#on the premise that it's so natural and subtle and soft and innocent

[pianokantzart]

So if the bros actually are in Sarasaland for the sequel, why are they there? And if Daisy does appear, what would her role be? Perhaps something similar to DK’s role in the first movie?

Whatever it is, I hope they establish her as more than just Luigi’s love interest. I’ve seen some people mention how much they want her to appear in the sequel, but it’s only so she and Luigi can make goo-goo eyes at each other and nothing else.

If they are in Sarasaland, I'm going guess either

They need Princess Daisy's help either to find a macguffin or for political allegiance.

They got lost somewhere in their journey (maybe due to a malfunctioning warp pipe) and now need help finding their way home / to The Darklands to save Princess Peach.

In either case, I do imagine Princess Daisy would serve kind of a DK-ish role where she joins them partway through their adventure to give them a leg up. She acts as the muscle, mostly working in the background while having obvious on-screen importance in terms of turning the tide of battle.

As for her interaction with Luigi, I'm with you. Either I want her to have a respectful (albeit a little obvious) crush on Luigi that he stays entirely oblivious to for the entire movie or... better yet... I want them to handle it exactly the same way they handled Peach and Mario's relationship.

There's no moment that sparks fly, but you can see tiny things clicking into place: soft moments of connection and little instances of Daisy paying especially close attention to Lu's emotional state. From a distance it looks like just a strong friendship forming, but if you look harder you can see something a little stronger than that brewing beneath the surface.

[ashesandhackles]

8 TV Shows

Thanks for the tag @yletylyf <3 <3

Rules: list eight TV shows for your followers to get to know you better! 1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer Years, years ago, I sporadically watched earlier seasons of Buffy and enjoyed it for the campy fun they were. And then I watched, "Innocence" - Season 2, episode 14 and I was obsessed with Buffy Summers. Buffy Summers is that one character of all time for me - she is heroic, aspirational but she is also flawed and messy and so delightfully complex. I love her and I forever have a soft spot for Sarah Michelle Gellar for playing her.

2. Fruits Basket

I first read Fruits Basket as a manga, saw the first anime adaptation and the reboot came out during the pandemic. Fruits Basket is a very important piece of media to me because of the way it tackles abuse and the nature of systemic abuse. The show/ manga's ideas of rehabilitative justice were truly ahead of its time. Also the anti hero of the story is my all time fixation - Shigure Sohma.

3. Inuyasha

Another long running manga turned anime. Something about this series turns me into a nostalgic goo. It's probably Rumiko Takahashi's brand of characters, where there is something interesting going on with each of them. But my forever love from the series is Sango, the girl who crawls out of her own grave <3

4. Fushigi Yugi

I greatly dislike the main lead in this anime, I great dislike the romance in this series but my heart went out to the antagonist, the main lead's once best friend Yui Hongo. And if this series wasn't so enamored with its ridiculously cheesy and tiresome main romance (i do not have enough criticism for how truly bad it is, believe me), it had decent worldbuilding and politics. A fact that the original manga author knew and corrected with her spin off prequel - the vastly superior manga Fushigi Yugi: Genbu Kaiden (with likable main heroine! an intense romance that never takes over the plot!). She is currently writing Fushigi Yugi: Byakko Senki and I am curious to see what she does there.

5. Nana

Nana is about my early 20s life lol. Co-dependent, almost romantically charged friendship with a roommate/best friend? Check. Misogynist, controlling boyfriends? Check. Intense but fucked up relationships? Check. It's like this show reached into my heart and displayed it to the world.

6. Shadow and Bone

I'll be honest: my interest in the show is largely due to the fact that I have read the Six of Crows duology and loved those books. I only read the original Shadow and Bone series recently, just so I can keep with the main plotline in season 2 and boy, the original trilogy is very poor lol. The only thing that has bones of something interesting is Darkling and his relationship with Alina, and watching Season 2, I feel the show writers aren't comfortable tapping into that. Too much time moralising "this is bAd!!" - lol, yes we know. It is very childish finger-wagging writing, and it's very boring and not at all reflective of human experience (Shadow and Bone writers need to watch Nana to understand how to write abusive relationships without making it look like they are doing 'Toxic Ex Boyfriend for Dummies'). The reasons why Crows shine so much is because they are based on books that are good. And I agree with general consensus that the moral universe of the Crows and the Shadow and Bone stories do not match at all, and it creates horrible discrepancies in narrative framing.

7. Cowboy Bebop

This is a show that has influenced my writing the most: dream-like vigenettes for characters? People dreaming and having nightmares? Characters stuck in the past? I wish I could be as subtle and genre-bending as this show often was. So beautiful.

8. Death Note

If you have inhaled animes during your teen years, you won't go without bingeing Death Note. Fantastic premise, fantastic protagonist and just outright brutal to watch. I keep returning to it time and again.

Tagging @merlins-sequined-hotpants @hinnyfied @bluethepineapple @phantomeo @thedreamermusing @turanga4

[jangofctts]

Bloodsport (din djarin x fem!reader) (part one) 

rated: 18+

word count: 5.4k

warnings: smut, knife kink (no blood is drawn and consent is clearly given), blowjobs, vaginal fingering, din is sorta a virg duDE, alcohol, mentions of violence (reader punches someone in the face kwejrkejh), some gambling (sabaac) also please let me know if I missed anything!

a/n: oOf this is the first fic in sO LONG IM SO SORRY YALL KEHJRKEJH BUT ANYWAYS I HOPE YOU ENJOY

It’s been a couple months since Din’s stepped foot on the sandy nightmare of a planet. Went through hell and back and kriff—it feels like a lifetime ago. But the landscape before him hasn’t changed an inch, Mos Eisley same as always—busy with all sorts of scum and villainy he turns a blind eye to. 

Din hopes it’s not the only thing that’s stayed the same—selfish as it is. Someone as volatile as you is bound to catalyze and shift, so is the nature of life. A lot can happen in a month or two and it’s ridiculous to think that you would ever push your life to the side and wait for him to return.    

Turns out, you are here, still working as the resident mechanic. Though in the same elated breath of hearing that tidbit of news, it’s equally dissatisfying when he somehow misses you completely. You’re off planet, looking for power converters and electrical wiring—back in few days Peli promises. Maybe by the time his wild goose chase is over, back from the butt fuck middle of nowhere, he’ll get to see you— 

Nothing goes as planned—naturally. All Din finds is a man playing dress up, an oversized lizard, planetary drama he’s forced to resolve and—to top it all off—an attempted stickup. Maker—he’s not even worried about anything save for the kid and your speeder. The very same one now scattered over the sand in miserable heaps.           

At least some of it is salvageable…

By the time Din reaches the outskirts of Mos Eisley, the binary suns are smearing across the horizon like molten puddles of magma. Deep aches amass in his shoulders and back from the weight of the speeder parts, his gear, and the second pair of armor. Maker—it feels like his arms are going to be ripped off.

The baby babbles something incomprehensible. 

“Almost there, kid,” Din responds, sparing a quick glance down the baby. “How does soup sound?”

Instead of trudging back to the hangar, Din wanders to the cantina. Call it a hunch or just you and your aunt’s tendency to lurk around the premises, he’s certain he’s going to find one of you here. 

Din is right.

The moment he steps inside, he spots your mess of hair, the low solar lights illuminating the rich colors with a soft orange. The baby coos and blinks up at Din, his tiny clawed finger gesturing in your direction. 

Din hums. “Good job—you found her.” 

The child’s little teeth peek out, pleased with his discovery. Din steps into the doorway, down the carven stairs and over to your table. A older man—a ship rigger by the looks of his uniform—sits across from you, a game of Sabaac spread across the table between you. You’re winning. 

“Hello, Shiny.” You greet, dipping your chin in his direction. “Your armor is looking a tad ripe.” 

It’s true. The layer of slime coating his armor had baked and crusted under the suns—probably doesn’t smell too good either… 

“I killed a Krayt dragon.” Din states it with a twinge of smug satisfaction despite knowing how little something like that would mean to you. He could conquer three dozen planets and shower you in all the precious metals in the world and you’d still turn your nose up at everything.  

“And I curb stomped a centipede today—you aren’t special.” Your eyes never leave the set of worn cards you hold between your fingers, acutely ignoring him like you would an overly enthusiastic puppy. You inhale and scrape your right thumbnail along the edge of the hexagonal cardstock—it’s a subtle tell, one Din would more than likely miss if he were the unlucky bastard brave enough to sit at the other end of the table.  

“You playin’ or what?” Your opponent gripes. He scratches his unkempt salt and pepper stubble and quirks a furry brow. 

You lift your chin in scorned defiance and lay your hand down—full Sabaac. The man hisses through his crooked, clenched teeth and utters a curse as he shoves his winnings towards your end of the table.  

“Peli promised me information.” Din pushes, hearing the kid coo in curiosity as you begin shuffling the cards with practiced flare. “About others like me.”

“Do I look like my aunt to you?” You grumble. It’s the first time your eyes leave the perimeter of the game to look at him. They settle on the kid first with a guarded version of compassion, then leap to the faded green armor clipped to the heavy luggage, and then his visor. Your lip twitches at the green slime still coating the beskar. “I’m assuming my speeder didn’t make it.”

“A technical difficulty.”

You roll your eyes and snort, dealing out the cards then setting the stack in the middle. “Right…”

The background ambiance of the bar and the quiet rasp of cards fill the brief lull in conversation. Any other rational person would take the blaring hint to leave, but Din is just as stubborn as you are. 

“I don’t remember where the hangar is,” Din lies, cocking his head to the side in mock innocence, “could you show me?” 

The tip of your tongue peaks out of the corner of your mouth. The unconscious tic is not one of irritation—not yet. Though before you’re able to respond, your opponent beats you to it. 

“Yeah—I know where it is. It’s between fuck off and take a hike.”  

Din turns his head, the cool, even tone of his words sharper than shrapnel as he address the man. “I was speaking to her.”        

This is funny to you Din realizes—one of the tiny mysteries of your entirety clicking into the place of the puzzle map he’s conjured for you. 

“Well, I don’t have the time of day for cowards who wear shiny buckets over their head.” The man gripes into his drink, dark eyes flicking over to Din as he sizes him up. “What’s a Mandalorian doing out here anyway? Thought your planet exploded or something.”

The man’s ignorance irks him—sure. How could it not? But with years of harsh words and jabs at the foundation of Din’s very being, he’s learned to adapt. It’ll always sting no matter how many layers of beskar he wears but you on the other hand…

Your eyes spark, molten and bright like the last solar flare on the surface of a decaying star. Each encounter Din’s had with you, he’s bared witness to the deep well of your anger that fuels your being like the auto-mechanical heart of a droid. He’s felt the bite of your rage firsthand, but this anger—this is the tragedy of the delicate mayfly wings trapped between the black teeth of misfortune—the story of the boy who rammed a spear into the flank of an ancient beast that bites before it barks and gnashes its yellowed teeth in warning.

Din’s hand inches towards his blaster. He’s not willing to weigh the safety of the kid against your rash decisions, despite it being on his behalf.   

Though, just as quick as it appears, it recedes like the cool drawback of a tumultuous ocean. Din’s arm relaxes at his side as you release a puff of air. 

Your scuffed up fingers, stained with years of engine grease, scars and dirt, curl around your half finished drink. You stand, lay your cards face down onto the table and flash the stranger a feral grin.

Without a word, you toss your drink directly into the man’s unsuspecting eyes. In another breath, the pointed edges of your knuckles fly forward and hook beneath the point of his chin with a meaty thunk. The man’s head whips backwards and connects with the gravely wall—

Out like a light.  

Jaw clenched tight, you shake out your bleeding knuckles and gather up the strewn credits over the table. You shove them into the pockets of your jacket and side eye Din. “Restitutions for damages,” you mutter. 

The other patrons keep their eyes to themselves as the three of you hurry out the door. Only an apathetic glance from the bar tender serves as proof that something did, in fact, occur. No one wants to dirty their nose sniffing about where they shouldn’t be when they have their own business to safeguard.

The crisp night air rustles the stray strands of hair that escape from your ponytail. Ghostly moonlight carves the shape of your cheeks into an almost ethereal sight—one of those deep space creatures with pointy teeth and hellfire for eyes. Stuff of legends you’d never think to look in a dingy bar for.     

But he knows—Din knows that cool mask is just a front from what you hide. It is a hungry ghost that hounds your thin stretched shadow—what ifs and the glories of war you never really escaped. You forget that you are flesh and blood and ghosts are only air and echoes, nothing more. 

Din is sharp edged steel. A stray fragment of a shattered mirror, the lacerated reflection of a nameless purpose and a faceless existence. He’s torn edges and cracked glass but his heart beats within his chest with the blood of a thousand suns. Two souls under the umbrella of the word damaged but entirely different in nature.     

“No one—“ you growl, your voice a steady and lethal timbre that terrifies a part of Din’s unconsciousness, “—speaks that way to my friends.” 

Touching. 

