” He advanced, and his expression hardened. “Don’t make this harder than it is. Please.”

“Raphael, please, you know me, always getting up to something but it’s all, you know, well it’s never anything really it’s always just talk and -”

“Please stop talking.” The sword hefted. “Please. You talk too much. You talk too much, and you’re too good at it, and I can’t do this right now.”

The angel, wings wrapped around himself, hands raised, drifted back in space, bumping into a galaxy, pitching it on its axis. “Raphael -” he stopped. He couldn’t not stop. There was a flare of light - blinding, horrible light - and screaming. A form, and nobody needed telling who it was, was falling from on high. He was burning, too, as he fell, plunging downwards. Up to that point, nobody had realized there was anything below Heaven but he went through the bottom of that, too, and kept falling.

Falling. With a capital ‘F’.

And then there were more. Some jumped. Some were thrown. Some - and nobody was really sure how - just Fell, without any observable force acting on them. A lot of them screamed, but some of them didn’t. Somehow, that was worse. They burned like magnesium, streaking through space and out of Heaven, to somewhere Below.

The starmaker watched, and Raphael did, too. And then he turned back, eyes wide.

“Don’t kill me,” the starmaker whispered, his hands reaching into a cloud of stardust, twisting it, trying to hold it, to find comfort. “I don’t want to die.”

“That might be worse,” Raphael pointed out. He hefted the sword. “The Lord is merciful in all things.”

“So which one is the merciful one, then?” Raphael stopped. The sword stopped. Flames - silent and roaring all at once - licked the blade and burned away stardust. “You don’t know. I don’t know. But … but I know I don’t want to die.” He unfurled his wings, and looked down. With one last glance to the Archangel, he said, “Bye, Ralph.”

And he Fell, too.

It wasn’t great. The starmaker had free-fallen before, while he was flying, and it wasn’t anything like that. Think of it like this: falling down a hill on a rollercoaster is all well and good, because you know you’re safely held in the car, and will go around the curve at the bottom, and in forty-five seconds you will be walking away, laughing about what fun that was with your friends, and talking about hitting the ice cream stand for some soft serve. Falling off Niagra Falls, however, doesn’t have a meticulously-engineered curve at the bottom. There’s rocks. There’s definitely not ice cream.

He spread his wings, but it was of no use. He could tumble and twist, he could barrel-roll and somersault, but he could only go down. There was no deceleration, no brakes. And there was nothing below, besides the lens-flare pinpricks of other angels who had gone before.

So he Fell. It hurt, too, not physically but deeper than that, as if through every lightyear he pulled away from Heaven a little more of his soul ripped away. Which was absurd, he thought distantly, as he twisted, because his soul probably didn’t have feelings. He had Grace, and that’s what he was losing. He knew that, though no one had told him, because that was the only thing he could think of that would feel that way - the loss of Grace, which up to that point had done the job of trying to fill an empty hole in him that had once been brimming with faith. It was going, he was Falling away from it and burning up as he did, and with every millennium he Fell he felt colder, emptier, weaker. He stopped flapping. Stopped trying to stop. Stopped looking back. He went limp, head down, and let himself Fall. Maybe Raphael had been right.

He Fell for so long that he didn’t notice, not at first, that the air … changed. Got hot. Sticky. By the time it broke through to his consciousness - had he gone to sleep? - and prompted him to open his eyes, there was light, too. Sickly, yellow light. He looked to the source, and saw a pit of boiling sulfur.

“Oh, shit,” he said, and tried to hit the brakes.

It sort of worked. He didn’t hit The Pit at terminal velocity, anyway - some did, bursting out of existence with geysers of sulfur and acrid, greasy clouds of smoke. But at a certain speed, hitting liquid might as well be hitting stone, and he knew that. He braked hard, flapping and twisting and rolling and trying to create as much drag as he could and then, when it became clear that the options were to stick the landing or die trying, he dove.

His right wing hit first. It hurt. And then the rest of him caught fire. Or, he thought, it must have done. Nothing else could possibly cause that much pain. He plunged through the sulfur, flailing to slow himself, burning up and screaming silently, but alive, until the sensation of sinking stopped. He floated.

He wondered how long he could float there. It wasn’t so bad, not now that it all had stopped. Oh, sure, there was pain, his wing felt absolutely mangled and he realized he had no arms or legs, not anymore, who knew what happened to those, but it could have been worse. Beat death any day, anyway. So he floated, eyes closed, and debated staying there.

There was a rumble from Below. It had to be Below. It could only be Below. He opened his eyes, and swam up, paddling with the left wing as best he could, and tail - yeah, that seemed about right, what’s a tail anyway? Definitely wasn’t legs - whipping in the sulfur, propelling him to the surface. He broke through, eyes and nose and ears full of sulfur, the taste of ash in his mouth and fire in his lungs - weird sensations, painful but something he realized he was quickly acclimatizing to - and swam. There was an edge, in the distance. Rocky, sharp, smoking, coated in ash, but an edge nonetheless. A ledge to climb on. He swam towards it.

“Not so fast,” someone growled, behind him, and, with a sticky, charred hand on his broken wing, they pulled.

He didn’t think about it. It happened on something like instinct, although he was fairly certain that he didn’t truly have instincts. But either way, they pulled, and he struck, whipping around in an impossible arc and sinking long, needle-thin fangs - fangs? - into the other fallen angel’s bulk, bearing them below sulfur and hissing - hissing, that was new - the entire time. They screamed for a time, until they didn’t. Eventually, they let go, and they sank. He kept swimming.

The ledge was sharp, and he hissed when it scraped him while he dragged himself up it, but it was solid. His left wing gave him leverage enough to haul himself up to the waist, to get his … no. He didn’t have a waist. No, this wasn’t right.

For the first time, he risked a look at his form, limbless and burnt. And he hissed again, surprised and afraid and angry and lost, all at once, with about forty other emotions thrown in for flavor. For a bare minute, he debated letting go, falling back into the sulfur, and sinking down to the rumbling thing below. And then he snarled, and slithered out of the pool.

There were others around the pool. He slithered over the rocks, raw wounds on his belly dragging and scraping, a new agony with every move, and kept his distance, the other one in the pool still fresh in his mind. There were bodies, too. Dead angels - no, not angels, something else, now - scattered around, broken and lifeless and alien-looking. He stopped among a group of them and thought. Others were coming out of the pool, others were still Falling in. There was screaming, and gnashing of teeth, and even as he watched one tore into another, not unlike what he’d done, and began to eat. To eat. He shuddered and sank low to the ground, curling his body into a tight coil, broken wing held as close as he could. He waited. It would stop, eventually. It had to.

He was right, ultimately. The streaks of light from Heaven slowed, and then stopped entirely. He watched carefully, just to be sure, and then, cautiously, slithered forward. There was a gathering, ahead. A group. And nobody appeared to be eating one another, which was a bonus.

A heavy hand - hot, but not burning - landed on his back. He screamed and coiled, winding up to strike. “Relax!” He stopped. It wasn’t the same voice, not quite, but close. He turned around, and blinked in the face of a pillar of infernal flames. “Hail and well met.” The flames condensed, took form, almost like an angel but shifted to the left, who was waving at him. It looked, if it could be possible with milky white eyes and a mouthful of flames, apologetic. And familiar, in a distant sort of way. “What a mess that turned out to be, huh? I saw you fall - you’re the starmaker, right?”

He hissed, and tried to find the name. It evaded him. The other shook her head. “Not anymore. I know what you’re trying. But you felt the Grace leave you, yes?” He had. He hurt, and he ached, and he felt cold and empty and sick inside. “Our names went with it. You may call me Amii, now.”

“Amii,” he parroted, forked tongue and fangs and alien name unfamiliar in his mouth. “You knew me.”

