#in the ice cold wind whenever no matter what the weather we BUILT THIS CITY ON ROCK AND ROLL

[assless-chapstick]

so until a couple weeks ago I had never seen the hit 2000s television show Glee but I started watching it recently and it's just fuckin Im obsessed and idk why it's so fuckin stupid

and now imagine what if it was glee but it was fuckin Red Dead Gleedemption

but it's not a highschool au they're just themselves, they're just cowboys that sing showtunes and how fuckin gd funny that would be like fuckin

dutch is the coach obvi and he's always deciding who sings what and when and who duets with who and who gets solos and like mARSTON AGAIN?? REALLY COACH HE CAN'T EVEN CARRY A TUNE IN A BUCKET I SWEAR TO GOD

and then Arthur gets to sing I'm at a pay phone Dutchy just phone home all of the time you spent on plans

AND IMAGINE THEY DO CHOREO

unfortunately I can't think of a single popular song to riff off rn I don't listen to the gosh dang radio no more idk what's popular except for what's blowing up on Tiktok

[sparkkeyper]

Baby, It’s Cold Outside

Word Count: 3,797

Warnings: None    

Summary: Old habits die hard. Crowley and Aziraphale’s habits are very, very old. Building their own side is difficult when 6000 years of instincts won’t shut up. 

(Originally very loosely-based on the song "Baby, It's Cold Outside" but then it kind of did its own thing, haha. I was originally going to post this for Advent  Omens but uhhh you can see that didn’t quite happen. Written as ace but you can read it however you want, really. Guess what fools, it’s Soft Boi hours again!)

(Now on AO3!)

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The snow had started early in the day. When Aziraphale arrived at the Mayfair flat it was just a dusting. But the flurry had become a proper snowfall, and then quickly decided 'go big or go home' and transitioned into a flat-out storm.

This didn't phase the two immortals in the slightest, of course. If anything, the swirling flakes outside made it feel even cozier inside. Crowley's sleek, minimalist flat had grown a fireplace for the occasion, and a very surprised new chimney on the roof of the building found itself venting smoke that somehow managed to bypass three floors.

They sat together on the plush sofa (obtained at Aziraphale's insistence several months prior, on the grounds that he wasn't going to continue coming over if there was nowhere comfortable to sit, and Crowley couldn't have that) and drank wine and talked and laughed and reveled in the feeling of being cozy and warm on a cold, blustery day.

Time had traveled on in the usual manner since Armageddon failed to happen. The two of them were unwinding slowly. Thousands of years of looking over shoulders did not evaporate in an evening, benevolent Antichrist or no, and 'our side' was a concept they were still carefully exploring. But what a glorious exploration it was.

There was no limit to the amount of time they could spend together. It was a dizzying concept that they were both adjusting to, but one that carried a thrill through it all the same. Crowley had been sorely tempted to buy tickets to every concert, play, and musical revue London had to offer and do nothing but attend shows for the foreseeable future, the two of them together. In public. He very well might have done too, if Aziraphale hadn't talked him down amid giddy chuckles. "We have time," Aziraphale had reminded him, and Crowley was ecstatic to realize that it was true.

He had relented to two a week.

It was elating. They stood closer together, they sat beside each other on public transportation rather than one behind the other, they gave each other teasing nudges with elbows.

And sometimes - when they were both at least a bottle in - one of them might even bump their hand against the other's, and fingers might intertwine, and an electric tingle would flood Crowley like a live thing, and most importantly neither would pull away for at least two solid minutes and oh wasn't that alone worth saving the world for?

Crowley spent a previously-unheard-of amount of time at the bookshop and Aziraphale's face always lit up like the sun whenever he walked in. He arrived early, stayed late, sometimes didn't bother going home at all, often showed up with wine or snacks, and they were together and it was wonderful. He had fallen asleep on the bookshop couch in the past, but these months he got the impression that Aziraphale had zoned the piece of furniture as specifically his. There was a permanent place set aside for him in Aziraphale's home, in Aziraphale's life. It made a warmth pool in his stomach to think about it despite the creeping winter chill.