“Don’t look at me like that, Creature,” you huff, staring down at the child who gurgles in return. “He deserved it—“

The reunion certainly wasn’t the one Din imagined, though it’s a relief to find that there’s no roughened edge like sandpaper over skin wedged between you. Picked up right where you left off—no questions asked and no inglorious retelling of how Din nearly died on the floor of a shitty cantina. There’s not a doubt in his mind that you'd laugh at him for it—it is sorta funny…   

The rest of the evening is spent walking back to the hangar, arguing over the fact that yes Din should take the couch instead of that miserable little hovel he calls a bed, and spend the night. He’d have to find some other mechanic to work through the night if he wanted to leave in the morning, because you certainly did not want to volunteer for that. And so—Din reluctantly takes the couch and agrees to let you tackle the monstrosity of fixing up his ship for tomorrow. 

He has to admit…the couch is a bit smaller than the length of his body, but it’s comfortable…maybe he’d buy a better blanket while he was here. As a treat.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 

You purse your lips and whistle. “I swear each time I see it, it gets worse. Y’know, I know a couple guys selling—“ 

“Can you fix it?”

You fold your arms over your chest and roll your eyes.“Yeah I can fix it, jeez—no need to get your undies in a twist.” 

You try not to take offense, because hey—you’re offering him the info on the good deals on new ships (and at this point anything would be better than this old rust bucket). But if Din doesn’t want anything to do with that, then whatever. His loss.   

When you wander onto the ship, toolbox in hand, the Mandalorian tags along. Unsure if he doesn’t trust you with his things or just wants to hang out, it blankets the space with an air of uncertainty. Turns out it was neither of those guesses. All he does is throw open his stash of weapons, collect his pile of vibroknives, and set them on a table to polish and sharpen. 

Makes sense, you suppose. Everything has to be as shiny as his armor. 

You drop to your knees near the closest wiring panel you find. You wrench open the paneling and frown at the disarray of sparking wires and tangled cords. You organized these perfectly last time he was here. “Who the fuck junked up my rigging?”

Mando sits at the little table tucked away in the corner, brooding over his cache of weapons. He shrugs. “Could’ve come loose when I landed.” 

You roll your eyes at his half assed excuse and mutter a foul string of curses under your breath that’d make even Peli wince. It’s fine. It’s cool—no biggie. You can sort through this in a couple hours, maybe three. 

But of course rarely anything goes as planned. As time ticks away, arms deep in wires older than the kriffing Clone Wars, the distractions begin. The scrape of metal on durasteel makes the hair rise into little pricks all up your arms—you shoot a glare over your shoulder. Din tilts his head, your kneeling self reflecting within the ever dark visor, features scrunched into an obvious tell of annoyance. Huffing, you bury your head back into your task at hand. 

The second distraction arrives in the form of a quiet hum of curiosity originating from the Mandalorian. Out of the corner of your eye you see him bring a vibroblade up to his visor, inspecting the notch in the blade that disrupts the electrical current that flows through the weapon. Din then rubs his thumb over the handle of the vibroblade in a slow, sensual circle. You lick your lips and tear your eyes away. That shouldn’t be hot.

You furrow your brows and tear apart another wire, but the metallic tap, tap, tap of Din bouncing the tip of a different blade over the table is bothersome. You swing your head to your left, mouth parting to snap at him, but his hand—sans glove—brings you to a halting stop. 

It’s alluring, the way his long, weathered fingers twirl the knife with practiced ease—like silk through water and followed by the low hum of electricity meant to slice through flesh. Din tosses it in the air, watching it spin three rotations then catches it by the handle. Your lips purse when his visor meets your eyes. He spins it between his fingers.  

“Am I bothering you?”

Fucker.   

You scowl. “It’s fine.” 

The soft rasp of his thumb sliding along the flat of the blade entices the eye and damnit—he’s doing this on purpose. 

“Doesn’t seem fine,” he hums. 

“Well, it is.” You retort hotly. You snatch up your pliers and imagine you’re pulling his teeth out in place of the crooked paneling. “I’m currently thriving in my element.”  

Din hums, the sound buzzing with grainy distortion. “Do you want a closer look?”

You chew your bottom lip. He’s playing with an open flame and you with volatile jet fuel. 

“I don’t know, seems kinda lame from here.” You scoff, busying yourself by pinching and twisting another set of frayed wires between your fingertips. “A toothpick if anything.”

Din snorts behind you. The deadly whisper of beskar against the durasteel tabletop makes the hair on the back of your neck prick into points. You tense as heavy boots shuffle along the floor, the near silent rustle of armor tinkling behind you as Din steps closer. You’re slow to stand, even though the presence of the Mandalorian is no less than overbearing. You wipe your grimy hands onto a spare rag, continuing to face the paneling. You then turn, a coy smile threatening to break across your face. 

Stars Din is broad—and close enough you swear you’re able to see the perspiration of your breath fog the beskar plating. Your eyes follow the seams of the cuirass, across the leather bandolier and up to his helmet that’s fixed in an impassive glare of tempered steel. Your back bumps into the wall as Din takes another step forward, boxing you in. To escape you’d need to duck under his arm and yet…you refuse to move.   

Your breath catches as he languidly lifts his hand and taps the flat side of the vibroblade over your collarbone. The sharpened point tickles up the column of your throat, a crackle of nerves and your pounding pulse following in its wake. Din turns the blade to flat edge and pushes into the space right below your jaw—you squirm when he chuckles, the sound low and deep. 

“You like this…”

Din grunts as your hand reaches between his legs, squeezing the growing hardness there. “So do you.” 

Din circles his hand around your wrist with his free palm. Moons above his hands are warm. He murmurs your name—you shiver. “Tell me you want this—want me.”

A blush, hotter than the surface of Tatooine in the midday sun, rushes up your neck and pools into the apples of your cheeks. Maker you want him. With a shuddering sigh you nod—braving the scathing shrapnel of vulnerability. “I need you, Din—please.”

A low chuckle rumbles through Din’s chest. “Don’t think I’ve ever heard you say please before.”

Din drops his hold on your wrist as you roll your eyes. “Shut up, Bucket Head.”

The Mandalorian snorts and dips his head—gesturing towards the blade still lightly pressed against the base of your throat. “This ok too, Skitter?”

You flash him a wolfish grin. “Gonna fuck me with it?”

Din swears under his breath, crowding his body closer to yours. You hear his strained sigh as he dips his head closer, the beskar a chilly whisper against your cheek. “You’re depraved…take off your pants.”

You smirk, tear off your belt and shimmy out of your pants and underwear, bottom half now bare. His visor dips, entranced.  

Your heart leaps into your throat, your pulse roaring in your ears as he settles one of his bare hands over the swell of your hip while the other trails the blunt edge of the handle from your clothes collarbone, and down your belly. From your mid thigh he skates the handle up your bare thigh and then rests it over the crack of your thigh. Heat flushes through your entire body, a stark contrast to the cool metal of the handle. A shiver races down each vertebrae when he drags it over the swell of your cunt and then carefully pressing it against your clit. You gasp and arch into the light touch, your thighs involuntarily jerking as he increases the pressure. It’s cold, rigid and filthy. Who knows where that knife has been—how many lives it’s taken or severed through muscle and skin. 

You don’t find it in you to care all that much.    

He trades his hold on your hip to slide his hand into your shirt, palming and kneading your breast through your bra as you roll and whine against his fingers. The tight circles he's drawing over your clit burns through your abdomen, drags you closer to the precipice that you’re all ready so close to. Fuck—it’s been so long since you’ve indulged in this sort of pleasure.You whine his name as wicked heat licking up your body and spreading to each limb. You arch into him, the handle of his knife slipping through your folds as arousal drips from your cunt.   

Your groan as you tilt your hips into the handle, craving any lick of pleasure he’ll give. Your breath hitches as Din pushes the hilt closer to your throwing entrance, murmuring praise as he sinks the first couple inches inside of you. It’s cold—the knobby feel of the handle not too much thicker than one or two of your fingers combines. You huff and grab at his cowl, the warmth of his hand grazing your pussy each time he rocks his wrist forward. 

“You’re so quiet,” Din goads, pulling the handle free from your aching center. “You usually have plenty to say.” 

You shoot Din a glare, tongue weighed down by arousal to come up with a god retort. You lean your head back against the wall of the Crest and with a chuckle, Din’s hand leaves your shirt to pull you against his chest, the vocoder rumbling against your ear. The blade clatters to the floor and instead brings his calloused fingertips to your cunt. He softly rolls your swollen clit between his forefinger and thumb, delighting in the way you shake. “Be a good little thing and cum for me.”

Shit, you didn’t think it’d be that easy. Your body seizes as white hot heat ripples through your core. Stars, brighter than a dying sun burst behind your eyes, a high pitched cry filtering past your lips as shake and fall apart in his arms, your cunt clenching tight around the thick fingers he slips inside of you. 

You whine as he pulls out, little aftershocks of pleasure wracking through your body in wake of your euphoric high. You groan as he lifts your head and pushes his digits, coated in your juices into your mouth. You lick them clean, tasting the tang of your own arousal and the salt on his skin. “Fuck—that was good.”

You can only imagine that Din rolls his eyes. He takes a step back but before he can escape—

You drop to your knees, a wicked smile curling over your lips. The muscles in his thighs jump as your palms smooth over the outsides of them, then up to his narrow hips, your thumbs lightly massaging the ligaments that protects the fragile joints. Din sucks in a sharp breath when your fingertips hook around his trousers. 

“What are you doing?” Din asks, brushing a thumb over your jaw. 

You pause and glance up at him. You quirk a brow. “Was gonna suck you off, but if you have something else in mind…“ He hisses and tips his head back, flashing the underside of his chin as your hand leaves his hip to cup the heavy bulge tenting in his trousers. 

“Maker—“ He looks off to the side, inhales a choppy breath and then snaps his head back. “You’d…you’d do that?”   

You nod and flash him an encouraging half grin. “Wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t want to.”

Din mumbles an incoherent string of words under his breath and shifts his weight onto his right leg. His fingers touch your cheek again then tuck a loose hair behind your ear. “But—“

Moons above this man is straight out of some kind of fucking fairytale—arguing about getting his dick sucked—or not. 

Whatever.       

“Din…” His breath hitches at the sound of his name. “I’m asking you kindly to fuck my mouth—it’s cool if you don’t wanna, but my knees already kriffing hurt and—“

He cuts you off with a hasty nod. “Yes—stars, please.”

Fuck yeah.

You smile and slide your eyes past Din’s legs to the cargo crate shoved up against the wall. “You should sit—easier that way.”

He nods and shuffles over, lightly perching himself on the edge and ready to flee at the barest hint of well—anything.

Din’s knee jumps when you place your palm over it. You assume his nerves are from the nature of his occupation—trouble always strikes when you least expect it—and what better time would that be when his pants are around his ankles. “Relax—I’m not gonna bite—maybe.”

He makes a wary sound low in his throat as your fingertips hook into the waistband of his trousers and pull. Din lifts up as you tug the fabric further down his legs, tan skin and solid muscle following in its wake. Fuck…

You swallow, mouth feeling quite dry when your eyes drift between his legs. Din is thick, a rosy brown color, flushed at the tip and curling towards his bellybutton. Beads of liquid shine at the tip, dribbling down the underside and pooling into the dark patch of curls at the base. Din’s fingers hook over the side of the crate, squirming under the weight of your stare. 

Yeah—that’s gonna leave your jaw aching.    

You hear his breath hitch, magnified by the crackle of the vocoder as your lips descend over a silvery scar on the inside of his right knee. You pepper a trail of wet kisses and light nips up his thighs, and by the time you reach the crease of his leg, his hips mindlessly rock with need. 

The second the wet warmth of your tongue brushes over the tip of his cock, his hips jolt off the crate, a load groan echoing through the empty ship. It’s like striking a match to an open line of kerosene—devouring and explosive that’ll leave your delicate skin singed. You’re not nervous playing with fire if this barest scrap of wild heat is anything like burning to a crisp. 

Emboldened by his initial reaction, you wrap your hand around the base, pulsing and achingly hard beneath the velvety flesh. You flatten your tongue over the tip, lapping up the sticky liquid the slip the head of him into your mouth. His hands fly to your hair, tightening into fists as he throws his head back. The beskar scrapes over the durasteel with a sharp squeal, but you don’t find it in you to care about the abrasive sound—eardrums be damned.  

“Fuck—kriffing hell—“ Din snarls, arching his hips to seek more of your warmth. “K-keep going.”  

Your own rekindled arousal blazes hot in your core hearing his stuttered pleas. You pull away to catch your breath, feeling almost guilty for doing so at Din’s low whine of protest. He picks his head up, watching as you languidly jerk him off—entranced with the way your hand rolls over the leaking tip, back down to the base, then up again. You could keep him like this—tease until he cracks under the pressure and begs you for whatever iota of pleasure you want to give but—

You’re not that mean.    

Wetting your lips with your tongue, you part your mouth and slide nearly half of his length into your mouth. Din mutters something garbled, his hips jolting as you hollow your cheeks and bob your head.