“I did, if you were the starmaker. Can’t quite recognize you in that form, though - you want to try for something like you used to do?” She paused. “Or you can stay like that, since it’s technically your true form now. You’ll get used to it. Part of the deal.”

“The deal?”

“The deal,” Amii agreed. “The demon deal. It’s what we are now: demons. Fallen angels, technically, but Lucifer isn’t so hot on anyone using that term. I’d avoid it, if I were you, when you see him.”

“Demonssssss.” He looked around then, suddenly apprehensive. “Where’ssss Lucifer?”

“I’ll take you to him.”

“No!” He backed up, over the bodies of other fallen angels - demons - eyes wide. “No, no, not again -”

Amii grabbed the broken wing, dragging on the ground, and the former starmaker froze. Amii looked, for a moment, profoundly sad. “No choice now, I’m afraid. We are his. He is the King of Hell, and the King of Demons, and you have to go meet him.” She tried to smile. “At the very least, you need a name.”

“I had a name.”

“Not anymore. Come on.” She tugged, but was met with continued resistance. She sighed. “You don’t want to make him call you. Easier if you go on your own.”

“Let me go.”

Amii did. She watched, then, as the other slithered alongside him, and they started toward the crowd of other demons. “You can still heal yourself, if you want, and I can teach you how to assume the shape you used to have, approximately. It’s manageable. You survived, that’s the big thing.” She looked to the broken wing. “Wings can’t be fixed, though, I’m afraid.” She heard the sharp intake of breath from the other, and explained, “Lucifer told us She said that we will be doomed to crawl and eat dust for the rest of eternity as punishment for the rebellion.” She let her own wings out, such as they still were, both burned away to charred stumps spotted with sparse feathers.

“Rebellion? I didn’t rebel. I just asked questions.”

“Same thing, I guess.” She continued, the serpent beside her, until they reached the gathered crowd. There was a line leading to Lucifer, and Amii indicated the end. “You have to wait. You need a name. If you don’t go willingly, he’ll call you. It’s not very pleasant.”

“I’ll wait.” He slithered to the back of the line, past grotesque beasts that he didn’t have names for and others that had tried to resume their angel forms, but were marred by the Fall with boils and wounds and burns. He wondered, vaguely, what he would look like if he took that form right now. He looked down to his body again, bright black scales on his back and red on the belly, scars and burns scattered all over, and decided against attempting a transformation. He hissed, and drew his left wing in, and coiled up to wait.

Time hadn’t been invented yet, so the serpent didn’t have any idea of how long he waited, but when he finally reached the front of the line, the horror and pain and sadness had faded to a sort of background hum and were replaced at the forefront with boredom, which was a strange emotion to feel grateful for but an improvement nonetheless. He was also sick of the bull with the flaming eyes and nostrils and mouth behind him, lowing and stepping on his tail. He had been looking forward to getting this over with, but at the front of the line he stopped. Lucifer regarded him through coal-black eyes, luminescent flesh burnt off entirely, leaving only ruddy red leather. He had a crown of horns, twisting out of his head, a scaled tail like the lesser demon’s own, and the legs of a beast with cloven hooves. He had been so beautiful, before. Now, he was a monster.

Maybe he should not have been so eager to get this over with. Nevertheless, cautiously, he slithered forward, eyes downcast.

“A serpent.” Lucifer observed. “You need a name.”

“Yes, Lord.”

Lucifer considered it. “Crawly,” he declared, finally. The serpent would have winced if it had the facial musculature to do it. Crawly? It was too on the nose for him. Maybe he could change it … no, he thought quickly, pulling the brake lever on that train of thought with everything he had. No, that’s what got him into this whole mess in the first place. Taking liberties. Asking questions.

On the other hand that he no longer had, however, what more could they do to him? He burnt and felt dead inside, he ached, and he’d lost the ability to fly. His wings were ruined. He could barely speak without hissing. He surprised himself in that moment with a spark of optimism - really, in this place? - and thought, Nowhere to go but up.

Lucifer spoke again. Oh. Had he lingered too long? “Demon Crawly.”

“Lord, at your command.”

“I recognize your voice.” A hiss slipped out of Crawly, nervous and shaking and weak. He shrank back as Lucifer looked him over imperiously. “Show your other form.”

He couldn’t have resisted if he tried. He had never changed shapes before, slipping an angelic shape on like a suit, but it was easy. Most magic is easy, as all angels know: you just have to know one or two tricks about the backstage workings of physics and space-time, but once you’ve got that down there’s nothing to it. He had been a starmaker; twisting space-time had been his pre-breakfast routine. He shifted from serpent to his old form, or something approximating it, and there was no pain to it, which surprised him. Messy red hair fell into his eyes and then past his chin. He reached up to brush it away, and froze. His hand - the hand that had made stars and nebulas and waved stardust into the universe - was charred, burnt black, the ends of his fingers drawn out into claws. The char traced up his arms, ending just below the elbow and fading into scales instead, the same black and red of his serpent form. Cautiously, watching the claws like they might attack him of their own volition, he brushed his hair back, and experimentally brushed his nose. Flesh, not scales. Interesting. Horrific, but interesting.

Lucifer was watching him. “I know you. I spoke with you, not long before the Fall.”

He bowed, because he wasn’t sure what else to do. “You did, Lord.”

The King of Hell regarded him for another moment, appraising him up-and-down, and then gestured to a row of demons standing to his left. “Stand with them, demon Crawly.”

He did. He didn’t ask why. On some level, he was glad for the command, because in this form his legs didn’t seem to want to work properly - he might have been angel-shaped, but he still wanted to slither. He staggered to the line of waiting demons and stood at the end, lifting his broken wing as high as he could without worsening the pain, trying to keep the end of the phalanx from dragging along the sharp rocks. He wobbled on unfamiliar legs and fought back a wave of a very new feeling. He wasn’t sure he liked it.

Below the pain and the grief was hate, oh how that burned inside of him like nothing ever had before. Hate for Lucifer, and for his bloody questions, hate for Amii for introducing them, hate for Raphael and his fucking comets and hate for … for Her. It made him feel sick, when he thought about Her. He was so angry with Her, so furious, but then grief would surge up like a geyser and bank the heat of the hate, until another wave of anger fed it back alive. He had been the one that stepped out of line, it was his fault, not Hers. But then - why cast him out? He just had questions. She was supposed to be infinitely understanding and benevolent, forgiving and loving. Was she really so unable to handle a few simple questions?

I just wanted to make galaxies, he thought, watching Lucifer name demon after demon. Another lank strand of hair fell into his eyes, and he left it. He didn’t want to see his own hand again. He didn’t want to see the ash where stardust had just been. He ached, he felt tired to his very core and nauseous, like he might never eat again, but yet … he was alive. That was better than death. Right?

With trembling hands - claws - he reached out and gathered his broken wing closer to himself, combing the three primaries that were left with long, shaky strokes.

The demon next to him was watching him, black eyes empty and gleaming in the light of the brimstone. A frog, seated on the top of his head, croaked. “Who are you?” The demon asked.

“Crawly, I guess.”

The demon considered it. “I’ve never heard of you. Are you a Duke?”

Crawly blinked - ah, so he did have eyelids in this form. “I don’t think so,” he answered, eventually. “Are you?”

“I am Duke Hastur.” He looked vaguely disgusted that Crawly was not a Duke. “Why has our Dark Lord asked you to join these ranks?” Crawly had no idea. He said so. “Perhaps we will eat you later.”