Aziraphale had begun to visit Crowley's flat in return. The angel had never once set foot in the place until the night after the airfield - Crowley had never given him the address, to be fair - but now that permission had been granted Aziraphale was here increasingly often. It was so like the easy evenings at the bookshop, just with more austere surroundings. Music, alcohol, debates and memories and slightly drunken speculation. The occasional temporary twining of fingers. It was good.

It was overwhelming sometimes, this new 'good'.

Aziraphale always left the flat at the end of the evening, usually around ten. He had no reservations whatsoever about chatting until dawn in the bookshop but the flat was a new environment, Crowley supposed. Possibly something to do with propriety.

Possibly something to do with thousands of years of distance that they were both still figuring out how to cross.

But that was Aziraphale, all right: as slow and steady as a glacier when it came to his set, comfortable ways. So much had changed in the past few months and the angel had had to adapt quickly. Crowley didn't begrudge him taking a few things slow. Old habits were hard to break and their habits were very, very old.

Crowley understood well how shadows could linger even in the bright daylight. It was all well and good to say he was off Hell's payroll. It was another thing entirely when instinct crept up on him screaming that he needed to watch his back, to sit a row behind Aziraphale on the bus, to have forty excuses ready for when Dagon came auditing. It took considerable effort to override those instincts and remind himself that 'together' was okay. It was allowed. And still he'd so far only managed to turn the volume down on them, not silence them completely. He didn't know if he ever would. Crowley didn't doubt Aziraphale had similar instincts of his own. If the angel felt better setting himself a curfew, Crowley certainly wasn't going to judge.

But tonight they were here, and warm, and sheltered from the blizzard. As 'retro' had begun to slide back into style, Crowley had picked up a sleek addition to his stereo system that was at once a record turntable, radio, tape deck, and CD player, with added Bluetooth capability for good measure. Strains of Vivaldi swam through the room from a vinyl, mingling with the crackling of the fire and the clinking of wine glasses. Aziraphale was settled deeply into the sofa, his posture several steps short of perfect which was how Crowley knew he was truly relaxed. Crowley, as per usual, was draped over the couch like he'd never seen one before in his life, as though he had too many limbs and didn't know what to do with them all. It was good.

Life was good.

It was a little after ten when Aziraphale spoke up. "It's getting late." His voice was a bit distant as he looked out the window, snow glinting in the reflected light as it fell. "I suppose I ought to be going."

There was a note of regret to his voice, a lack of conviction in his eyes, that Crowley had learned to read over the long years of the Arrangement. A smile pulled at the corner of the demon's mouth, covered up easily by another sip of wine. It was a very old game they played, treading carefully along the outside edges of things that could not or should not be said aloud. Expectations, angelic ones in particular, built a lot of barriers. Aziraphale wanted something that wasn't allowed him - or wasn't supposed to be allowed him - and couldn't bring himself to reach out and grasp it. It was Crowley's job to find ways for him to justify the forbidden something to himself.

In the subtle language they shared, the angel was asking Crowley to tempt him, and how could Crowley pass up a request like that?

"Awfully cold out there," the demon drawled, gesturing languidly toward the window with his wine glass. "Snowing like nobody's business. Wind and ice and subzero chill. Terrible night to be out in."

"I'm sure it's not so bad."

"Not so bad? It's been raging for hours! Look at it! It's knee-high! You expect me to try and drive my poor car out in that mess?"

Aziraphale raised an eyebrow at the demon. "Ah yes. Imagine if humans invented other forms of transportation aside from your horrid car."

The demon's argument was all bluff and they both knew it. The Bentley could slice through the snowdrifts like a hot knife through butter if Crowley wanted it to. It wasn't the strength of the argument that mattered - it was whether or not Aziraphale could twist it to bypass the metaphorical roadblocks. Crowley rose to the challenge by sprawling back on the sofa with a smirk. "Other forms of transportation? You mean a bus, in weather like that? And good luck finding a cab out there, angel. City's practically shut down."