Din shifts, arching his back and stuttering out broken whispers of encouragement. Placing your hand over his thigh, you can feel his pulse thrumming beneath your fingertips, wild and alive—something real beneath all that heavy armor and unforgiving helmet. 

“You—you look…” He grunts as you hum around around his cock, swallowing him down further. “Shit—you look so p-perfect like this.”

You groan and squeeze your thighs together, attempting to ignore the gnawing hunger snapping at your insides. 

Rolling your tongue along the underside of his shaft, your fingers slide over what your mouth cant reach—squeezing and gently coaxing him towards his high. He seizes up tight—yet, just when you think you’ve got him skidding off that precarious edge—

His hand fists your hair at the base your neck and yanks you off his cock. He huffs, breathy little pants as he folds into himself like he’s been punched in the gut, his head rolling forward onto his shoulder. Din shivers as he scrambles for control, beginning to loose that slippery foothold he’s so intent on maintaining. His cock, flushed an angry red and still slick with your saliva, twitches and throbs for the release so cruelly wrenched away. 

You let him catch his breath. The fingers tangled in your hair go lax and drop away to rest at his sides. You swallow, his previous skittishness suddenly clicking into place. “Din, are you…?” A virgin. Your question tapers off, unsure if it’ll embarrass and scare him off. 

“No,” he answers—not in a sharp way like you’d hear with a bruised ego—just stating a fact. “Just not—not this. Never had someone—stars—“

Your teeth roll your bottom lip between them, forcing your face to remain neutral despite the stroke of pride blooming singing in your chest. You’re his first—lucky enough to make this the best goddamned oral he’ll ever have. Something he’ll remember for years.  

“Do you want me to stop?” You ask, praying to the Maker he’ll say no. 

He shakes his head, sucking in another calming breath and unfurling himself. His fingers clench into fists then relax, crackling with pent up energy and unsure nerves as to where he should put them. You solve it by threading your fingers through his and placing them around you head. 

Your lips quirk. “You’re allowed to cum in mouth—don’t worry about it.”

His cock twitches as a quiet moan fizzles through the modulator. “You su-sure?”

“Oh, yeah.”

With a smile you bring your mouth back to his cock, tongue swiping up the entire length of him. Din groans as the soft warmth of your mouth slips over the flushed tip of cock, his thick length twitching as you hollow out your cheeks and suck. You bob your head as you slowly work him in further because even like this, hardly halfway into your mouth, you feel your lips stretching a bit too much around him. You groan and part your mouth wider, letting him sink into the soft warmth of your throat.  Din inhales, the sound shaky and unsure as his hips twitch with a few tentative thrusts. 

You take it slow—lifting your mouth nearly all the up to the tip then back down to the base. Din rolls his hips, helping you ease into the gentle pace. Saliva drips down his cock and over your knuckles making an absolute mess you have zero intentions of cleaning up. It’s his ship after all. Din swears as his hips stutter, your hand squeeing around him, trying to push him off that edge he so deserves. Din gasps your name, the pitch of his words knocking up to a lighter, more airy tone, warmer than melted butter. 

“Ca-can’t believe, it—ah—it fits.” He groans with astonished reverence. You preen under his praise. 

You swallow around him and grunt at the abrupt jolt of his hips. There’s no distinctive rhythm you can follow as you let him rock his hips into your mouth—seeking out his pleasure without a coherent thought in sight. Just a cacophony of gasping breaths and rough moans. 

You can feel is cock twitching over you tongue—he’s close—and when your eyes roll up to meet the darkened visor, he’s gone. He shouts your name and knots his fists around your hair as he spirals of that edge. You nearly gag from the force of his release hitting the back of your throat—cock throbbing and jerking in your mouth like he’s been denying himself release for months. His moans, fragile and gasping, filling the quiet space as his hips grind his cock deeper down your throat, his hands threaded into your hair acting as an anchor—the sole tether he has to the waking world. 

Din’s grip relents as the last few catastrophic waves tear through his body. He doesn’t move his hands, just lets them rest over your skull  as his chest heaves for precious air, a harsh crackle through the vocoder. You pull his still twitching cock halfway out, dragging the tip of your tongue below the frenulum while one of your hands circles the base of his length. Maker—he’s still going—

Last little dribbles of his cum spurt onto your tongue and drip over your knuckles still securely wrapped around him. His legs and lower abdomen flex when your hand falls lower to carefully knead at his balls, milking out his pleasure for all its worth. You let his softening cock slip from your mouth when he swears and mumbles your name.      

When you rest your back against the wall, he slips himself back into his trousers and joins you. You take a risk and rest your head over the chilly beskar pauldron. You’d never call this love—the word is much too harsh for this delicate string of seconds. Love means giving pieces of yourself to others like martyrs give their hearts to the sky—or risk fragile skin against the rays of an unforgiving sun. Broken ribs and clenched fists, immensity beyond comprehension—

“You should come with us,” he says with a hesitant mumble. Love is formidable—but you know that somehow, here, pressed against Din’s side, that this is right. In a golden way, a honeyed way, a path that tastes of blood, freedom and blaster smoke that will leave your lungs stained with blackened soot. Cowardice has long made a home inside of your soul, and he’s offering you a chance to shake off the layer of frost clinging to your bones and step into the gentle merciful dawn.  

“Yeah—alright, Din. I will.”

tags (only tagging some moots for now bc i have no clue what’s going on in this fandom anymore dbdndn): @goldafterglow @jango-fettish @djxrxn @blsmjoon @spookoofins @krissology @steeeeeeeviebb @teaofpeach @comphersjost @gummiishark @delusionsxfgrandeur @pettyprocrastination @huliabitch

[ducktracy]

188. porky’s poppa (1938)

release date: january 15th, 1938

series: looney tunes

director: bob clampett

starring: mel blanc (porky, porky’s poppa, narrator), bob clampett (duck)

it’s safe to say that 1938 was porky’s best year. speaking in terms of solo cartoons, that is. his cartoons were genuinely funny, stimulating, and he looked great appearance wise. 1939 the porky burnout started, and he was slowly reduced to a smiling stock character whose adversaries and costars were much more alive than he was.

as daffy (and later bugs) rose to popularity, porky slipped into the sidekick role, paired primarily with the duck. with that said, the porky/daffy cartoons are some of the funniest around, and i firmly believe the best cartoons for the both of them are the ones where they’re paired together—with a few exceptions, of course.

however, let’s not get ahead of ourselves: a great year of pig stardom awaits. porky’s father, who made a few appearances during the joe dougherty era, makes his final return. in a story that has loose similarities to the premise of porky’s railroad, porky struggles to convince his father that their cow, bessie, is a much better fit for the farm than the newfangled mechanical cow his father has his eyes on.

the introduction is one of the funniest aspects of the cartoon itself. a hand erases the title credits, scrawled on a blackboard, and fills in “PORKY’S POPPA... HAS A FARM”, mirroring the underscore of “old macdonald” (with substitute lyrics) below it.

a layout of the farm cuts to our pint-sized hero, grinning at the camera as the vocals sing “...and on this farm he had a pig: porky pig, you know.” bobe cannon animates porky struggling to sing along with the lyrics, his “oh buh-beh-boy!”s lagging with the beat. the music halts just in time for porky to pump his fists in frustration, not stuttering once as he grumbles “oh, skip it!”

repeatedly cutting back to the layout of the farm in conjunction with the lyrics is practically a gag within itself. the song grows increasingly absurd, with a goose honking horns, a cow showing off her legs as the vocals sing “with a little calf here, with a little calf there...”, struggling to keep up with the rapid pace of the song. bob clampett lends his own voice to a random duck (no relation to daffy!), following a hand pointing at certain areas of the farm and quacking (”with a little quack here, with a little quack there...”) 

finally, the duck in his psuedo-donald duck voice instructs “EVERYBODY SING!”, complete with some fun and unique typography. the entire song falls to pieces--before, the cutting back to the farm’s layout added an incongruous feeling of calm to balance out the wacky antics of the animals and the song. now, everything happens at once. the duck zips across the screen in a quacking frenzy, the mother cow shows off her baby calves, thrusting them to the beat of the music, the goose is a one man band of assorted horns, etc. blissful chaos.

things slow down as we cut back to porky, who smugly whips out a phonograph behind his back. the record is just him saying “oh boy!”, playing correctly to the beat of the music. he’s got this song number figured out... or does he?

even technology can’t conceal his stutter. the record begins to skip, mimicking the sound of his stutter, and porky smashes the phonograph to pieces as he slams it against the ground. the wordless yet furious stare he gives the audience as the dying record croaks out a distorted “oooooooh..... boooooooooy....” is nothing short of priceless. though he didn’t say a word himself during this scene, his motives, thoughts, and emotions are clearly visible. you can FEEL his pride at his solution, as well of the subsequent fury of his solution blowing up in his face. a wonderful end to a hilarious song sequence. 

“but on his farm, he has a mortgage... woe, oh woe, oh woe!” the score turns in to a mournful, minor key dirge, with anthropomorphic mortgage papers posing proudly on the farm. some very clever posing and metaphorical play as we fade to porky’s dad, moping around on the farm, the mortgage aligning with his silhouette and becoming a physical weight on his back. more playing with typography as the narrator reads aloud the words on the screen:

this is a parody of the march of time, a radio program who would often announce the death of a notorious person by declaring “and so, today, as it must to all men, death came to [name], [age].” even without the context, the gag is rather amusing, bringing a different change of pace to the cartoon with the addition of a narrator and the typography. knowing the source of the gag makes it hit just the right spot.

porky’s dad mutters about ruination, how he has no milk and no money, etc. mel blanc does a fine job of mimicking joe dougherty, maintaining the stutter and the low voice--in the dougherty cartoons, porky’s father was just dougherty’s natural speaking voice, whereas porky was sped up considerably. you can hear both at once here for comparison. 

we pan over to the cause of one of these stresses: their cow, bessie, has been quarantined (how timely!) for “hoof ‘n mouth trouble”, a play on hand-foot-and-mouth disease. clampett opts to take things just a step further--we truck inside the stall to see bessie posing for the camera, grinning with her foot INSIDE her mouth, batting her eyelashes and all. the “bull bontana” (bull montana) poster  plastered inside of her stall is a clever touch. 

after seeing that bessie’s production chart has dipped overwhelmingly into the negatives--a roll of paper unfurling at porky’s father’s feet, indicating just how poor the farm is doing--he places an “out of order” sign on the stall door.

suddenly, porky’s father grows aggravated. “i need to send you to the hamburger factory!” cue a close-up of bessie tearfully picturing her fate--a pile of burgers and hotdogs make up her figure. clampett would reprise this gag (albeit in a much more cruel manner) in porky’s last stand 2 years later, where daffy eagerly envisions a steaming hot hamburger in place of an innocent little calf. 

this is the second cartoon to make an ACME reference, the first being buddy’s bug hunt back in 1935. porky’s father phones up ACME mail order company, asking for “one cow--airmail”. context clues are just as important to the gag than the reveal itself: porky, his father, and bessie all become alert to the sounds of an airplane making a cacophony overhead. suddenly, a package bursts through the barn ceiling, floating to the ground with a neatly tied parachute. the animation appears to be the work of john carey, from the tall, pill-shaped eyes to the slow, drawn out way that porky blinks.

norm mccabe takes over to animate the grand reveal. lots of wonderful little subtleties: porky and his father are timed slightly differently, giving them both a natural sense of interaction and movement. there’s a lovely little accent on porky’s father opening the package by pulling a string--he jerks his head up slightly as he plucks the string, allowing the audience to feel the physical impact and snap of the pluck. it’s subtle, but very well done. 

instead of a flesh and blood cow, a mechanical hunk of metal slowly unfurls to life as the package opens. as porky’s father reads the label (The New 1938 CREAMLINED COW), porky himself objects to the new addition. “aww, eh-the-there ain’t no such animal!”

indeed there is: porky’s father loads a pile of hay into a chute, pressing down on the cow’s paintbrush tail. the cow pumps along to a brassy score of “old macdonald”, churning out milk from its metal udders, the milk pouring straight into an assembly line of bottles below. bob clampett’s puns are plentiful in this cartoon (notice how there’s no writer’s credit--he often said that he would write some of his earliest cartoons himself. i assume he wrote this one as well? i wonder how much input chuck jones had in the story?), but delivered nonchalantly, so they can actually be enjoyed. the cow caps the milk bottles by putting literal newsboy caps on top of the bottles, the paintbrush tail painting “cream paint” to the outside of the bottles and forming the illusion of cream. interesting business practices!

bobe cannon animates a delightful scene with porky. fun animation and fun dialogue make for a great combo. some very fluid, light, and fun animation of porky giving his pep talk as he hops around, swinging his arms, nonchalantly pushing his hat out of his face after getting so excited. “c’mon, eh-beh-beh-beh-bessie! we won’t let that old eh-neh-nuh-new fangled eh-ceh-co--heifer beat us. you just eat your uh-wuh-wee-weh-whea--eh-ha-hay, and show that eh-teh-eeh-eh-tin-can cow who can make the most...”