Oh. He hadn’t considered that. Duke Hastur smiled not-very-nicely. A maggot crawled out from between his broken teeth, and re-entered his nose. Crawly shivered, and resisted the urge to transform back into a snake. At least there were no maggots. Not unless, he thought, he wanted to add them later, maybe. Which he had trouble believing he ever would. Rather than slither away, he stepped half a foot away from Hastur, and held his broken wing closer. The bones ground, and the joints, but he found a position that was nominally less painful than any other, and did his best to maintain it. It was healing up, he realized as the wing cracked and twisted in his hand, and some of the pain faded. Badly, still broken, but it was healing anyway.

It would never heal right. Guess it didn’t matter. At least it was still there - one of Hastur’s had been broken off entirely, oozing blood and ichor, maggots feeding at the stump.

As the Fall had stopped, the Naming stopped eventually, too. Lucifer stalked around the assembled demons, and addressed them. They were Fallen. They were damned to an eternity of suffering and pain, never to be forgiven for their sins. They were supposed to be kind, and benevolent, and faithful and loyal and obedient, and they had all violated that in some way. Must have done, to Fall. Crawly thought of his questions as his stomach rolled. Lucifer, too, grieved, pain apparent in every word, and near the end he cried out, voice breaking with pain and loss, and all of the demons fell to their knees, crying and hissing and screaming and roaring, as his pain washed through them, twisting and burning - burning again, just like when they were Falling, burning burning - and flames leapt up from The Pit.

Crawly would have cried, but he couldn’t. Serpents can’t cry. He clenched his fists over his ears instead, claws digging into his palms and raining ash down around his head, on knees and elbows, and whimpered until it stopped. The pain left him curled on the rocks, trembling and weak. Lucifer was talking again, and Crawly was aware of a rough hand on his shoulder, dragging him to his feet.

“The Dark Lord wishes to speak to us privately,” Duke Hastur snarled. “Stand, serpent.” There was no command to it - Hastur had no power over Crawly - but he stood anyway. Around them, demons were shuffling away, blank-eyed and staring. Crawly watched as they started picking up rocks, or digging them with their bare hands, fingers breaking and bleeding as they chipped the stones away, only to heal and re-break. He swallowed. A command, then. Had to be. But his mind was … clear, relatively. Considering recent events, anyway. So it was not a command for him.

He reached for his wing, for the comfort of his own feathers, and was surprised to find he could bring it around a little without pulling it. The pain had faded, too. Healed, then. Stiff and scarred and most definitely useless for the rest of eternity, but healed. How long had they been here?

Lucifer spoke. “Princes, Dukes, Knights … Crawly.” He stalked down to Crawly and lingered there, amused almost, Crawly thought, if that wasn’t a completely absurd thought (he must be starting to lose it, and who would blame him?), before turning and stalking back up the formed ranks. “The free-thinkers. The ones who thought it through.” He breathed out, and embers and flames flickered from his nose. “We were right. There were no answers. There was nothing beyond expected unconditional obedience, and willingness to comply with a Great Plan. And we were right, too - there is a new creation. She has chosen them, made them in her image. Our image, but imperfect.” He snarled. “But they obey. They do not question. They only love and do as they are told. She has created a world for them, and linear time, and they have been enjoying it for one day.” He spat the word. “They will live forever in a garden She has made for them, and go forth and multiply and be Her favored creation.”

“It should have been us,” one of the Knights murmured.

“Unless …”

Crawly blinked again. “Unlesssssss?” he whispered. Lucifer couldn’t have heard him, it was impossible. But he looked to Crawly anyway.

“Unless they can be tempted to wander astray.” Lucifer began traversing back down the line. “Unless we can interfere with this Great Plan. Unless we can corrupt their souls and bring them to our Pit with us. Unless we can ruin Her most favored creation, as She ruined us.” He paused to regard one of the demons, who mostly looked like a buzzing cloud of flies. “You were the ones who questioned. You will be my Prince, and lead the others to do this, Beelzebub.”

“Yes, Lord.”

“And the rest of you will serve your roles as well. Corrupt, tempt, bring them down to us. But not yet.” Lucifer had returned to Crawly, watching the demon with eyes black like obsidian, like lava cooling in the sea. “Because they don’t know, yet, that they can disobey. They only know right. They have no frame of reference for wrong. They cannot know without that power being bestowed on them, which of course She did not do.”

Probably learned Her lesson, Crawly thought. Won’t make the same mistake twice.

“Which is where you come in, demon Crawly. You’re very good with words, I noticed.”

Crawly looked to Lucifer like a rabbit staring down an oncoming semi. He should respond, he thought, or say something, but all the words were scrambled around in his head like so much flotsam in a flooded river, jamming up at the dam of his mouth and leaving him open-mouthed and staring. “I - ngk - Lord, ssorry, I shall teach … ?”

“No need.” Lucifer waved a claw. “Not at all, Crawly. There will be a tree, on which will grow fruit that contains the knowledge of good and evil. One bite, and they will have knowledge beyond any they’ll be capable of now. They will have the capacity to question, and to learn, and to doubt. They will obtain free will. They will no longer be beholden to Her.”

Crawly nodded. “Ah. Right. Sso find the tree, grab a fruit -”

“No need. The tree is in the garden.”

“What? Why do that?” he asked, before his brain caught up with his mouth and he remembered who he was speaking to.

“To ensure their obedience, I assume.” Lucifer smiled, thin and terrible and full of too many teeth. “All you have to do, Crawly, is talk. Ask a few questions. I cannot go myself - She will know if I appear there, and She has guards posted in the garden and the walls. Talk to them, and they will Fall as we did, in time.”

A lick of hate rolled over the grief for a minute, and Crawly sneered. Yes. Yes, make them fall. Misery loves company. And if She didn’t want questions, well … He could have laughed. Good luck with that. You give something sentience, questions will follow. “Yesss, Lord.” He bowed his head. “It will be done.”

“Good. There.” Crawly’s gaze followed Lucifer’s claw as the King of Hell gestured to a craggy cliff face, high over The Pit. “There is a crack in the cliff, it will lead to the Garden. If you succeed, you will be rewarded with privileges far above your station, demon. If you are caught, and you fail -” Lucifer shrugged “- there are others. I will find another who can spin words as well.”

Crawly considered it, in the privacy of his own head. And then he watched another demon claw a rock apart, weeping and breaking and re-forming just to do it again. He would succeed, then. Success was the only option. He squared his shoulders and focused on his form - look natural, look tempting. Scales and char faded, replaced with plain flesh, the wings disappeared, and the fangs shortened to incisors. His face burned on the right side, and he raised a hand - a normal hand, he could have gasped - to feel the raised scar. He didn’t have to see it to know, as he traced the curls under his fingers, that it was a serpent. “Got it, Lord.”

“Very tempting,” Lucifer growled, not unhappy, tracing his claw along Crawly’s jawline. “But you will be spotted easily by the guards in this form. You’ll have to use the other form.”

“Oh. Oh, right.” Another moment of focus - it was getting easier with every time - and he changed again, back to the serpent, wings still safely tucked away. Lucifer nodded, approving.

“Better. Now, get up there and make some trouble.”

Crowley - definitely Crowley now - sighed as Aziraphale ruffled his fingers through Crowley’s coverts. “And then you know the rest,” he concluded. “So that’s it. Turns out I’ve always been an idiot.” When Aziraphale didn’t reply right away, he looked up, rolling onto his side to get a better look. The angel, predictably, was crying. Crowley frowned, opening his mouth to make some flip remark, but Aziraphale took his face in his hands, oily from the feathers but still warm and pleasant.

“You’re not an idiot,” Aziraphale said softly. “You’re … yourself. You’re definitely Crowley, you’ve always had questions, but you’re not an idiot.”

“There are literal millennia of evidence that ‘Crowley’ and ‘idiot’ are synonymous, angel. Oof.” Aziraphale had pulled him into a hug, clutching him tightly to his chest. Crowley flapped, more ineffectively even than usual as his left wing was snagged on the arm of the couch. “Hang on, wait, argh, cramp, let go, angel, let me just.” There was more flapping, some hasty repositioning, and Crowley leaned back into Aziraphale. “Right, you can resume.”