Aziraphale stood, giving his back a tentative stretch. "I could walk, of course. I've done it loads of times. It doesn't take much more than twenty minutes, not counting the care that has to be taken for ice."

"Walk, he says!" Crowley tossed back the remainder of his wine like a shot glass. "Think of it - the first angel in history to catch pneumonia! Bad job I'm not working for Hell anymore; they'd give me an award!"

"If doing those temptations in Qashliq for you didn't give me pneumonia, I'm quite sure nothing will."

"Are you ever going to let that go? It was over four hundred years ago!"

"It was February in Siberia, no I will not."

"Suppose you did stay a bit longer," Crowley ventured, changing tactics. It was a risk, coming at the problem from such a direct angle when they were both so used to ghosting along edges. "Bookshop wouldn't go anywhere, would it?"

Aziraphale blinked at the abrupt transition. "Well no, I shouldn't think so. It's just...I mean if I don't return home someone might notice of course and well...people will talk."

Crowley leaned forward over his knees, seriously. "Angel. When, in two hundred years in that bookshop, have you ever given a single fuck what your human neighbours think?"

Aziraphale drew himself up with a huff, and Crowley was delighted to see familiar indignation winning out over nerves. "I am an upstanding member of the community, I'll have you know. And it's not just my neighbours, of course - it's yours as well. That little old lady who lives on the floor below, for example. She always gives me that look when I pass her in the lift."

"What look?"

"You know! That look! Like she thinks she knows what's going on between the two of us."

The demon grinned like a Cheshire cat and gave a suggestive wiggle of his shoulders just for the expression it painted across the angel's face. "You're worried that my neighbours are going to think you and I took a tumble in the sheets?"

"They already suspect! Or at least she suspects." Aziraphale was trying so hard to keep a straight face, but mirth glinted behind his eyes. "Do you know what she said to me as she was getting out of the lift the other day? 'Don't forget to use protection; you don't know where he's been!'"

Crowley howled, leaning so far back in his laughter that he fell off the couch.

"I don't know what's more outlandish, the idea that we're in here having a lurid physical affair or the idea that I don't know exactly where you've been."

Crowley wiped his eyes dry and held out a hand so the angel could help pull him up from the floor. "Remind me to miracle her fridge so that all her milk keeps past its date. 'Don't know where he's been' indeed."

Aziraphale fought to get his own smile under control, for the sake of his argument if nothing else. "Yes, but it just goes to show, Crowley, people do notice. And they will talk, I'm sure of it."

"Let them," he waved it off. "I've seen tissue paper with more durability than human gossip. It'll all get forgotten in a day or two." Crowley leaned over and refilled both glasses.

"Right. I suppose it will." The angel took a tentative sip and sat back into the sofa again. "Silly thing to get worked up about, really."

On a regular night that might have been the end of it. They'd had their verbal tennis, they'd had a laugh, and Aziraphale had accepted another drink. But try as he might, the angel couldn't seem to settle. There was a stiffness, a tension to his spine that would not unwind. He fidgeted with the stemware, shooting furtive glances at the window, the fireplace, the clock. 

The ceiling.

The final notes of Vivaldi faded out, leaving the room in silence, and Crowley rose to swap the record. The discomfort radiating off the angel was almost palpable and it made his own spine crawl. "Aziraphale--"

"Only, the wind really looks dreadful," Aziraphale blurted out, jolting to his feet and crossing to the window. "I really ought to go before it gets worse."

"Can't get much worse than it is, I think," Crowley countered carefully. "Best stay where it's warm."

"I don't..." Aziraphale stared out at the London skyline, nearly invisible in the storm. Pale fingers worried absently at the hem of his waistcoat. His mouth was down to a thin line and there was quite a lot behind his eyes. He looked pained. "I shouldn't impose."

"You're not imposing if I'm offering."

"It isn't...it isn't right for me to stay!"