porky lowers bessie’s foot from her mouth by climbing on it, preparing to shovel a forkful of hay into her mouth, however, she shoves her foot right back in it, much to porky’s annoyance. “aww, every time you open your muh-mee-muh-me-eh-mou--kisser, ya put your eh-feh-eh-foot in it! eh-bee-bessie, you gotta eat! you eh-deh-dee-eh-don’t wanna be eh-seh-seeah-seeah-smothered in onions, eh-do ya?” 

treg brown’s sound effects of doors creaking as her leg is lowered is the perfect touch to the gag. porky struggles to feed bessie, eventually getting stuck in her mouth himself as he attempts to hold both legs down to no avail. he frees himself, just in time to hatch an ingenious idea.

his plan works: porky places the entire pile of hay onto bessie’s legs, who swallows it up whole, her mouth comically huge as she attempts to swallow it. porky is overjoyed, clapping at her efforts before rushing off to give her some privacy.

instead of porky just milking her like a regular farmer, clampett pushes the entire scenario further. porky paces around in the manner of an expectant father, accompanied by a soft score of “lullaby on broadway”. the sound of a baby crying prompts porky to do a gorgeously animated head shake of surprise--bessie hands him a milk bottle, which porky carefully swaddles and places in a basket. 

the charade continues, with clampett lulling us into a false sense of security with an already absurd gag. cue a gag that would have been incredibly risque in 1938: at about the fifth bottle, porky reaches out and finds that bessie hands him a bottle labeled “CHOC. MALT”, accompanied by an underscore of “i wish i was in dixie”. porky and bessie both grow bashful, but porky’s nonchalant whistling is cut to a half as bessie delivers yet another bottle. “gosh--eh-ceh-ceh-quin-eh-qui-eh--quart-tuplets!”

porky rushes over to his farther to share the good news. however, dad is too preoccupied with the fancy mechanics of the cow to pay bessie any mind. he shows porky a barrage of dairy-related puns churned out by the creamlined cow:

cottage cheese (cheese in the shapes of houses--and an outhouse for good measure--don the conveyer belt), limburger cheese (cheese slices with clothes pins pinned to their “noses” to ward off the stench), and swiss cheese (a cuckoo bird pops out of the cow’s mechanical side and sprays the cheese wheels with bullets, which turn into yodeling mouths). interestingly, mel’s voice for porky’s father changes in this scene--it’s still him, but the nasally undertones are absent. i wonder if he did this on a different day?

nevertheless, the staging of the next gag is genius. the majority of the screen is black, save for a small window revealing porky holding onto bessie’s udders. “c’mon, eh-beh-bessie! hurry eh... hurry eh... step on it!” the window expands to reveal bessie pouring a bucket of milk into a line of funnels (rather than udders), which are then evenly distributed to the bottles. “’ats a guh-geh-gee-eh-girl!”

mechanical cow seems to be doing just fine, plopping cherries on top of elaborate ice cream sundaes and milk shakes. the only fault in the system is the cow’s own personal whiskey bottle rolling down the assembly line, which it confiscates promptly. 

porky, on the other hand, is making do. with an ice block on her head, bessie churns out ice cream cones to the best of her ability. as the cones grow smaller and smaller in size, porky orders her to eat more hay, which she happily does so.

now, it’s cow vs. cow. the mechanical cow opts to play some dirty tricks on bessie, pouring a jar of vanishing cream it produced onto the hay bessie is eating. and, thanks to the law of cartoon physics, the milk bottles she hands porky disappear by the minute. though the effect of the bottles disappearing may not seem like much today, for 1938 the ink and paint department did a wonderful job of demonstrating the illusion that the bottles suddenly disappeared.

with the rest of the hay now gone thanks to a hefty glob of vanishing cream, porky and bessie engage in a wild goose (cow?) chase to find more hay. the mechanical cow gobbles up every square inch of hay in sight--at one point, bessie heaves a dubious shrug to the audience. i love how they made her hooves look like hands, but still remain identifiable hooves. the scramble animation she does as she dashes out of frame (with porky clinging to her like a horse) is wonderfully done as well.

both porky and bessie and the creamlined cow exit the barn, chasing each other around the farm. the mechanical cow physically turns into a vacuum cleaner, threatening to suck up the last remaining pile of hay. in a gag that’s reminiscent of the harman-ising days (is it the inclusion of the outhouse?), the cow-turned-vacuum rushes into a shed filled to the brim with hay. the audience merely watches the shed itself shrink in size as the cow gobbles up all of the hay, the final result a puny little outhouse. 

at last, the enemies reach a face-off. the last pile of hay--or, as porky puts it in his punny little way, “eh-thee-the-thee-that’s the last straw.” in a relatively tashlin-esque maneuver, clampett makes some fast cuts to heighten the suspense of the action. cut between porky and bessie to the mechanical cow to the pile of straw (facetiously labeled “MILK WEED”). the cuts grow quicker and quicker, the music crescendo-ing... 

until BLAM! in a loose parallel to the finale of rover’s rival, everything explodes at once. nuts and bolts rain in the sky, as do neat little bundles of hay. however, clampett doesn’t allow the audience to rest just yet--with bessie nowhere in sight, the mechanical cow continues to charge forth, seeking refuge in a hay to release a humongous pile of milk bottles. so high, in fact, that the shed (and cow) are elevated several feet into the air. porky’s a goner.

porky’s father, who had been absent for the past few minutes, reappears to declare the tin-can cow a winner, much to porky’s visible dissatisfaction.

yet it’s not a clampett cartoon without a twist! bessie pokes her head out of the mechanical cow’s mouth, mooing the ever popular catchphrase from the ken murray show: “mmmmmmwooooooooooah, yeeeeaaaaaah!” porky gives a celebratory “oh, boy!” as we iris out--the goose and duck from earlier poke their heads into the scene just before the iris fully closes.

this is an early porky cartoon that’s just plain fun. bobe cannon’s animation of porky serves as one of the many highlights, from porky getting aggravated with his phonograph to his excited pep talk towards bessie. corny as the opening number is, it’s a lot of fun at the same time--the intensity in increasing chaos is a prevalent theme to clampett’s cartoons. just look at the climax/ending of baby bottleneck!

i don’t have many complaints towards this cartoon, if any at all. it’s not my favorite porky entry, sure, but it’s most certainly an enjoyable watch and one of his better cartoons of the ‘30s. the visual puns aren’t nearly as hamfisted as ben hardaway’s (as we’ll soon discover), making them more enjoyable than some of the jokes present in, say, daffy duck & egghead. regardless, there are a lot of unique gags, fun animation, and amusing dialogue to constitute a watch.

the cartoon is up on HBOmax, but you can also watch it here!

[rocknvaughn]

New Review of Colin's play A Number

Link here:

(some plot point spoilers, but mild)

The Bridge Theatre is having far greater success with revivals than it has with new plays, and no problem attracting talented cast and crew to star in them. Both of its immersive Shakespeare productions – Julius Caesar and A Midsummer Night’s Dream – have been excellent, while big productions are on the programme for later in the year including wunder-director Marianne Elliott’s version of They Shoot Horses Don’t They and Ibsen’s John Gabriel Borkman. First though, the Bridge joins both the National Theatre and, as of last week, the Donmar Warehouse in celebrating the work of Caryl Churchill with a short but superb performance of A Number.

It’s notable that two theatres have chosen to stage One Act pieces that, unusually in our era of three-hour-plus marathons, stand alone allowing audiences to be well on their way home by 8.30pm. Far Away at just 45-minutes practically feels over before it has even begun, while here at the Bridge, A Number is just an hour long. Perhaps surprisingly given ticket prices of up to £55, nothing else is scheduled alongside it, with both venues choosing to allow the singular work to speak for itself. It may not feel like value for money based on time spent in the auditorium, but in this case Churchill’s play is definitely small but mighty.

Yet, her work can have a marmite quality, creating quite divisive effects on audiences, so much of the time either you get it or you don’t. But A Number is one of her most straightforward pieces, a fairly simple narrative about a family discovering their eldest son has been cloaned. While the science-fiction surface is an examination of the effects of science on society, a premise Churchill uses to think about the apocalyptic nature of man’s own self-destructive impulses, A Number is really about lies. Across just five scenes, the writer explores the nature of deceit as a father (Salter) betrays his sons in several different ways as information about the true circumstances of their birth and early life is drip-fed to both men and the audience.

It is a clever and well executed premise, one designed to wrong-foot the audience at every turn, opening with an affectionate conversation between father and son taking place soon after the latter has discovered that clones exist. This first scene suggests a terrible miscarriage of justice in which an unknown other has effectively stolen cells from the boy and used them to make unauthorised replicas now living openly and blindly in the world, unaware of each other’s existence. Nothing about this early interaction is suspicious and it seems that Churchill’s intention may be to examine the faceless demands of scientific progress that harvest humanity’s innocence for nefarious purposes.

But that is only half the story and it soon becomes apparent in Polly Findlay’s thriller-like staging that nothing is quite what it seems in this household. A similar tactic occurs in Far Away with book-ended scenes set in a familiar domestic normality that hides (and lies about) the seamier activities beneath the surface, where the corruption of innocence is a major theme. The same occurs in A Number as the son referred to as B2 is forced to know more of his father’s choices as well as the existence of his duplicates which has terrible consequences.

Findlay quite effectively uses a square-shaped rotating set to explore the play’s themes with each new scene set at a 90 degree angle to the one before. In doing so, the audience sees every perspective on the single room in which the entire piece is set, and crucially, each of the four walls that provide the limitations to this domestic sphere in which Salter has maintained a bounded span of control for some years. Designed by Lizzie Clachan the room is exceptionally normal, a living room / diner filled with soft furnishings, family photos and some tiger prints on the wall, all warmed by a bar fire, and unlike previous adaptations that veered towards the clinical, this is a domesticated tragedy in progress. Churchill is interested in the casual monstrousness that lurks beneath the chintzy surface of suburbia, the banality or perhaps more appropriately the thoughtlessness of evil.

Findlay and Clachan’s rotating set does two important things, it changes the audience’s perspective as each new scene brings further revelation that build into a clearer picture of the people it concerns. So by the end of the play we have seen the room and the circumstances of family life from every angle. But it also reinforces the much discussed effect of cloning in which the created being is the same but different. Salter is asked by each of his children about comparisons with their brothers, and we see they are quite different personalities in the same form. And so it is with the rotated set, what we see in each scene is the same room from a different perspective, creating an increasingly disorientating effect as the story unfolds.

Findlay’s control of the tone is particular impressive, there is something unnerving about the scientific discussions being had in this bland and unexpected environment in the first scene, yet the affectionate relationship between the men seems genuine, encouraging us to feel concerned that their rights have somehow been violated. Over time, Findlay changes the temperature introducing darker notes that build into something far more sinister as the result of the initial revelation is felt across the play. As each new slant is revealed, the mood shifts with it, so worry turns to desperation, anger and foreboding as Churchill slowly and often unceremoniously reveals one crucial revelation in each scene. The return of the room to its original position in scene five is a reset in every sense, with what now seems so clearly a cycle of hope and destruction ominously about to begin again.

At the centre of A Number is the ambiguous figure of Salter, a man who seems racked with concern for the pain his sons newly endure and whose initial instincts are to comfort while demanding legal justice for the misuse of his son’s DNA. Yet, it is never entirely clear whether Salter is telling the truth or why he tells the specific lies he chooses, so many he can barely keep track of them; which son is the original, the fate of his wife, his knowledge of the cloning process and the exact chronology of his son’s childhood are all subject to interpretation as he continues to give deliberately evasive responses. He appears to lack any genuine remorse for his mendacity and there are also suggestions of cruelty to B1 whose night terrors he ignores, a child that Salter decides is not up to scratch by the age of four and simply replaces with an improved copy.

Yet, Salter is also sympathetic, a father desperate for a second chance to put things right – an outcome at the start of the play he appears to have achieved as he and B2 express a mutual love for one another and happy life to date. Salter’s later confrontation with his original son B1 leads to revelations of grief at the death of his wife and a loneliness that haunts the play as a father grapples with his own positive legacy, a need to create a good relationship with his son to guarantee his own future. The momentary pauses between the five scenes which leaves Salter alone in each room configuration offer a contemplative pause, a man isolated and perhaps even abandoned with little left to lose.

The pairing of Roger Allam and Colin Morgan is a savvy one, two dedicated and respected theatre actors who have found a valuable chemistry well ahead of this week’s press night. Allam easily connects with the many conflicting layers within Salter’s character, he is at once a man trying to find a good outcome from past mistakes and someone who lies with astonishing ease. Under pressure, Allam’s Salter runs on, saying almost anything to dilute the confrontation and his culpability for the existence of multiple children, Allam ever treading that fine line between selfishness and parental love by mixing half-truths and outright lies with genuine emotion and bewilderment.

The audience never quite knows if Salter is a good man led astray by grief and a good sales pitch decades before, selling the soul of his child to answer some deep call of fatherhood, or a mercenary man using a disarming scattiness, a failure to remember exact details to malevolently excuse himself from blame while perhaps willfully bringing about a wider destruction to rid himself of the problem. Allam is careful to offer both interpretations within his performance, that keeps the audience guessing about his real motives.