“You’re not an idiot,” Aziraphale murmured again into Crowley’s hair. “Being inquisitive is the opposite of that. You only had questions.”

Crowley swallowed, and forced out a bitter laugh. The Fall … that was a long time ago. There were centuries where he wouldn’t sleep, and if he did he would wake up with screaming nightmares of the burning and the pain, the Leviathan roaring in the deep. That had faded around, oh, call it the third century. “It is a part of you but it does not define you,” Yeshua had told him - her, then - centuries before, while they’d stood at the foot of Chichen Itza and admired the jungle around. “You define yourself.”

“Says the son of God,” Crowley - Crawly, then - had pointed out.

Yeshua shrugged. “It’s a part of myself that I am happy with, for all the good and bad it will bring.” He’d looked sidelong at Crawly. “But you’re not happy with yourself.”

“I can’t undo it.”

“No. But could you learn to live with it? Incorporate it into your past, a piece of the history, and then write new history in the future?”

Crawly had thought about it while the Central American jungle faded away, and the snow-capped peak of Fuji soared above them. “S’Mount Fuji,” she’d said, while she continued to think about Yeshua’s suggestion. “Could move you here if you want to. No Pontius Pilate.”

“It’s very nice,” Yeshua agreed, “but no, thank you.”

There was silence as Crawly stared at the mountain peak, and Yeshua looked around, smiling softly at the people bustling around them, paying them no mind. “I can’t really ever get away from it,” she concluded. “I was given a name. It defines me. Crawly. The Serpent of Eden. Fallen angel. Damned for all eternity.”

“Change your name,” said Yeshua, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “You make your own name.” Crawly had blinked, which was a rarity. Yeshua laughed. “Those who accept it will move forward with you, those who do not will stay in your past.”

“Except for my boss.”

Yeshua had sighed. “Well, bosses never are particularly good at remembering anybody’s name, anyway.”

“Crowley?” the demon blinked, and found, instead of Yeshua’s dark brown eyes, lined with smile lines even at such a young age, there were Aziraphale’s blue eyes, bright and curious. “Are you alright?”

Crowley frowned. “Sorry. Was miles away.”

“It happens. I was saying,” he went on, gently, “that I like that you’re inquisitive. I like that you ask questions. Can you imagine? Can you imagine a world where there wasn’t a demon who looked at the antichrist, the impending war between Heaven and Hell, and said, ‘well, why’s this all got to happen, then?’” He brushed a lock of Crowley’s hair aside. “Terrible to think of, dear boy. I like your questions.”

“Glad someone does.” He sighed, then took a few deep breaths against Aziraphale’s chest, while the angel rubbed his back. He was floating, a little - he’d never told the story of his Fall from beginning to end before, and while it was something he had filed away in ‘the Past’, incorporated into the rest of his essence, his being, the experience that is Crowley, to tell it like that made it feel just a little bit fresher. Just a little reminder. He took another breath, and felt fire in his lungs and tasted ash on his tongue, but then he smelled Aziraphale’s cologne. The floating feeling lingered, but it lost its grip on him, and a few more breaths, his face nuzzled into the nape of the angel’s neck, and he was back, back in the old bookshop, back with the angel who loved him even with the questions and the temptations and the stupid choices and the broken wings.

He took another breath and then, with the resolve of someone who will remember this moment for the rest of their life but also wants to move past it now, not linger and let it sour, he sat up, slid backwards on the couch until his back rested against the armrest and his legs were across Aziraphale’s lap. He adjusted his wings, swinging them over the arm of the couch, and then took Aziraphale’s right wing into his lap, picking at the feathers and combing them, out, though they didn’t need it. It gave him something to do with his hands, though, and for that he was grateful. “But yeah. I never meant to Fall. Just had a few questions. I’m still not sure why that warranted Falling, though.”

Aziraphale was watching him. “May I be honest? May I ask an honest question?”

Crowley considered it. He took another swig of wine. “Alright.”

“Did you have faith that the Lord knew the answers?”

“I … didn’t.” Aziraphale gave him a significant look. “You really think that’s all that it took?”

“Not having faith in the Lord? An angel without faith? Yes, Crowley. I think that’s what it took.” He rustled the wing, re-directing Crowley’s hands to another part. The demon obliged without remark. “I have known you for a long time, Crowley. You are an optimist - no, don’t interrupt me - you are an optimist and a believer in self-preservation. You always believe things will work out alright. But by the same token, you also feel that it’s your duty to ensure that. You have no faith that without your own efforts, things will be alright.”

Crowley frowned. “That’s not true.”

“My dear, you fought Armageddon tooth and nail, every step of the way.” He didn’t mention the part where Crowley had given up, when he thought Aziraphale had died, because that would have necessitated a discussion that Crowley not only has faith in himself but also in Aziraphale. It is not a discussion the angel feels like having tonight. “Look at Gabriel - he had nothing but faith that God’s plan would be followed. So did I.”

Crowley looks puzzled. “But you - no, you didn’t, because you tried to change the plan too.”

“Ah, no,” Aziraphale raised a finger. “I have always had faith that God’s plan will be followed. I did not have faith that God’s plan and the Great Plan were the same thing. Gabriel did.” Crowley has raised an eyebrow. “Let me guess - you don’t think God has a plan, yes?”

“Not a good one.”

“Perhaps not by your standards. It’s ineffable.”

Crowley sipped his wine. “In-effing-believable, says me. If it exists.”

“And this is why you Fell,” Aziraphale sighed, patting Crowley on the knees. Crowley frowned. “It’s not a bad thing, Crowley. It is who you are. You are a wonderful, complex, marginally kind - stop, don’t say a word - intelligent, funny, and overall brilliant person. The fact that you are also a demon is not any more defining of the person you are more than your hair color, your height, or the fact that even after 60 centuries you still haven’t learned to walk like a human.”

“Alright, alright.” Crowley took a sip of wine, and then glared at his glass until it refilled itself. “This conversation is making me feel some kind of way.”

Aziraphale looked concerned. “Oh? Good way, or bad way?”

“Not sure. We’re going to have to revisit it again some time.” He was watching Aziraphale over his wineglass, his lap still full of lustrous white feathers. “You think it’s that simple?”

“I have no idea, dear boy. It’s a theory. God alone knows.”

“And She’s not telling,” Crowley agreed. “I want to be drunk now. I can’t stop thinking about philosophy. It’s giving me a headache.”

“That might have been the whiskey shots.”

“No,” Crowley lied. “Come on, angel, let’s drink.” He snapped a finger-gun to Aziraphale’s wineglass, which also refilled. “How about music?”

“Mm.” Aziraphale’s head lolled back against the couch as he savored his sip of wine. It was very good, and he’d been saving it for a special occasion. They had decided that tonight, a night that shouldn’t have existed after the Apocalypse hadn’t come, and they were still together, was as special as any. “No bebop. Let’s play a game.”

“Strip Go Fish, right, I’ll get the cards.”

“No! Crowley.” Aziraphale looked wounded. “Why must you always go right to strip card games? I was thinking a board game.”

The demon groaned. “Oh, come on angel, I hate chess - you know that.”

“What makes you think I was going to say chess?”

“What other board games can you play with only two?” Crowley countered.

“Jenga.” He waved a hand languidly. “Some university students left a set here. Doesn’t require nearly as much thought as the other game they left where you have to make words out of these little tiles.”

“Scrabble?”

“It’s in a bag that looks like a banana.”