The demon set down the vinyl he was holding, something dangerous layering his words. "Says who?"

"I've been ignoring protocol too much as it is--"

Crowley gritted his teeth, a growl rising in his throat. "There is no protocol on our side!"

"I know!" Aziraphale snapped. There was a beat of silence and the anger in the angel's face melted as suddenly as it had come, leaving his expression frustrated and upset. He scrubbed a hand across his eyes, almost apologetically. "I...I really can't...surely you understand why I can't just..." He ran a hand through his hair helplessly, eyes darting to the ceiling.

The demon set his glass down and moved over to the window.

It was a very old game they played. Crowley was good at his job and Aziraphale was good at the mental gymnastics required to fit through some of the more dubious loopholes. But every now and then they still lost.

He positioned himself in front of the principality, forcing Aziraphale to look at him.

"Angel," he said quietly, as though someone might overhear. "If you want to head home, I'll take you. You know I will. I'd just rather it be because you want to rather than because they would want you to."

Aziraphale looked truly miserable. "Crowley, you've been a marvelous host, you really have, but...I'm so sorry, I..."

Crowley stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. For just a moment the demon's face was soft, genuine. A bit sad but still impossibly fond. "Don't be." He gave the shoulder a gentle squeeze. "It's late. Get your coat, angel, it's cold out there." He doused the fireplace with a wave and stretched his back out. "Give me a moment to sober up and I'll start the car."

Aziraphale sighed, clearly frustrated at a great many things, but headed for the coat rack while the demon forced the alcohol from his system. "It ought to be fine," he muttered as the wine bottles in the corner finished refilling. "It ought to be fine. I can't explain it, I..."

"It's like someone's standing too close inside your personal space," Crowley finished for him quietly, pulling a coat of his own from the ether. "Like you're driving on the motorway and you end up in the blind spot of a lorry. There's no great outward change but all of a sudden the hairs are up on the back of your neck and your skin is crawling. And you just have this overwhelming sense of this is not a good place to be, get out."

"Yes," Aziraphale murmured unsteadily. "Yes, that's it exactly." His eyes found Crowley's, apologetic, searching.

"It is what it is, angel," he assured him softly. "We have time."

A weight seemed to lift from Aziraphale's shoulders. "I...thank you. Truly." There were things unspoken that Crowley could hear beneath that simple phrase. Thank you for understanding. Thank you for being patient with me.

Don't say that, hesitated on the tip of Crowley's tongue. Instinct was, of course, very old and very strong. He swallowed down the words and searched for new ones to replace them.

"You're welcome," he said quietly. The syllables tasted foreign in his mouth.

There was silence in the flat as he buttoned up his coat. Despite the passing months they truly had only moved the barest steps away from where they had been.

They had so very far to go yet.

But it was true. They had time.

"Right." He tried to break the mood as casually as he could, slipping dark glasses on and turning his voice into something light and easy. "Shall we be off then? After you, angel."

The lift ride down was silent, subdued. Something complicated was warring behind the blue eyes and Crowley wasn't going to even begin to touch on it until they were in the car. Aziraphale's steps faltered as he reached the glass doors of the lobby, and Crowley was halfway down the outside stairs before he realized he wasn't following.

"Oi, you coming?"

Aziraphale stared down at the space beyond the door with a peculiar expression: uncertainty and determination and anger and hurt. "I - I don't..." There was a moment of indecision, of frantic debate on his face, then he backed quickly over to the lobby bench and sat down hard.

Crowley pulled his coat tighter about himself as the wind bit through his clothes and ducked back into the building.

Aziraphale held very still, eyes closed and fingers gripping the edge of the bench.

"Angel?"

"Give me a moment. Please."

Crowley paced a cautious half-circle around him, instinctively scanning the principality for damage and the storm beyond the glass wall for threats. Another old habit - nearly useless now but one he wasn't going to be able to drop any time soon. He sat down beside the angel and the lobby was quiet for a very, very long time.