As his antagonist throughout, Colin Morgan offers an equally layered presentation of character, rising to the challenge of playing three different versions of the same man. In each of the five scenes, Morgan alternates between personas, changing accents from two variations of London to play B1 and B2 as each man separately confronts Salter. And it is a play that wastes no time, with Churchill introducing the characters post-revelation requiring the actors to begin mid-argument, already at a pitch of exasperation and confusion.

Each man is given distinction by Morgan with B2 the nervy innocent, trying to accept the new-found truth about his cloned-selves and, at first, trusting his father’s explanation with a credulousness that is increasingly naive. The confounded approach hardens in Morgan’s creation of B1 who introduces an important note of latent violence, of the possibility of physical harm as he intimidates the father who betrayed him. Each of the characters is given two scenes so Morgan finds consistency in his characterisation, switching between them relatively quickly as the responses of both men to their father creates further tension once the brothers become aware of each other’s existence. The subtle hints of the Cain and Abel struggle in Churchill’s work and man’s desire to be somehow individually unique are brilliantly elucidate by Morgan in a varied and gripping performance.

A Number packs a lot of themes, meaning and ideas into just an hour of stage time in a production that asks big questions about scientific progress, human regeneration, parenting and legacy. Churchill is concerned here with the mysteries lurking beneath a sheen of civilisation and how quickly things unravel once the veneer is shattered to reveal further deceits. With performances by two very fine stage actors, Findlay’s production asks us to look beyond the simple dichotomy of nature or nature because the advent of medical interventions into the reproductive process, designer babies and genetic modification leaves us wondering whether human individuality exists at all, and how do we control who we become?

[mindseyeinkarnate]

Portraits of a Serial Killer - “The Cell” turns 20

I've often reflected how the influence of Art is a key component missing from Modern Horror. The Xenomorph we all know and fear came from the painted nightmares of Swedish surrealist H.R. Giger, the Screamer is said to have influenced the Ghostface Killer mask.  For a further rundown of art's musings over the genre, I would highly recommend 2017's Tableaux Vivants for a look at 60 such portraits and the films they inspired.

In the summer of 2020, The Medium video game appears to correct that oversight with the recent trailer dropping, adapting Polish painter, Zdzislaw Beksinski's frightening paintings.  In the same season of the same year is when The Cell celebrates 20 years (8/17/2020).  This film appeared to feature as many artistic influences as possible into its near two hour runtime.

The sight of chains freaked me out upon watching my first Hellraiser movie, so the sexual perversion of their use in this film did little to alleviate such apprehension, especially as they pulled so tightly to suspend human flesh in the air. Despite a previous scene showing the villain having drowned his victim, this was the true introduction to his villainy - the former showed what he did, that latter why he did it.  Even re-watching this film so many years later, I had to look away from the screen, recoiling from such a grisly display.

Typically, in Horror or any film that assumes a particular aesthetic, it is color that makes the impression to set mood.  Instead, the use of white in this film, from the K9 to the bleached state of the victims is used to ghoulishly haunting effect.

I remember critics remarking that because of Vince Vaughn's comedic history they couldn't take him seriously in this role and relegated his involvement to stunt casting. I take the opposite stance since, for me, every role after this film simply serves as a reminder that he starred in The Cell.  I've always felt that comedy actors do well in dramas - see Robin Williams in "Good Will Hunting" - and I thought that Vaughn did a serviceable job in this film, never distracting from either tone or plot.

I was happy that they just dove into the mechanics behind entering one's mind as an accepted reality, that they didn't get bogged down in techno babble or exposition of the technology.  There is a time and place for the virtual journey into the cerebral frontier, such as The Matrix or a good adaptation of the Lawnmower Man, but for the Cell, I'm happy that they focused more on the story and not so much the science.  The suits do look like Twizzlers, but it was made by Eioka Ishioka (who passed away in 2012), the same costume designer as Vlad Tepes' suit from Bram Stoker's Dracula.  I do like that the two participators are suspended in the air while their minds are linked.  It's an eerie callback to the killer's suspension from chains for sexual release. Also, it does give the technology that space age feel as though they are in a weightless environment.

Since the 90's, special effects have been criticized as dominating films to the point Stephen King is quoted as remarking that "story supports effects instead of effects supporting story". Similarly, an argument can be made that at times The Cell becomes too indulgent with its usage of famous art that serve no plot function, e.g. the Horse Split, the Three Women of Odd Nerdrum's Dawn painting, Mother Theresa and her Hallmark card, etc.  As the director is quoted as saying "The thing about this film is it’s an opera, and there is no such thing as a subtle opera.”  I don't believe that the script was penned as an excuse to pack in as much gallery portraits as possible or is an hour and fifty minutes of a music video.  I just wish the director would've used each art piece he seeks influence from to develop the story or the character.  The imagery doesn't always portray the killer's psychology or the psychologist's therapeutic technique.  If he wasn't going to utilize subtlety, he should have implored restraint.  He later added "Anyway, I missed the whole plot, just been talking visual all along, ah, where are we?”

Once in the killer's mind, his depiction as the master of his domain is a hauntingly accurate depiction considering the previous scenes of suspension rings in the back of his body, which unwittingly foreshadowed to the audience his royal appearance to come.  Even the name, King Stargher, is a daunting title for a movie monster.  When rising and descending from his throne, the violet robes receding from the walls and tracing along the room is hypnotically unnerving.

As tiresome as the "we're still in the dreamworld" trope can become (The Matrix, DS9 Season 7 episode 23 "Extreme Measures"), this film not only flips it when the psychologist realizes that she's "already in", but does so in a cleverly visual way.

King Stargher

Horned Stargher

Court Jester/Vatican Clown  

Serpent Stargher

It is interesting to think that a single actor would assume many distinct monstrous characters.  Unlike a Freddy Kreuger or a Pennywise that turn into manifestations of their victims' fears, the figures that Stargher assumes are all avatars of his own warped psyche, his own inner turmoil.  Vincent D'Onofrio really does put in his all with this role.  He's soft spoken and understated when he needs to be and malicious and heartless when the scene demands it.  Along with the visuals of the film, D'Onofrio's performance is worth the price of admission.  It's a shame that his acting as well as the movie's stunning artistry are what have gone overlooked all these years.  Speaking of...

One invalid criticism that has been levied against the film is its attempts to persuade the audience to sympathize with the killer.  My intention with the following statement is neither to flaunt my Horror insight nor to divide the lines between fans within Horror and those without.  Having said that, even as an adolescent seeing this movie in theaters, I at no point felt remorse for the serial murderer and I chalk up this long-held misconception to a bad read on the film.

So off-base is this "critical analysis" that it can't even be regarded as a Jekyll & Hyde dynamic.  The villain is not split down the middle between binary good and evil, where both halves are at war over his soul, or the repressed impulses of his Dark Passenger are manifesting in a heartless butcher.  If there is any distinction, it is between who the antagonist was when a victim as a boy and what the man became as an adult victimizer.  If anything it is the good that is repressed, not the evil.  Furthermore, along with using the film's plot to force Alice down the rabbit hole of the Mad Hatter's mind, this film does address the nature of evil.  When referring to Stargher, even Jennifer Lopez's character remarks "The Dominant side is still this horrible thing".  The Vince Vaughn detective states "I believe a child can experience 100 times worse the abuse than what Gish (a different killer) went through, and still grow up to be somebody that would never, ever, ever hurt another living being."  Thus, these serve as acknowledgement that the abducted criminal is firmly in the driver's seat to the point of its reference as a "thing" and a condemnation of what the killer has become, respectively.

Along with exploring the psychology of the killer, the film does not qualify the villain's innocence, it questions it.

The critics probably missed that pesky detail that would've debunked their headline before they pressed a single word of their denunciation.

These same professional critics wouldn't give a second's hesitation towards throwing Horror under the bus and condemning Scary Movies for inspiring violence if it meant their jobs were only the line, yet they would balk at the notion that continued mental trauma and physical abuse can cause psychopathic behavior.

There are classics and icons worth praising for their plot and performances, respectively, and then there are some Scary Films that Horror Fans view with the understanding of their heavy material and without your typical fanfare because they're a hard watch.  I can see where people would be fans of Hannibal Lecter not because they or the film glamorizes cannibalism, but because of Anthony Hopkins' acting chops (excuse the pun).  Conversely, John Doe, the serial killer of Se7en, has and will likely never enjoy such admiration because of the cold purity of his calculated evil.  The 2 decade critique of The Cell's villain portrayal is a dark cloud that has unjustly hung over its head.

The motif of "the eyes of a killer" was something applauded in Rob Zombie's Halloween 2, yet ridiculed in The Cell 9 years prior?

This film's premise and the fact that it wasn't fully effectively executed makes it primed for a remake.  Hollywood needs to be issued a Cease and Desist order of such wholesale dependence on Remakes in general, let alone in the Horror genre.  When you consider that so many remakes can't outdo the original and even tarnish the films they attempt to emulate, why not fix the problems of a film that went wrong and take the credit when you get it right?

[journalxxx]

And They Rested on the Seventh Day

[I read the Good Omens book and watched the Amazon series, and enjoyed both a great deal: however, this story doesn't strictly follow the canon or characterizations of either. It's a bit of a mix of the things I liked the most from both versions (for clarity, this considers basically the plot and ending from the book + few selected elements from the tv series. Also Tennant. Definitely Tennant), topped with purely made-up bits of headcanon and character interpretation. The final result is that it’ll probably feel full of inconsistencies and OOC moments, but oh well. I had to take a few ideas off my head.]

To think that it had all started as a hobby of sorts. A wild bet on and against himself, just for the fun of it. 

Crowley hadn't thought much of the job he'd done in the Garden of Eden, at first. To be fair, he was still convinced that most of the responsibility for that big mishap fell on God Herself and Her inexplicable - pardon, ineffable - decision to dangle juicy bits of edible forbidden knowledge right in front of people who had literally been born yesterday. Honestly, what else could have happened? Crowley was sure one of the two humans would have given in to curiosity anyway, sooner or later: his intervention had simply sped up the process.

But Crowley’s superiors had been positively enthusiastic about it. God’s new and supposedly best creations, twisted and corrupted and exiled in less than a week since the beginning of the world? An astonishing success for the dark forces, they had said, very well done Crawly, you shall hereby be hailed as The Tempter (a title that would be handed out very freely in the centuries to come, in fact, since he had basically invented a whole new and very busy line of work for the entire Underworld). They had been so keen on putting his supposed talents of persuasion to good use that they had assigned him on permanent Earth surveillance duty, keeping an eye on things and easing the slippery slope of other innocent souls to the abyss. A simple enough job, he thought, and he wasn’t at all displeased with the idea of spending most of his time away from Hell. The place was, well, hellish.

He had been quite surprised to meet the Guardian of the Eastern Gate there as well, apparently tending to the exact opposite task as Crowley’s. What were the odds, uh? But in Aziraphale’s case, Crowley couldn’t help but feel that the new office was meant more as a demotion rather than as a reward. The angel didn’t seem exactly… suited to field work, so to speak. He was definitely the kind of guy who’d deal better with paperwork or with performing celestial harmonies or with whatever those guys up there got up to, these days - rather than with acting as an incognito emissary of the Light. He was simply too soft-hearted. It clearly pained him to witness the daily struggles of mankind without being able to relieve them, if not in a very roundabout and indirect way. He would have gladly handed out miracles and blessings as promptly as he had relinquished his flaming sword, Crowley thought, if he hadn’t directly been ordered to stick to spreading ‘positive influence’. 

He was a queer one, Aziraphale, but overall rather amusing to have around. And after the first mostly accidental meetings, Crowley had started to notice several very, very interesting things about him. 

First of all, the angel was a sinner. And a rather nonchalant one too.

The first sin Crowley noticed was pride. Now, pride was objectively quite intrinsic to all angelic beings, to some extent, with their perpetual holier-than-thou attitude and their unbending illusion of absolute righteousness. Aziraphale wasn’t an exception. He could have very well avoided Crowley, if he really thought so lowly of him and his shady dealings, but he didn’t. He met him, he primly and oh so very graciously tolerated his company, he pointedly corrected his faulty views on creation and the universe with the self-satisfied attitude of a conceited schoolmaster. It made Crowley’s skin, well, crawl. And he had this ridiculous habit of pointing out, at randomly fitting points during any discussion, that he, Aziraphale, was an angel and he, Crowley, was a demon, and therefore blah blah. He did that really often, inexplicably so. It wasn’t like either of them was going to forget what they were, after all. And it wasn’t like he needed to repeat that at frequent intervals to make sure that some undefined and distracted external audience was aware of their standing in the universe either. It was just plainly dumb and irritating. Crowley had taken to address him as ‘angel’ more often than with his proper name, out of sheer sarcasm. Sadly Aziraphale hadn’t taken particular notice.