Crowley frowned. “I … have no idea. I don’t consider Jenga a board game, by the way.” Still, he stood up, swinging his legs to the floor and swaggering from the back room and into the shop, padding across the old floorboards to the front desk where Aziraphale kept lost items**. There was rustling, the distinct clunk of an elderly bong falling to the floor and Crowley cursing as he stuffed it back into the pile of lost gloves, and then more creaking as he returned, Jenga set in hand. “Right, where do you want this? Floor? Table? Table seems a better choice, only it wobbles, hang on, give me a book.”

“I will not!” He handed Crowley a stack of yellowing copies of the Celestial Times. “Use these.” Crowley accepted them, kneeling to stuff a suitable amount under one table leg, until the table was steady. He watched Crowley stacking the blocks deliberately, slowly, with the special care of someone who is just a little too drunk for the task at hand. He beamed, and the demon caught him looking.

“You really meant all that stuff you said about me, didn’t you?” His sunglasses had slid down his nose, one side cocked upwards with his crooked grin. “Brilliant and all that.”

“I did. If you hadn’t noticed, I do find you remarkably wonderful.”

“I’d noticed.” Crowley rested his hands flat on the table on either side of the assembled tower. He studied the blocks for a minute, and then, “You know the feeling is mutual, yes?”

Aziraphale’s smile warmed his voice, colored it with affection and peace. “I rather do. That said,” he added, standing unsteadily and making his way over to the table, wings pitching to help him maintain balance, “don’t think my tremendous fondness for you will at all diminish my desire to soundly defeat you in a game of Jenga.”

“I’d be insulted if it didn’t.” He grinned, honest and wide and genuine, before he downed the rest of his glass of wine and re-filled it anew. “Flip a coin for first draw?”

* It wasn’t that good. It hadn’t been, lately.

** Much like all shop lost and found collections, there were mostly just singular gloves and tatty scarves, but Aziraphale’s bookshop also had in its lost-and-found a lace handkerchief (lost 1884), a hatpin (1908), a fob watch (1936), a bong (1962), several lost bracelets (multiple years), a fanny pack (1987), a pager, (1989), two cell phones (1997 and 2001), an iPad (2012), and several board games (2016-2018). All abandoned Kindles, of which there had been several, had been inhumanely destroyed.

#good omens #good omens fanfiction #ineffable husbands #air conditioning #aziraphale #crowley #two supernatural beings sittin on a couch talking about eternal damnation #i worked on this too long #but oh well here we are #i wish i didn't enjoy fanfiction so much

31 notes · View notes

emotional-support-demon-crowley · 5 years ago

Text

I can’t stop thinking about Good Omens...

SPOILERS AHEAD. This is mostly based on the show though I’ve read the book many times over the years. Though it’s not the point or the purpose of what follows, you could boil this whole theory down to ‘god shipped an angel and a demon so hard she made the earth and humanity so they could meet and fall in love and then she created an ineffable plan in which they also managed to save it’.

So here goes. Both Aziraphale and Crowley are very different from their respective counterparts.

Aziraphale is genuinely nice and agonizes over being good and doing the right thing when all of the others of his ilk that we meet really don’t.

There’s a lot of evidence that Crowley is basically the same. Sure, he rolls his eyes at the other demons methods because they aren’t thinking big enough, but really, I think he just can’t stomach targeting evil towards a single individual. In truth, he’s pretty appalled when he encounters the evils dreamed up by humanity. And yeah, he’s stylish af and full of bravado, but that just makes the rest of the demons resent even him more.

So one day, bam! god creates the earth and both heaven and hell have the same thought. They both independently seem to have said to these misfits, “We have a very important job for you. The humans must be monitored. Go very far away from us and keep tabs on that. For 6000 years.”

So Aziraphale and Crowley show up on earth and I think in general they’re thrilled to be away from the repressive, toxic environments they came from. But they’re still fundamentally lonely.

From this perspective, their first conversation in the garden is so perfect. They are both adorable cinnamon rolls that are starved for attention and desperate for camaraderie, so Crowley decides to just strike up a conversation. What has he got to lose? And they both seem sort of excited/amused that they have a pleasant interaction. It’s probably the best conversation they’ve had maybe ever based on all the other angels and demons we meet.

I think it’s very telling that Aziraphale never admits to anyone else that he gave the sword away. He tells Crowley, one of his mortal enemies, after like half a minute of nice chit chat. And he gets all happily flustered when Crowley, despite the light sarcasm, says that he doesn’t think Aziraphale could do the wrong thing. This is in stark contrast to how he’s treated by everyone in heaven who constantly reinforce that he’s not measuring up to angel standards at every turn.

This scenario would explain why neither side really seems to check up on them. They’re reporting back, sure, but no one is bothering to verify facts on either side. Crowley does make the presentation about the highway, but honestly, that really looks more like hell’s monthly mandatory torture luncheon than an actual exchange of information. Everyone in attendance looks like their soul is being crushed, their brain is about to dribble out their ear, and they are keenly aware that they are currently in actual hell.

So Crowley and Aziraphale progress through all of human history and they just keep meeting up. And sure, maybe they disagree a little on their fundamental view points, but the interactions are always respectful and pleasant. Before long, they begin to do a series of increasingly large favors for each other.

In the church, Crowley set the rescue into motion, but he relied on Aziraphale to actually keep him from being discorperated. We know demons don’t trust each other, but Crowley has perfect faith that his angel will go against what heaven would expect him to do and save them both. And while we’re here, I’ve seen a few posts implying that Aziraphale might struggle if forced to chose between books and Crowley, but when the literal bombs were literally falling from the sky, we all saw where his priorities were.

I’ve also seen posts that propose the theory that Crowley didn’t realize he loved Aziraphale until he lost him, but I don’t think that can possible be the case. In my mind, Crowley realized what Armageddon would actually cost him well in advance. When he’s gently prodding about no more old book shops or classical music, he’s actually trying to get his angel to think about what else he might never see again. When he’s talking about how horrible eternity in heaven will be, the worst detail is who it will be spent with or in this case, without. Crowley isn’t trying to manipulate or trick Aziraphale into saving the world, he’s trying to get him to realized that the end of the world is the end of their relationship. That might feel like a stretch at first until you consider that as soon as Crowley accepts that saving the world might not be possible, he immediately goes into panic mode and suggests they run away together. Crowley has realized that Armageddon is going to rip them apart and take away the only place they’ve ever been happy. No matter which side wins, they’ll both be facing their own version of hell - spending all of eternity suffering because they can’t spend it together.

This explains why Crowley is so set on convincing Aziraphale that the two of them have to reject their origins and chose each other. When he says Our Side, he isn’t talking about their arrangement, or rebelling, it’s about the fact that all of heaven and hell put together does not deserve either of them. And that’s why he becomes so agitated when he gets shut down. Aziraphale has that moment where his voice catches when he tells him “You can’t leave Crowley” like he felt a pang of that same sense of loss, but he still hasn’t thought through the larger implications because he’s still so sure there must be a way to stop it.

And then Crowley tries again and fails again and responds in anger again. And before he can try a third time, he loses Aziraphale.

I agree with the theory that Crowley has some supernatural method to kept track of Aziraphale. His frequent last minute appearances are too timely to be pure luck. So when he gets discorperated, for the first time in centuries, if not millennia, there’s silence.

This explains why Crowley gives up. Because Crowley wasn’t fighting to save the world. Crowley was fighting for a safe place where he and his angel to continue to exist together. Without Aziraphale, there’s no point, the thing he feared most has already happened.

Which also means that everything he does once his hope is restored, he does for love. He sacrifices the Bentley for love, because deep down some part of him had to know the car would never be the same after what he was about to put it through. And yeah, he mourns it, but he doesn’t go to a bar and give up on stopping the end of the world because it’s gone.