"I think," murmured Aziraphale at last, "if it's all right with you, I'd like to stay."

Crowley studied him closely. "Are you sure?"

"No." Aziraphale met his gaze. "I haven't been sure of much of anything, recently. Not since Tadfield. But I do not want to be forced back to the bookshop tonight."

"Shouldn't force yourself to stay if you're only going to be miserable."

"It's not so bad down here, that's the silly thing. But for some reason the idea of going back upstairs is just..." He laughed wryly. "What a mess I've made of the evening."

"It was a fine evening," Crowley told him earnestly.

"I thought so too, at least until the end there." He straightened, and looked a bit more like himself to Crowley's eyes. "And it's my most sincere hope that, with some more wine and another record, it might be again. Give me a few minutes. I think I can work up to it."

The demon took his glasses off and studied him closely. The determination in those eyes, the set of that jaw, were so familiar they hurt. There was a nervousness there, but there was a stubbornness as well. Like the glacier: slow, steady, but deep down so, so strong.

Crowley reached behind himself and retrieved a pair of full wine glasses that suddenly and thoughtfully decided to exist. "You know, I reckon..." he said quietly, handing one to Aziraphale, "that these will taste just as good right here as they would upstairs."

Aziraphale blinked. Glanced from his glass to the demon to the lift and back again. And his expression softened considerably.

"And if music and wine is what it takes to hang onto your company for a little longer, I s'pose that's the sacrifice I'll have to make, won't I?" He sat his phone down beside him and with a few taps Mozart began to play from its speakers.

Aziraphale stared deep into his wine glass, a smile spreading across his face that he didn't seem quite ready to share with the world yet. "A little unorthodox, isn't it?"

"And?" Crowley shrugged. "Last I checked, there's no protocol on our side."

"So there isn't. Do you know, I think I like that about it."

The demon lowered his voice. "Say the word any time, you know. We'll go, no questions asked."

"I know." Aziraphale let out a long breath and settled back onto cushions that were suddenly far more plush than anything the lobby bench had seen before. "But at the moment I'd rather be here."

The storm howled beyond the glass wall but the central heating vent behind them kept any stray chills at bay. They sat in gentle silence for a long time.

Piano Sonata No. 14 wound through the room, mingling with the warmth and the wine to kindle a sense of calm: a concoction of human magic that miracles, for all their power, could never replicate. Clever things, those humans.

Crowley traced a finger around the rim of his glass. "Can I ask what changed your mind?" he asked softly.

Aziraphale gazed off into the distance for a moment before looking back to his companion. "It was the 'you're welcome', funnily enough. You've always objected so vehemently to being thanked before."

"Yeah, well..." Crowley took another sip of his drink so as not to meet Aziraphale's eyes. "Like being in the blind spot of a lorry."

Aziraphale nodded. "It's..." He trailed off. Took a swig of wine and swallowed it down hard, as though for courage. "It's a comfort," he admitted so quietly that Crowley had to strain to hear him. "To know that it's not just me."

Crowley pursed his lips. "Not by a long shot, no" he confessed, equally quiet.

"I know accepting gratitude doesn't come easy to you. But you managed, tonight."

"It isn't a footrace, angel. I'm not asking you to keep pace with me."

"I know that. And I'm grateful. It's just... seeing you be brave makes me feel like...like I can be as well."

That smile was tugging at the edge of Crowley's mouth again. He reached out and clinked the edge of his glass with Aziraphale's. "Course you can be. Always have been."

The angel smiled back at him, warm and glowing and grateful, just the faintest hint of pink darkening his cheeks. With a daring Crowley had only seen behind the safety of closed doors and wine bottles, he placed a hand on the bench between them, palm up. 

Crowley took it.

Meeting him in the middle, as always.

"Careful, angel," the demon murmured in his ear. "Remember, you don't know where I've been."

Aziraphale gave an undignified snort into his wine glass and their laughter echoed throughout the lobby.

The storm raged cold outside, but here, in their own little in-between place, they were warm.