Another very glaring sin Aziraphale keenly committed was gluttony. Oh, what a glutton he was. The first time Crowley had met him ‘socially’, he had been astounded to notice that Aziraphale actually ate. If his body was anything like Crowley’s, and Crowley was sure it was, it was conveniently free from most of the intentional design flaws God had installed on humans after Adam and Eve’s escape, such as illness, hunger and tiredness. Neither Aziraphale nor Crowley needed any sustenance or sleep (although Crowley had quickly taken a liking to the latter activity - but he was a demon, Aziraphale would have pointed out with his most slappable face, so he was allowed as many indulgences as he wanted). Even the most gluttonous human had some sort of excuse, what with needing to eat to survive and, while one was at it, he may as well do it decently, to build the temple of his body in the best possible way and so on and so forth. It was a very flimsy and poor excuse, considering the sort of folks who usually resorted to it, but humans clung to such moralistic drivel like limpets. Aziraphale didn’t even have that tiny pretext on his side. He ate (and drank) without any need to, and he did it often and with much gusto, out of sheer pleasure. If that wasn’t the epitome of gluttony, Crowley was an anteater.

And, after a few centuries, a hint of greed began to emerge too. It was a very specific sort, aimed at very specific material possessions, namely those that had to do with writing. Aziraphale had been inordinately proud when humans had begun to carve their funny little thoughts and grocery lists on very impractical clay tablets, he had called it a revolutionary intuition, surely sparked by divine goodwill. Crowley’s reaction had been more along the lines of a whole-body shrug. Aziraphale was fond of reading and, when it became possible, he even started collecting reading material. Papyrus, parchments, scrolls, anything he could find. When books started to become a thing, the angel ogled them like misguided shepherds ogled golden calves. He acquired them very sparingly and with a trace of guilt at first, when books were rare and their production was lengthy and expensive and holding onto some tomes for his own personal enjoyment effectively diminished the amount of knowledge available to the world at large. But after the press was invented, oooh boy. Yes, the excessive and self-serving accumulation of literary material goods was definitely among Aziraphale’s faults.

But that was only the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

In fact, for all his preaching and sternly-worded proclamations of faith, Aziraphale had perplexities. That much was glaringly obvious. Ineffability perplexed him, even though he unerringly presented it as the ultimate argument against Crowley’s own perplexities, whenever they ventured to discuss celestial politics. It had been perplexing him, at least to a certain extent, since the apple incident, Crowley was sure of that. And that was odd in itself. Crowley had believed that, after the Rebellion, Heaven had been purged of any angelic creature who wasn’t a hundred percent committed and trusting in God’s cause, but Aziraphale seemed troubled to a visible degree, at times. Crowley had known Aziraphale only very superficially before falling, and he couldn’t quite say if his doubts were a recent development or not.

So, a peculiar idea started to slither in the corners of Crowley’s oft bored mind.

What if, he thought, what if I could make this angel fall?

The premises for the evil deed were all there. Aziraphale already committed almost half of the deadly sins of his own accord, whether he knew it or not. And he had reservations, however intimate and rationalized, about God’s plan. That was all it had taken for Crowley himself to fall, after all. Just a couple of reservations and hanging around the wrong people. Crowley could provide both of those factors very easily.

It was, admittedly, mere speculation. Crowley wasn’t even sure it was possible for angels to fall after the Rebellion - something had seriously shifted in the balance of the universe back then, everyone had noticed. But the concept was absurdly inviting. Who else, after all, aside from the Morning Star Himself, could boast coaxing angels into corruption? It would be a stunning accomplishment in any demon’s curriculum, wouldn’t it? Forget about apples and tempting feeble human minds, that would be real bragging material. The more he thought about it, the stronger the itch got. In addition, despite his earlier doubts, Crowley had discovered himself quite naturally adept to that whole temptation business. He had thought his success with Eve a bit of a fluke, born of very favorable circumstances: deep down she already wanted that fruit, and so did her companion. They were already leaning towards disobedience, and all Crowley himself had to do was just to give the both of them a little nudge in that direction.

But then, he had found out that that principle was valid for all humans. Every human, literally every one of them, was inevitably attracted to Evil, at least a little bit. In some cases he had to resort to some delicate manoeuvres and subtle approaches to nurture that twisted tendency, in others he simply had to knock on an open door. A very easy and straightforward job, indeed.

But would it be that easy with a full-fledged angel? Presumably not. How should he go about it, then? He supposed that approaching Aziraphale with a rapid fire of existential questioning would be slightly too on the nose. Besides, ineffability. How did you even question that? It’s a brick wall of suspended disbelief and logic denial. No, theology speculations weren’t the right answer, only the most mind-numbingly boring one.

Crowley decided to roll up his sleeves and start with the basics. Adding the remaining deadly sins on Aziraphale’s list of misconducts would be a solid start, he deliberated. Whittling away at a soul’s integrity bit by bit was all the rage back then, in terms of temptation tactics. He’d slowly erode the angel’s rectitude as if he was your average human, and then he’d see where he could go from there. And he would take it nice and easy, spreading his influence over centuries, millennia if necessary. He wouldn’t risk ruining his chances by revealing his hand too soon. He had picked the most promising one among the four remaining sins, and he had started plotting.

He could still remember the indescribable sensation he had felt when he had succeeded, sometime around 1000 AD. It had indeed taken centuries of discreet suggestions and proposals, refuted firmly and scornfully at first, but with less and less passion over time, until Aziraphale had finally given in to the Arrangement, with nothing more than a curt and tense nod. Crowley had offered his assistance first, obviously. He was already about to head to Byzantium to tend to his own business, so he thought he may as well take care of Aziraphale’s too. Just an innocent favour, free of charge. Obviously, if for fairness’ sake the angel felt like returning said favour in the future, Crowley’d be obliged, but really, no pressure whatsoever. 

Unexpectedly, unlike all the previous times, the angel had accepted. It felt like a minor victory in itself, even though it was only the first step. Naturally Aziraphale followed him, although not quite as discreetly as he thought. And he followed Crowley the next time as well, and the third- the third he didn’t. 

Now, that felt like a triumph. Crowley’s skin had begun to tingle in sheer excitement when he had ascertained that the third time he had offered his assistance to Aziraphale, the angel had simply trusted him to carry out the task as requested. Not that Crowley wanted or could avoid doing what he’d been asked - their respective head offices may be careless about smaller details, but they were fond of keeping scores. If the holy work hadn’t been performed, Heaven would have noticed, therefore Aziraphale would have been reprimanded, and Crowley would have lost that hard-earned trust. What was notable, however, was that it had taken only two trips for the angel to trust completely a demon to perform honest, divine work. It was foolish of Aziraphale not to check that he would, it was lazy of him not to perform the job himself, as he’d been ordered, as he’d undoubtedly report he had. It was deception to his superiors, it was negligence, but more importantly, it was sloth.

It was a heady rush of adrenaline after a long period of forced calm, the kind of exhilaration a skilled hunter feels after waiting for hours - centuries, in that case - for the prey to fall into an aptly placed trap. It was indeed possible to tempt an angel, and he, Crowley the Tempter, the Snake of Eden, had managed to do it. It was riveting. That sensation of well-earned success alone would have been enough to brighten his days and put a spring in his step for the next century, but the best was yet to come, and it was something Crowley wasn’t even planning of.

He had been joking when he had suggested that Aziraphale should be the one to carry out the next bunch of long-distance duties for the both of them. He wasn’t expecting him to accept by a long shot, definitely not so soon at least - but he did. Sheepishly and uncomfortably, Aziraphale had listened to Crowley’s instructions and headed off with a half-muttered promise to ‘see what he could do’. That was a surprise, although Crowley didn’t believe for one second that he would see the job done. An angel (and not just any angel, Aziraphale), doing Satan’s work? What a joke. He’d chicken out of it before dawn, for sure, and either later inform Crowley that he had met with obstacles, or pretend to have forgotten about the whole conversation. And indeed, after seeing neither hide nor hair of the angel for the next month, Crowley assumed Aziraphale had just done that. The demon had then made the hundred-kilometre trip to take care of the business personally, only to find the couple of married lovers (married to other people, that is) already in the throes of the deep reciprocal passion that had been haunting them for the past three years, their families in turmoil and their small town in the middle of nowhere now enjoying the best bout of spicy gossip since that peculiar incident with the shepherd and his sheep forty years earlier.

Crowley was absolutely flabbergasted. That was much, much better than he’d even dared to expect. He felt like he’d basically already done it. It was going to work. If it had taken so little effort to convince an angel to tempt humans instead of blessing them, it was only a matter of time before Aziraphale eventually succumbed completely to Crowley’s scheme. Only a matter of time! He’d keep working on it, slowly and patiently, in a world that would soon start moving forward at an increasing and unimaginable pace, treating Aziraphale like his personal pet project, tackling one sin at a time. What was left? Lust, envy, wrath - oof, wrath was going to be a tough one, wasn’t it? The strongest negative emotion he’d ever seen Aziraphale display was ‘mildly peeved’ - but it would definitely, definitely work. He wouldn’t rush it, he’d wait for the perfect occasion to land in his lap and he’d seize it, to drag the angel to ruin in careful, calculated steps.

That night Crowley had gotten fantastically, gloriously, immeasurably drunk, and had dragged literally the entire village into his personal celebration, thanks to the inexplicable appearance of a good dozen abandoned carts on the main road, filled with jugs of excellent wine from the local vineyards. The huge, impromptu party that followed would have put Bacchus himself to shame, and it provided the village spinsters with enough gossip about the many depraved deeds that had been consumed on that night for the next 378 years, give or take.

That was roughly a thousand years ago.

Funny, Crowley thought as he was sprawled on an unimportant bench in an unimportant road of Lower Tadfield, Oxfordshire, feeling and looking like a puppet with cut strings. Funny, Crowley thought as he was looking up into the cloudless and starry sky of a world that hadn’t ended, how much things can change in just a thousand years.

Aziraphale stood up when two round headlights appeared at the end of the road, and glanced curiously at Crowley when he didn’t do the same. Slowly, with immense effort and groaning like a metal crane bent by a gigantic hand, Crowley gathered his strewn limbs and rearranged them vertically as well. The angel and the demon climbed on a bus that wasn’t going to Oxford, walked past an unresponsive conductor that wasn’t asking for tickets, and spent most of the trip sharing a bottle of wine whose quality vastly outmatched its price tag and whose capacity had long since exceeded the promised 750 millilitres.

The repetitive scenery of the the dark English countryside let Crowley’s mind wander back into the past. It occurred to him that it had been roughly 600 years since the last time Aziraphale had set foot into his house. You could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times the angel had ever accepted to visit his ‘den of iniquity’ (Aziraphale’s words, c. 310 AD), and always very briefly. They had always preferred meeting in public venues anyway, until Crowley had decided that Aziraphale’s bookshop definitely counted as one and had taken the habit of dropping by for the occasional drink. 

The invitation had slipped out of Crowley’s mouth easily, unthinkingly, while they were waiting for the bus. And, honestly, how could he not offer hospitality in such circumstances? All of the angel’s earthly possessions, including his very house, had gone up in flames. What was Crowley supposed to do, let him go to a random public bathroom, lock himself into a cubicle and miracle the inside of it into Croesus’ mansion? Seriously. Just because he was a demon, it didn’t mean he was utterly uncivil. Still, Aziraphale had taken up on Crowley’s suggestion with less hesitation that he’d expected. At that point, all Crowley could do was hoping that Hell hadn’t sent reinforcements after Hastur and Ligur’s failed attempt at ‘collecting’ him, and an apartment to invite Aziraphale into still existed in the first place... Oh, well. Worst case scenario, they’d hijack two cubicles.

“How long do you think we have,” Aziraphale said quietly, interrupting the disorganized flow of Crowley’s thoughts, “before they’ll decide to come after us?”

“Heaven and Hell, you mean?” Crowley answered slowly, syllables sticking to his tongue. “I don’t know, a while. I bet they have some serious internal mess to deal with first. Disappointed warmongers and whatnot. Bigger priorities than us.”

“But they will sort that out eventually.” Aziraphale stretched his arm towards Crowley, hand open in a muted request for the bottle. “And then what? I doubt they’ll leave any rogue agents be.”

“....Eh. They might, you know? The kid- whoops.” Crowley let go of the bottle when he felt Aziraphale’s fingers brush his own, but the glass slipped from both their grasps. Aziraphale blinked, and the bottle froze in midair a few centimetres above the floor. He calmly bent down to fetch it as Crowley continued. “The kid told us not to worry.”

“But do you think he has the power to grant us protection from both Reigns?”

Crowley shrugged. “He’s the boss’ son. And he just stopped the bloody apocalypse, if you haven’t noticed. He has power, all right. That’s good enough insurance for me.”