And he recognizes Aziraphale instantly, even in a different body. Initially I assumed angels and demons could just see and identify soul, but based on how they resolve things in both heaven and hell no other angels or demons posses this ability. And Crowley compliments the outfit! Considering this is probably the first time Aziraphale has worn anything that isn’t a shade of white since the French revolution, it’s just a terrific example of positive feedback and support.

And then somehow, they manage to succeed. Apocalypse averted. And when Gabriel angrily asserts that everyone knows who is responsible, Crowley grins like a silly, love struck idiot. Did he just save the world just so he could stay with his angel? Hell yeah! He’s proud as fuck.

But then he feels something gut wrenching and he realizes that they saved the world, but they won’t survive to enjoy it, and Crowley gives up again. I imagine somewhere deep down he had the horrible, tragic thought that at least this time he wouldn’t be left alone - they would both die, but his suffering would be brief. And then Aziraphale threatens to never speak to him again. And Crowley’s brain does some math:

Dying together = We are FUCKED!

Dying together while Aziraphale is refuses to speak to me = No, fuck that noise!

Crowley is inspired and the world is well and saved, for now anyway, He FINALLY gets Aziraphale to agree they truly are on their own side, so they prepare to face the combined wrath of heaven and hell. During the proceedings, they both have a moment and it looks like fear, like they’re gathering themselves for the grisly end they’re about to face - until you know about the switch. When you consider they are both fully aware they aren’t facing any danger, I think that moment is actually both of them processing not only the fact that this could have been how they lost the other, but also that this is the shitty way that the person they love and cherish more than the entire world itself has been treated since the beginning of time. I’ve re-watched it a few times and I like to think I see anger and that sort of hopeless empathy feeling you get when you wish you could undo the pains someone you care about has already felt.

So yeah, I think the ineffable plan was that god decided all those ass-hat angels and demons who only wanted a war deserved to be disappointed in the biggest way possible, all except for these two lovable cream puffs who decided to chose love instead. Also, Crowley could have avoided a lot of wasted time, heartache, and shenanigans if he’d just said “I love you, angel, and the thought of being separated from you is more painful than anything I ever experienced in hell.” But honestly, I kind of love that everything they do whenever they’re together basically screams how much they love and care for one another without them ever actually saying it.

#good omens #crowley #aziraphale #ineffable husbands #good omens fan theory #good omens theory #good omens series #good omens headcanons #david tennant #michael sheen #anthony j crowley #good omens thoughts #the ineffable plan #god ships aziraphale and crowley #demon #angel #crowley loves aziraphale

19 notes · View notes

vanxcks · 5 years ago

Text

we’ll be fathers, sort of

Chapter wordcount: 1729

Featuring disgruntled customers, croissants, and the beginnings of a plan.

masterpost (links to all chapters)

Read chapter 4 below the cut or on AO3 (link in notes)

Aziraphale wakes to a pounding on the door downstairs, similar to the one in his head. He groans as he sits up. He’d been woken similarly several times during the night, except by a surprisingly loud wail instead of the knocking.

It’s strange, because sleep isn’t something that Angels are supposed to need at all. In fact, for centuries he didn’t sleep at all, instead spending the nights travelling or looking at the stars. It was Crowley that slept—a whole century, at one point, if Aziraphale recalls correctly. But it’s become a habit, over the past millennium or so. Just another luxury that Aziraphale’s started to rely on, like the food and the books. It’s interesting, because it seems his body has started to rely on it too. That would explain the headache.

“Oh, goodness me,” he says, patting down his vest as he rushes downstairs. They creak as he walks, and he snaps his fingers to silence them. Customers this early? It could only be—he glances at the clock as he hurries to the front door, and does a double take—eleven o’clock. Oh, dear.

“Sorry, I’m—so sorry,” he says wretchedly upon opening the door. There’s two women there, one much older, presumably the younger woman’s mother.

“What’s going on? Your website says you open at nine-thirty,” she says.

“I’m dreadfully sorry,” Aziraphale says, wringing his hands. “There was some—” He wants to say complications, but that opens up a whole new host of issues, and he can’t go around telling anyone that there’s a child upstairs. What if Gabriel found out. Then Aziraphale would be in real trouble. “I’m sorry,” he says again, instead. “We’re open now.” He steps aside to let them in, and flips the sign around.

“Oh,” he adds, “and the prices have been raised on all the books. Ten pounds extra, twenty on the prophetic ones.” The ladies grumble, and Aziraphale feels a little rush of relief—he can’t go selling anything. What sort of book collector would he be then?

And then he realizes something. “I don’t have a—excuse me, ma’ams, what did you mean about my web—”

But they’ve already stormed off, probably to give him one star on yelp. He tends to have that effect on customers.

Aziraphale doesn’t have a website. “Crowley,” he calls, walking back up the stairs, because if there’s been a website set up for him, there’s only one person that could have done it.

The Arrangement has only really been in place for around a thousand years, and Aziraphale cannot say if he’s grateful for it or not. On a surface level, he’s grateful, of course. It’s a way to ease the workload, fulfill Heaven’s demands without necessarily having to do it all himself. And there’s the new friendship, even if it is with a demon.

But it’s the friendship thing that Aziraphale finds so difficult to understand or deal with. It’s Crowley. Because yes, they’re friends, and yes, they help each other out when it’s convenient. They both love the earth and all the strange little comforts they find there. But sometimes Aziraphale can’t help but feel as if Crowley is looking for something else. A smile over crepes, or a certain look in his eye when they’re lolling about in the bookshop, drunk. A brush of fingertips, or a seemingly meaningless request. “We can run off together,” or “Y’know, I hear Alpha Centauri is nice this time of year.” “We can leave all this behind, Angel.”

Aziraphale can’t deal with declarations like these. Because these aren’t convenience, they aren’t about a mutual love of Earth. They’re about something bigger, something that Aziraphale’s never seen in Heaven or in Hell, only on Earth. Something he’s never experienced before.

And it hurts. Oh, God, it hurts. Every touch, every gesture. A set of books in nineteen-forty-five London. An offer, vulnerable and quiet, in the Bentley, under the nineteen-seventies lights. Because every time Crowley says these things, it’s like they’re a question, a plea, and saying yes would betray everything Aziraphale stands for. But saying no would tear Aziraphale apart.

Aziraphale climbs up the stairs. There’s only two rooms in his flat—a living one, with a tiny little kitchen, a dining area and a sofa, but no television. And his bedroom.

The living room’s empty. A crib, next to the sofa, with a little sleeping baby in it, but no Crowley. The sofa, too, is empty, and Crowley’s blankets are gone from it. “Oh, dear,” Aziraphale says under his breath, looking around. Softly, the baby starts to cry.

Crowley hurries up the steps of the bookshop, pulling his jacket a little tighter around him. It’s a rainy London morning, and he can’t miracle himself dry, not in plain sight, so he does his best to keep himself and the two paper bags he’s carrying sheltered within the fabric.

The sign on the door says open. Aziraphale must have woken up. He pushes the door open quietly anyway, because he knows that Aziraphale can get engrossed in his studies, and he doesn’t want to surprise him. Aziraphale’s pacing across the worn rug in the back of the bookshop, wringing his hands. Crowley watches for a second, brow furrowing. “Angel?”

“Oh—” Aziraphale cries, turning suddenly, knocking the lamp off his desk and only catching it at the last second. Crowley raises his eyebrows and bites back a smile. “Crowley! What—I thought you were gone!”

“Gone?”

“I woke up, and the—the sofa was empty, and your blankets were gone. I thought you’d left me all alone.” His voice softens at the end of his sentence.

“Didn’t know you cared so much,” Crowley says, because he can’t help it.

“No—I—that’s not what I meant, and you know it,” Aziraphale stammers, and it gives Crowley some delight to see Aziraphale so ruffled. “I need help with Arthur. I had to figure out how to make him stop crying all on my own!”