Aziraphale hummed pensively, his gaze lost out of the window. Crowley watched him take a measured sip, and then clean distractly the neck of the bottle with a handkerchief. His movements were quiet, harmonious, steady. Everything about Aziraphale was, and always had been. Crowley’s whole, brilliant temptation plan was centered on the expectation that sins would change his angelic nature, that they would change him. Instead, what had happened was the exact opposite. As the decades and centuries went by, as their meetings grew less and less ‘business’ oriented and turned into genuine divertissement, Aziraphale wasn’t changed by the sins: the sins were changed by him. A tasty nibble of food wasn’t a temptation any more, but a moment of genuine appreciation for the little, blessed pleasures God still allowed mortals to experience. His elegantly-worded notions about the order of the universe ceased to be a prideful display of superiority, and instead became an engaging debate capable of building dialogue between spiritual opposites. His love for books wasn’t a selfish desire of accumulation for accumulation’s sake, but an intellectual connection to the history and minds of the humans he was meant to protect, from all times and cultures. His acceptance to share duties with a demon wasn’t sheer laziness, but a very tangible olive branch offered to a former sworn enemy. Deeds that would have tarnished any human soul, made it revolting and beyond repair, hadn’t even dented the core of Aziraphale’s goodness. If anything, they had enriched it: like the light patina of a vintage Bentley, those sins adorned Aziraphale’s very soul like unique and distinguishing traits, all the more intriguing to a discerning eye.

And the most baffling thing was that Crowley hadn’t even noticed. He hadn’t noticed that his plan, ostensibly always in motion and always waiting, waiting, waiting for the next occasion to move further, was gradually being shoved into the most forgetful corners of his mind. He hadn’t noticed he’d stopped plotting against his enemy, and had instead started just coexisting with him. It had taken him so goddamn long to notice he’d stopped considering Aziraphale as an inconvenient obstacle to be removed from the world Crowley was meant to submit, but that the angel had rather become one of its most interesting and worthwhile features.

It had taken him until the end of the world to realize that.

As it turned out, Crowley’s flat hadn’t been obliterated by the forces of Hell. Yet.

“Make yourself at home.” Crowley said as he jogged from room to room to make sure there were no former colleagues of his lying in wait anywhere.

“This is where you live?” Aziraphale asked, peeking curiously from the entryway. Crowley interrupted his inspection just to make a face.

“Oh no, I’m just appropriating the humble abode of a millionaire manager perished in the latest fish tornado. He won’t need it anymore, will he?” Aziraphale gave him a dubious glance. Crowley rolled his eyes. “Yes, this is where I live. What kind of question is that, why wouldn’t it be?”

“Oh, you know, just wondering.” Aziraphale answered, visibly relieved. “I wasn’t really expecting your home to look like this.”

“And why not?”

“Well, it’s… rather neat and minimalistic.” Aziraphale hesitated. “It almost reminds me of the Upper Offices. Although it is quite darker, I suppose.”

Crowley stared at Aziraphale pointedly. Deafening silence was the only appropriate reply to such a statement, so he let it stretch leisurely until Aziraphale couldn’t help but look away.

“Are you going to come in anytime soon or…?” Crowley eventually said, gesturing around vaguely.

“Yes. Thank you.” The angel finally unstuck from the threshold and followed Crowley into the study. “I really appreciate your hospitality, by the way. I’ll be out of your hair by tomorrow, I’m sure it won’t be hard to find a nice spot for me to move in.”

“Oh, no rush. I barely use this place.” Crowley waved at him dismissively, his attention suddenly caught by the ansaphone. It wasn’t blinking exactly as he had left it. It definitely should be blinking exactly as he had left it. “Uh, right, the bedroom’s over there. If you don’t feel like sleeping, there’s the…” There was the tv, which Aziraphale hardly ever watched. There was the computer, which surely he didn’t even know how to plug in. There was the hi-fi, boasting an impressive collection of contemporary artists 95% of which the angel probably had never heard of. It suddenly occurred to Crowley that Aziraphale wasn’t the easiest guest to entertain.

“You don’t happen to have any books lying around, I suppose.”

Crowley shrugged. “‘Fraid not. But there’s some food in the fridge, if you want.” He offered lamely.

“Oh. Thank you, but I think I’ll be catching some sleep tonight as well.” Aziraphale smiled sheepishly. “I haven’t had a day as intense as this one in a long while. It takes a toll on you even when you’re indefatigable.”

“You’re telling me.” Crowley mumbled, watching Aziraphale head off into the corridor. He waited until his guest was reasonably far from the study before checking the new recorded message. He regretted it very quickly.

“What’s that?” Aziraphale inquired loudly, when the unmistakable noise of demonic torment and horrified screams erupted from the speakers. Crowley hurried to silence it with some chaotic button-mashing and removed the cassette from the machine. A single, fat worm fell from the tape. 

“Ugh.” Crowley grimaced, shoving the whole device into the trash can. All right, his mistake. He should have dealt with Hastur when he had the chance. But then again, what was one more demon free out there wanting him dead when he had already earned the eternal grudge of both Heaven and Hell? “Nothing. Nothing to be worried about.”

“That definitely sounded like something to be worried about.” Aziraphale insisted, rather alarmed. 

“Nah, just prank calls. I really need to find out who invented them and offer them a drink, now that’s some first-calls deviousness-” Crowley hurried to the bedroom before Aziraphale could decide to investigate the matter personally, and stopped abruptly when he saw the angel sitting innocently on his bed. “Uh. That’s my bed.” He felt it was important to state that fact aloud.

“Yes, I gathered. Excellent mattress, I must say.” Aziraphale replied genially, until Crowley’s silence prompted him to stand up hastily. “Oh, sorry, you pointed me to the bedroom and I thought you meant I could…?”

“No! I meant that you could make yourself a bed and get settled!”

“Oh! I’m terribly sorry, I just thought…” Aziraphale paused, looking at the object of the argument confusedly. “It’s a very large bed though. It looks like four people could sleep comfortably on it, so I thought-”

“I roll around a lot when I sleep, all right?” Crowley retorted with anger, with tangible and very obvious anger, and with absolutely no embarrassment whatsoever. “Look, just- miracle yourself some furniture, here or wherever you want, or sleep on the sofa, or anywhere that isn’t my bed.”

“All right, all right!” Aziraphale frowned and raised his hands defensively. “I’ll take the sofa then.”

Crowley collapsed face-first on his reconquered berth as soon as Aziraphale left the room, his sunglasses conveniently teleporting to the bedside table before they could bore into his skull. He felt positively destroyed. He’d give anything for another century-long nap, he hadn’t had one of those in a while. But it would be rather imprudent in the current circumstances. He’d have to make do with a dozen hours. He closed his eyes and exhaled deeply, welcoming that exquisitely human sense of physical relaxation that came with dozing off. He let the beginnings of sleep dull his senses and his mind, sweetly and mercifully-

“My, such luxuriant foliage…” 

Crowley’s eyes snapped open. “NO!” He bellowed, hurling himself off the bed and into the corridor with barely enough coordination not to trip on his own feet. “Stop it! Shut up!”

“What-” Aziraphale startled as Crowley suddenly appeared before him, arms spread in a clear effort to physically separate him from the potted greenery. “W-What’s going on?”

“Nothing. Leave the plants alone. Don’t look at them. And above all don’t talk to them.” Crowley ordered as he grasped the angel’s shoulders and steered him bodily out of the room.

“But why? I was just admiring the-”

“There’s nothing to admire here. Everyone’s just doing what they’re supposed to do.”

“But-”

“My house, my rules. The plants are off-limits.” Crowley snapped his fingers and two robust metallic doors materialized out of thin air to seal the area from the rest of the house. Crowley shoved Aziraphale past them, while he lingered on the threshold just long enough to glare at every single plant in the room.

“Don’t forget whose opinion really matters here, guys.” He hissed, his teeth bared. His warning was met with a collective, deferential shudder. 

“...Crowley, are you all right?” Aziraphale asked, eyeing him worriedly. Crowley looked at him like a naked Bedouin sitting on a glacier in the Arctic might look at someone asking him if he’s cold. The doors locked with an audible clang.

“...Yeah, I’m just peachy.” He eventually muttered, rubbing his eyes and heading back to the bedroom. He lay down again and closed his eyes, enjoying a grand total of ten second of peace before Aziraphale’s footsteps reached the room. Crowley sighed. “...What?”

“Actually, I think I would like to sleep here, if it’s all right with you.”

“Do whatever you want.”

“Are you sure you don’t mind-”

“What do you think ‘do whatever you want’ means, Aziraphale?”

“I’m guessing it means that I have free reign over any part of your house that doesn’t include your bed or your plants.” 

Aziraphale’s miffed tone got the tiniest smile out of him. “Yep, you got it. See? Wasn’t difficult.”

Crowley felt reality shift around him. Curiosity got the better of him, and he peeked to the side. The bedroom had conveniently enlarged just enough so that Aziraphale’s newly created bed could fit. It was a small, single one, all wood and fin de siecle linens and puffy pillows and creamy tones. It clashed with the existing decor something terrible, but Crowley barely took notice. He was more concerned with its owner, sitting somewhat rigidly on it and glancing around the room nervously. Suddenly Crowley understood why he’d chosen to sleep there.

“Relax, angel. No one will be coming after us.” Crowley couldn’t help but offer, lowly. “Not tonight, at least.”

Their eyes met. After a beat, Aziraphale nodded. “Yes. You are probably right.”

Aziraphale was still sitting up when Crowley closed his eyes. He hoped that the other could catch some rest, but he wouldn’t mind too much if he didn’t. Even a demon could use a guardian angel to watch over his sleep, after all.

Aziraphale did sleep that night, for a good two hours and a half. It may not sound like a lot, but considering that he hadn’t rested since that quick twenty-minute nap in 1732, it felt immensely refreshing anyway. Upon rising, he had to admit that creating his own bed had proven to be a wise choice: in his sleep, Crowley had somehow managed to scatter his considerably long limbs all over the mattress, effectively covering a flat surface that must be at least three times as large as that of his own body. Admittedly he looked quite endearing, arms and legs making a decent impression of a windrose and snoring away with his mouth open.

Aziraphale spent the rest of the night keeping himself quietly busy. He checked all the news from the radio and the tv, from which he gathered that Adam was mending reality with impressive speed and ease, considering how suddenly his powers had bloomed. It was truly a blessing that the boy was far more mature than anyone had credited him for. To think that Aziraphale himself had seriously entertained the notion of eliminating him… No, that guilt wasn’t going to leave him anytime soon.

The angel then proceeded to tidy up what little there was to tidy up in Crowley’s apartment. Some spilt water here and there, and a ragged, dark set of clothes oddly abandoned on the threshold of the study. They didn’t look like the type of get-up Crowley would choose for himself, and it certainly wasn’t one Aziraphale had ever seen him wear, but then again the demon had a thing for experimenting with mortal fashion. Aziraphale also repeatedly wrestled with the impulse to take another look at Crowley’s plants, entirely because of his exceedingly suspicious behavior. He didn’t do it, though. That would have been extremely impolite, almost traitorous. Utterly unworthy of his status. Although- no. No, he wouldn’t.

He even managed to find a few books, tucked away under the sofa or on top of unreachable shelves. They were atlases, maps, photography magazines, all focussed on naturalistic topics: pictures of panoramas from all over the world, animals, plants, even remote stars and galaxies. Aziraphale wasn’t an especially avid consumer of such publications: he vastly preferred both the written word and man-made illustrations, which did a much better job of conveying the divine spark of creativity God had blessed humanity with. However, as he was leafing through those pages and seeing ruins of cities he had inhabited, cute yet clumsy species he had discreetly saved from extinction, masses of gas and dust he had shaped into celestial bodies, he couldn’t help but slip into a lengthy bout of nostalgia for the halcyon days of creation. He wouldn’t be surprised if Crowley kept those books around for the same reason.

When he heard some muffled noises coming from the bedroom, Aziraphale decided to make breakfast. His noble endeavor, however, was thwarted by the complete lack of any sort of raw or packed ingredient in any cupboard of the house; the fridge, instead, offered a vast selection of gourmet brioches, fruit juices, bacon and eggs, pancakes and all sorts of scrumptious dishes that looked as if they had been cooked mere minutes earlier. Well, it would be a waste not to partake, he deliberated. He’d just finished setting the table when Crowley finally joined him with a half-yawned “‘Morning.”

It was a most refreshing and welcome change of pace, being able to chat of everything and nothing over a hearty meal again, instead of covertly panicking over the very real possibility of Doomsday disrupting the next weekend, as well as all the others that would never follow. The last week had been exhausting for the both of them - especially for Crowley. For all his trademark devil-may-care attitude, it was really quite easy to notice when the demon was genuinely distressed: from his eyes, thin slits of darkness in a pool of gold that Aziraphale could always see through the glasses and that darted left and right more quickly than usual, to his gestures, that lost their swaying languor in favor of nervous, reptilian jerks, to the sudden explosions of anger and aggression that were just as dangerous as the roar of a kitten. All of that was gone now. His cutting temper was still dulled by the lingering drowsiness, and soft, unguarded smiles curved his lips in response to Aziraphale’s casual chatter. The ruffled hair, the creased clothes and the lazy nibbles at his brioche spoke of the unhurried comfort that came after overcoming a trying ordeal, and they filled the angel’s heart with genuine tenderness. There were, truly, beauty and goodness in all the things and entities that existed, even in those who supposedly tried their hardest to antagonize them.