“Did you succeed?” Crowley asks. The walls of the bookshop are surprisingly soundproof (almost definitely the work of a miracle) and he wouldn’t be able to hear the baby either way. He suspects he already knows the answer, though.

Aziraphale pauses. “No,” he admits. Then, “Where were you, anyway?”

“Oh, yes,” Crowley says, and snaps his fingers, clothes and hair drying in a second. “I got us,” he holds out the two paper bags, “croissants.”

“You got us croissants?” Aziraphale asks, and his smile is back, cheeks flushed. Crowley can’t help but smile back.

“Yes, Angel, croissants. Are you deaf?” Aziraphale doesn’t answer, and Crowley throws his coat over the sofa and saunters into the bookshop kitchen, then continues, “I know crepes are your favorite, but y’said there only were good ones in Paris.”

“That was three hundred years ago,” Aziraphale says, glancing this way and that, occasionally at Crowley. “There’s a new shop, a couple streets over. Sells the most scrumptious crepes you could imagine.” Of course.

“I believe,” Crowley says, leaning back on the counter, “that this is where a thank you would be appropriate.”

“Yes, um, you’re right. I’m so sorry,” Aziraphale says, and meets Crowley’s eyes, cheeks still rosy. “Thank you.”

“Very gracious of you,” Crowley says, smiling.

Aziraphale goes to reach for the plates, but Crowley’s closer, so he hands them over.

They end up eating upstairs, off of Aziraphale’s ridiculously out of date but unexpectedly charming crockery. First, of course, Crowley feeds Arthur. Crowley whispers to him as he does it, bouncing him a little and trying to get him to smile (there’s something wonderful and so, so, un-Hellish about the baby’s little smile—he loves it, although he’d never admit it), until he glances up and sees Aziraphale watching him, a little grin on his face. “What?” Crowley snaps.

“Oh, nothing,” Aziraphale says, and then, “just seems like you’ve got a bit of kindness in you after all.”

“Shut up,” Crowley says, and finishes feeding Arthur silently, then sits down at the dining table.

“So, we’ve still got the issue of the child,” Crowley says, after a moment of poking at the croissant.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, there’s things we have to do. Injections and such.” He turns the croissant over, but it doesn’t seem to be offering anything up.

Aziraphale shudders. “I’ve never gotten an injection. Horrid things, really, needles.”

“Yeah, but see, the kid’s not an angel. We can’t have him getting sick, that’d be loads more work.” He takes a bite, experimentally, and almost spits it out. “Sweet! That’s—Good Lord—Satan—” He takes a napkin and spits it out, then throws it away. “How the Heaven do you eat that?”

“It’s chocolate,” Aziraphale says, looking a little disgruntled. “It’s delicious.”

“Your taste continues to astound me, angel,” he says, astound sounding more like disgust.

“You just don’t know how to appreciate anything fun.”

“Fun?”

“Yes, fun.”

“You call that...monstrosity fun?” Aziraphale looks at Crowley innocently, and Crowley sighs, sitting back down. “The point is, I had an idea.”

“Should I be afraid?”

“Oh, no, it’s—” Crowley takes a breath. “Eh, it’s an idea. Y’know, just an idea.”

“Hm.” Aziraphale reaches for Crowley’s croissant, and Crowley gives him a permissive nod. Aziraphale puts the croissant on his own plate. “Well, out with it, then.”

“I thought we should be husbands.”

Aziraphale chokes on his croissant, and Crowley leans forward, patting him on the back in mild assistance. “You think we should—” Aziraphale says, coughing, “get married?”

“What? Oh, no, of course not. Just—y’know, pretend. I mean, we’ve got this baby, and we’re two men of the same age—that’s probably what the shop lady thought.”

“She did?” Aziraphale asks, eyes wide and anxious. “Does it seem like we’re married? Do you think anyone else thinks so?”

“Ngk—I doubt it,” Crowley says, choking a little bit on the words. “Anyway, that’s my point—we could use it to our advantage—at least, I thought that was the best strategy. Otherwise we’ve got to figure out the whole single parent thing, who is the parent, first of all, and then if it’s you, what am I doing at the pediatrician—it gets much more complicated.”

Aziraphale’s eyebrows draw together. “Husbands,” he says, as if testing out the word.

“Just at the clinic. For simplicity’s sake. Not for real,” Crowley says hurriedly.

“Of course not.”

“Of course not,” Crowley says. Aziraphale nods and takes a bite of his croissant.

#good omens fic #ineffable husbands fic #parenting au #good omens #ineffable husbands #aziraphale #crowley #aziraphale x crowley

18 notes · View notes

kaesaaurelia · 5 years ago

Text

safety

For @whumptober2019 day 30: recovery.

For day 30, recovery. This is a post-canon coda to day 5 (gunpoint) which was Gabriel/Crowley noncon, and day 24 (secret injury) which was Aziraphale/Crowley comfort, where Aziraphale just thinks Crowley has a sore throat.

Established-relationship A/C. Content warning for discussion of rape, obviously. Also some discussion of consensual sex, although not so much that I think it merits a NSFW tag?

It was about a year after the apocalypse failed to occur that Crowley finally had to tell Aziraphale about what he thought of as the Water Pistol Incident, or occasionally, when he was particularly annoyed, the Smug Purple-Eyed Hypocritical Bastard Incident. They were sitting on Crowley's couch -- well, Crowley was in some liminal state between sitting and lying -- and slightly tipsy on sweet wine, arguing about the opera they'd just seen. They'd mostly picked it to see how ridiculous it would be, and it had not failed them on that front; the librettist apparently thought the Crusades needed more demons and evil sorceresses than had actually been present, as far as either he or Aziraphale could recall.

Crowley felt it was unfair to depict demons having such a large part in proceedings that had been almost wholly a human affair, when angels were probably about as competent at mucking things up, maybe better. Several tangents later, somehow, Crowley had got to rambling a bit about how badly Heaven had treated Aziraphale, and Aziraphale was insisting that most of his former coworkers were merely misguided.

This was something Crowley was willing to believe of some of the angels -- not the ones who'd been willing to watch as Aziraphale burned, but hypothetically, some other angels, maybe ones he'd never met, might be more stupid than terrible, and that still didn't excuse them from being colossal wankers -- but when Aziraphale had said that Gabriel was really just trying to do right by the Great Plan, Crowley had sort of lost his temper.

"Angel, he tried to kill you -- they all tried to kill you but he -- he fucking -- he told you to die! With a smile on his face!"

"Yes, but -- oh Crowley, I know he must've been upset, really," said Aziraphale. "It was all he'd been working for for six thousand years, and he'd never really been to Earth much except for suits --"

"And to steal eyes," Crowley put in.

"And to steal eyes," Aziraphale acknowledged, "but look, my point is he didn't understand, really, what the big deal about Earth was. It's not that I ever really liked him, and he was always sort of... accidentally cruel, I suppose..." Crowley had just realized why he was feeling the creeping nausea he'd had during the whole discussion, and what the tightness in his throat was from, and it must have been showing on his face, because Aziraphale had trailed off and was looking very concerned. "Crowley?"

"It's. It's nothing," said Crowley, who wasn't sure how to even begin explaining this. "Gonna -- gonna sober up, hang on." If anything, he wanted to be drunker, but he was queasy enough as it was.

"Crowley," said Aziraphale, a little more forcefully, "it is clearly not nothing. I'm sorry, we don't have to talk about this anymore, but when you start looking like that I think it's only sensible of me to be worried."

Crowley sat up, and took a few deep breaths, trying to remind himself that this was his flat and he was safe, and Aziraphale was safe, and Gabriel was terrified of the both of them now, and that helped the nausea. It didn't help Aziraphale looking at him like that, though; he'd clearly sobered up too, and Crowley felt guilty for having caused him to leave the comfortable buzz of the wine behind. "Angel, you have to promise me you won't do anything about this. All right?"

"Well, now you have me really worried," said Aziraphale, scooting next to him on the couch. "Crowley, dearest, what on earth is the matter? Did he do something else you haven't told me about at the trial?"

"You haven't promised," said Crowley.

"I will not promise not to do anything about it, since I've no idea what it is," said Aziraphale, and Crowley knew there was no cajoling him into that promise.

"Fine, then -- don't -- don't do anything stupid, all right?" said Crowley.

"I would never," said Aziraphale.

Crowley raised an eyebrow.

"Well, I won't go after Gabriel, if that's the promise you're after," said Aziraphale. "Whatever he tried to do, it obviously didn't work."

"That's…" Crowley made an unhappy noise, but there was no explaining without explaining, and Aziraphale had made the promise, at least. "So. In the eighties. Maybe the nineties? Fuck, I don't remember. It was a while ago," he said.

"Many unfortunate fashion decisions ago," said Aziraphale.

"Right, yes," said Crowley. "So. So I was, you know, minding my own business, out and about, possibly causing some hideous commuter delays, seeing how long I could make people wait before six buses arrived at once, I think -- anyway. So Gabriel, the bastard, comes at me with a water pistol."

"A water pistol -- Crowley!" said Aziraphale, going terribly pale as he realized what must have been in it. "Oh, Crowley."

Crowley swallowed. "So then, he. Er. He. Well, he trapped me, gloated a little bit like a cartoon villain, and -- and I guess I was too mouthy for him, so he -- so he stuck the water pistol in my mouth."

"He what?" said Aziraphale. He was no longer pale, but flushed with anger.

"And then he -- he stuck it down my throat and -- so there was -- there was water going down my throat and -- d'you remember that time I said I had a sore throat and you came over and --"

And Aziraphale's expression softened. "Oh, no, my poor darling, of course that would -- oh, it must have hurt so much --"

"I'm not done, angel," said Crowley. Aziraphale looked very concerned at this, as if he could not imagine what could possibly be worse, and Crowley almost wished he'd just stopped talking and let him keep that assumption. Only he had a sort of momentum going and he couldn't just stop the story. "So then. So then he." It had to come out, but he didn't know how to say it in a way that wouldn't horrify Aziraphale. "Look, it's not as bad as it's going to sound --"

"Crowley, what did he do?" said Aziraphale. His tone was kind, but there was something very dangerous in his eyes. That was what Crowley had been worried about.

"He…" What was the least-bad way to say this? "He made me give him a blowjob," said Crowley, finally.

"He -- he made you -- Crowley! Why didn't you tell me?" said Aziraphale, absolutely appalled. "How dare he -- an Archangel -- and him all self-righteous and -- oh, Crowley, I'm so sorry if I ever gave you the impression that -- that I wouldn't have believed you or --"

"Angel," said Crowley.

"-- and I'm sorry I was sitting here trying to defend him when you'd been through that, and ooh, I could strangle him, well, I couldn't, he's an Archangel, but, but how dare he, what a vile, selfish, cruel, how could he, how could anyone, really, but --"

Crowley could feel him shaking with rage. "Angel," he repeated.

"Oh! Oh, I'm so sorry, Crowley, I didn't mean to talk over you," said Aziraphale. "I'll -- I'll be quiet." Crowley watched him fight to get the fury off of his face; he did not quite succeed. He was trying so hard to be a Good Listener, Crowley could tell, but it was easy enough to see he was all over the place, furious and upset and terrified for Past Crowley.

"Angel," he said, a third time. "I thought -- I mean I was fairly sure -- I didn't think you'd think I'd make something up like that. That's actually why I didn't tell you. Didn't want you to have to -- to have to know all that."

"But," said Aziraphale. "I don't understand. I could've done something and..." Crowley watched the other shoe drop. "Oh. Oh dear. And I would have, too, and it would have all turned out very badly for the both of us and Gabriel would have come out of it all just fine."

"Yeah, basically," said Crowley.

Aziraphale took his hand, and gripped it tight. "I'm sorry, my dear, I -- I was a fool about Heaven, wasn't I? And you had to suffer through it all alone, and --"

"I wasn't alone," said Crowley, sliding his arm around Aziraphale and leaning in to kiss him on the cheek. "Don't you remember? You showed up with chamomile tea and honey and two kinds of chicken soup and an army of little bottles of cough medicine."

"Yes, but I should've -- I should've done more," said Aziraphale.

"Oh, Aziraphale. After -- after it all was over, after I'd dealt with Gabriel, and cleaned myself up, and got back to the car, all I could think about was hearing your voice." Crowley smiled, a bit sadly. "So I called you, and it cheered me right up to hear you even though I was canceling our plans, and then you came over and -- you didn't have to bother with the medicine or the soup or -- I think you bought me a kettle, which, did you think I didn't have a kettle?"

"I knew you didn't have a kettle," Aziraphale said, "since I vividly recall you miracling water hot to make tea at one point, which..."

Crowley managed not to laugh at his look of horror at miracled tea. "Well, anyway. All I wanted was for you to be here with me. And you were."

Aziraphale sighed. "Well. I can't say that makes me feel much better, but I'm glad I could help, even if I didn't know what I was helping with." They sat in silence for a moment, and then Aziraphale said, "Hang on, what do you mean after you'd dealt with him? How on Earth did you get away? I'd have -- I'd have thought he'd have killed you afterwards." He shuddered.

Crowley laughed, and Aziraphale looked genuinely startled at that. Then Crowley gave him a thin, wicked smile. "So you know how I can, ah. Can pretty much fit anything down my throat?"

Aziraphale went red. "Well, yes, but --"

"And you know," Crowley went on, "how very sharp my teeth can get when you want me to be rough in bed?"

He went redder. "Yes, but I hardly think -- oh."

Crowley smiled wider.

Aziraphale's eyes got very big. "Oh. Crowley, you didn't," he said, delighted and horrified all at once. "You didn't!"

"I did, and the fucker deserved it," said Crowley, strangely proud.

"Oh, absolutely," said Aziraphale. "Absolutely, he did. But no wonder you kept throwing up, having eaten something so vile. Your poor stomach!"

"I'll understand if you don't want my mouth on your cock anytime soon," said Crowley. He was half-joking, but privately a bit worried. He very much enjoyed sucking Aziraphale's cock; he knew he was good at it, and all of Aziraphale's little whines and moans gasps and the absolute nonsense that came out of his mouth were very gratifying.

Aziraphale looked at him in mild horror. "If you think I'd give that up, you're -- oh, well, I mean -- unless you'd rather not -- if it reminds you --"

"Nah," said Crowley. "Been decades. Whole different context, anyway." He turned his head to press a kiss to Aziraphale's neck. "When I'm with you I always feel safe."

Aziraphale squeezed his hand again. "Hmm. There was a time -- quite long ago, mind -- when you were the exciting sort of danger, for me, but --"

"Is there boring danger?"

"Do shut up, dear, I'm trying to be soppy," said Aziraphale, and Crowley laughed. "Anyway, I suppose the feeling is mutual."

"Better stick together, then. Nothing else for it," said Crowley.

"Indeed," said Aziraphale, and he kissed the corner of Crowley's mouth, and then he moved to kiss him full on the lips, and then, for a while, they had no need of speech.

#good omens #anthony j crowley #aziraphale #ineffable husbands #whumptober2019 #no.30 #cw rape #some mention of consensual sex as well #the archangel fucking gabriel #text #fiction #kaesa op #can't believe I'm almost done with whumptober #it's been crazy but awesome

3 notes · View notes