“Oh, you may want to take those to the cleaners.” Aziraphale pointed at the folded rags he’d put on the sofa, once he was finished with his breakfast. “What ever did you do to those poor clothes to ruin them like that?”

“Ugh, throw them away.” Crowley replied with a disgusted grunt. “That’s Ligur.”

“I see.” Aziraphale said, having never heard of the brand. He agreed that the quality of the tailoring was rather shabby, so he did as he was told. “Well, I was thinking of dropping by the bookshop this morning - or what’s left of it, anyway. Who knows, there may be some intact books among the rubble…”

“Mmmh. I guess there’s no harm in checking.” Crowley didn’t look terribly convinced. “Mind if I come along?”

“Oh, not at all.” Aziraphale replied, pleasantly surprised. “But don’t you have more urgent things to do, instead of helping me carry around charred tomes?”

“Right now, not at all. I’m pretty sure I’ve been fired, so I happen to have a lot of free time on my hands.” Crowley snapped his fingers, and in a blink he was as elegant and well-groomed as ever. 

“You aren’t going to keep performing your duties then? No more tempting innocent souls or spreading negative influence?” Aziraphale inquired as they stepped into the lift.

“Are you? Even if your boss doesn’t care?”

“Why, of course. Being a harbinger of the light is the very reason of my existence! It’s more than a job, it’s my very nature!”

“Aren’t you a model employee?” Crowley deadpanned. “Well, first and foremost, I think I’ve earned myself a vacation. Now, that isn’t to say that I’m going to pass up on any opportunities to have some fun if the occasion arises...”

“Of course you aren’t.” Aziraphale smiled, stepping out of the building. “Shall we take a taxi or- Crowley?” Crowley had abruptly stopped in his tracks, staring at something in the parking area- 

“Oh!” Aziraphale eloquently commented.

Crowley jogged to what was, without a doubt, his car. Not the scorched ball of molten metal and rubber he’d been forced to abandon at Tadfield Airbase, but his cherished Bentley in all its former glory and vintage elegance. The demon stared at it in evident disbelief, his brows so high that they almost disappeared into his hairline, his mouth shaped into a perfectly round O. He admired it, ran his palm along the chassis, hopped all around to inspect it from every possible angle - including under the bumper and over the roof.

“Did you do this?” He eventually managed, his gaze bouncing back and forth between the car and the angel.

“No, it wasn’t me. But I’ve heard that yesterday’s disasters are being reverted. Maybe this is part of it.” Aziraphale suggested as Crowley opened the door and basically dove head-first into the car.

“It’s exactly as it used to be! Custom leather seats and all! Even my CDs-” Crowley took one from the dashboard, one whose cover was a wordless black void with a glass prism refracting white light into a rainbow. He inserted it into the radio and a cheery band started to sing very enthusiastically about riding a bicycle. Crowley’s exhilarated mood seemed to dampen ever so slightly. “...Yep. Just as they used to be.”

“It looks like Adam knows what he’s doing.” Aziraphale smiled, knowing how much that little miracle meant for his friend. Then, a thought struck him. “Maybe…”

“...Maybe.” Crowley agreed, understanding him at a glance. “Hop in. Let’s go and see.”

Aziraphale’s empathetic joy waned very quickly when it was obvious that Crowley’s driving style wasn’t at all affected by the recent demise of his old vehicle.

“Out of curiosity, how did the fire start?” The angel asked, trying to think of anything but the absurd number on the speed gauge.

“I was about to ask you the same thing. Serves you right for quitting on me as you did though. Seriously, did you really have to pick the busiest day in the last six thousand years to leave this plane of existence? Where did you even go?”

“To Heaven, of course. And I didn’t exactly choose to leave, if you must know. I was… summoned.”

“Oh, you don’t say?” Crowley sneered. “Well, guess what? My lot summoned me too, but I ignored them because I had more important stuff to do, namely saving the bloody universe-”

“Also because they would have welcomed you less than enthusiastically, I imagine-”

“On my own, because someone ditched me without one word of warning-”

“That’s not what happened at all! It was… an unfortunate accident.” Aziraphale burst out, halfway between affronted and embarrassed. 

“What kind of accident?” Crowley frowned inquisitively when Aziraphale didn’t reply. “Oi! What kind of accident?”

“...Promise me you won’t laugh.” Aziraphale begged. Crowley merely raised an eyebrow in response. The angel sighed. “Well, the thing is… I was in my bookshop, and I opened a channel to Heaven, to see if I could… talk them out of the whole universal annihilation thing-”

“Talking people out of war. Yeah, solid plan. When has it ever not worked in the history of wars?”

“It made sense to try, at least. Anyway, Shadwell walked in-”

“What the heaven was Shadwell doing in your bookshop?”

“I don’t know- could you please stop interrupting me? As I was saying, Shadwell saw the ritual and… I fear he mistook me for one of your lot. He got rather worked up and…”

“He killed you?” Crowley guessed, genuinely impressed.

“Oh no, no! He just… started pacing here and there, muttering strange things, and… well, he got a tad too close to the summoning circle - the passage was still open, you see, and…”

“And?”

“I sort of… stepped on it. While I was trying to keep him away.” Aziraphale paused. “By accident.”

Crowley didn’t reply. He looked at Aziraphale, then back at the road, then at the angel again. His mouth twitched.

“Don’t.” Aziraphale warned him. Crowley’s face had already become a quivering mess of aborted expressions that devolved very quickly into hysterical half-snorts.

“Oh sure, go ahead and- don’t take your hands off the wheel!” Aziraphale squealed when the demon did exactly that, holding his sides and throwing back his head as he burst into a boisterous laugh. Luckily, the car seemed to be endowed with all the common sense Crowley had never had and it kept avoiding pedestrians autonomously.

“That’s so stupid.” Crowley gasped, making a show of wiping away a non-existent tear. “That’s so bloody stupid. How can anyone possibly be so stupid?”

“Oh, I don’t know. In the same way one can misplace an Antichrist for eleven years, I suppose.” Aziraphale’s jab sadly didn’t manage to penetrate the waves of hilarity Crowley was exuding. “Judging by Shadwell’s behavior, he must have presumed my disappearance was due to his own… peculiar powers.”

“Oh, is that what he’s been doing with his finger all day yesterday?”

“Well, yes. What did you think he was doing?”

“I don’t know! I thought you had tried to possess him and fried a bunch of his neurons… And it’s not like he had that many to begin with-”

“Now you’re just being needlessly nasty.”

Crowley shook his head, still giggling like a child as he put his hands back on the steering wheel, just in time to park the car as they reached their destination.

“Huh.” He simply said as he climbed out of the car, studying the building as if he’d never seen it before. 

“Ah, bless that boy!” Aziraphale glowed as he excitedly walked back and forth along the front of the bookshop. A rapid survey of the inside as well confirmed that his earthly abode was just as he’d left it, books and all. Actually, there seemed to be a few extras too.

“Ohoh, this is the kind of reading I could be convinced to try.” Crowley grinned, leafing through the flashy illustrations of one ‘Blood Dogs of the Skull Sea’. “Look at this beast! This stuff is inspirational! It makes you wonder why the hellhound didn’t turn into one of these beauties.”

Aziraphale didn’t reply. Yes, everything looked just as it did before, but… “Something’s off.”

Crowley glanced around the shelves in surprise. “Really? Is anything missing?”

“No, no. The place is fine… physically. But there’s a strange feeling in the air.”

Crowley groaned and rolled his eyes. “Are you going to start gushing about ethereal flashes of love again? I thought London was impervious to those.”

“It’s not love.” Aziraphale frowned, trying to focus on the odd sensation. It was different from what he’d felt in Tadfield: Adam’s love for his hometown was a deep-rooted, all-encompassing and aged feeling, a quiet yet powerful acknowledgement, indissolubly weaved into the very matter that composed its streets, its woods, its soil. What the angel was perceiving in his bookshop was more akin to an explosion - sudden and short-lived, yet extremely intense. “I think it’s the opposite of that.”

“Ooooh, you mean spooky? Nice. I love spooky. Still can’t feel anything though.”

“It’s… anger, I think. Rage. And…” Aziraphale paused. The sensation glimpsed in and out of his head swiftly, as if it was moving, pacing, speeding around the place almost like a physical entity, phasing through him and leaving a trail of suffocating heat-

BASTAAAAAARDS!

Aziraphale forgot to breathe. For the following seven minutes, approximately. It happened relatively often, for the most varied reasons. The most surprising thing was that this time it made his chest hurt. “...Grief.”

Crowley stood perfectly still. Very slowly, his features relaxed into what would have looked, to anybody else, like a perfectly natural neutral expression. He gazed around the shop and strolled away from Aziraphale to look out of the nearest window with equally studied nonchalance.

“Must have been one of your neighbours. It was a pretty big fire.” He said, his back turned to Aziraphale. “You know, mothers forgetting babies inside flaming buildings and all that.”

ALL OF YOU!

Aziraphale’s heart thrummed in sympathy with that whirlwind of emotion. By sheer force of habit, he blessed that painful feeling and the creature that had generated it, for nobly bearing the sacrifices that God’s plan required. Considering that Crowley didn’t instantly turn into a screaming, bubbling puddle of goo, Aziraphale guessed that God, in Her infinite wisdom, must have refused to validate that particular blessing, and he sent Her his heartfelt thanks for that as well. Aziraphale let the silence stretch for a while, quietly contemplating that powerful echo. Even when Crowley finally turned to face him, his expression still blank and his hands casually tucked in his pockets, neither of them spoke. It occurred to Aziraphale that his intent staring may have been interpreted as some sort of challenge only when the demon admitted defeat, sighing in annoyance and pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Look, what do you want me to say? Mh?” Crowley asked, spreading his arms. “What do you want me to say that you don’t already know?”

It was a fair point. It was also (it being Crowley’s ruffled demeanour, his flat tone, his casual evasion) so strikingly familiar and typical that it warmed Aziraphale’s heart enough to finally distract him from the lingering negativity of the ambiance.

“...Would you like some hot cocoa?” The angel offered with a kind smile.

“Far from me to twist the knife into what you undoubtedly consider a major flaw in your character,” Aziraphale said as he slid in front of Crowley a steaming cup of chocolate that the demon hadn’t exactly accepted, but that he hadn’t exactly refused either, “but why were you upset so deeply? It’s not like I’ve never been discorporated before.”

“‘It’s not like I’ve never been discorporated before.’” Crowley parroted him, without acknowledging the existence of the beverage. “I swear you say the most idiotic things sometimes.”

“Well, I’m just a tad confused about your reaction, is all-”

“Why would I care about you being discorporated?!” Crowley burst out. “I thought you’d been destroyed! You try to call me - urgently - and I can’t answer, I try to call you and you don’t answer, and then I arrive here and you’re nowhere to be found and everything’s on fire - on fire! The one thing that can damage you! What was I supposed to think?”

“But… You thought it was hellfire?” Aziraphale asked, confusedly. “Why would there be hellfire in my bookshop?”

“Oh, I don’t know. It may have had something to do with the fact that I myself had almost been murdered a scant ten minutes before-”

“You were what?!” Aziraphale gasped, aghast, his own cup freezing halfway towards his mouth.

“Yeah. That was probably it, now that I think about it.” Crowley snarled, tapping his fingers on the table. “You became unreachable five minutes after I received a visit from a couple of pissed-off demons trying to ‘collect’ me. I thought that Hell had decided to settle the score with you as well, while they were at it.”

“My dear boy, I had no idea…” Aziraphale trailed off. He gasped again when the gravity of the situation sank in fully. “Heavens, you said almost murdered?! Oh no… No, this won’t do…”

“Oh, well… Maybe ‘almost murdered’ was laying it on a bit thick.” Crowley admitted, his temper finally subsiding. “They were pretty pissed off, but they didn’t even get close to the murdering part.”

“Thank God for that. But how did you manage to escape from them?”

“Oh. Remember that thermos of holy water you gave me fifty years ago?” A malicious smile spread on the demon’s face. “Good insurance indeed.”

“..Are you trying to tell me that-”

“Oh yes.” 

“You’ve smitten two demons?!” Aziraphale gaped.

“One, actually. The other one managed to escape, but I’d say I was rather-”

“I’ve never smitten a demon!” Aziraphale added, suddenly facing a minuscule existential crisis. “And that’s supposed to be my job!”

“Really? How odd.” The only demon Aziraphale had interacted with in the last six thousand years replied. Still, the angel was too caught up in his own thoughts to pay any attention to sarcasm.

“Do you have any holy water left?”

“Uh, no, I’ve used it all up-”

“Then you’ll need some more. Lots more. It could save your skin if Hell decided to strike again.” Aziraphale stood up and headed towards the kitchen. “Here, give me a moment-”

“Hey, hey, calm down, I don’t need it right this second!” Crowley stammered, pointing at the other’s abandoned cup. “We can worry about that later, your cocoa is going cold-”

“It’s no matter, I need just two minutes-”

Exactly two minutes and seventeen seconds later, Aziraphale handed to a mildly astonished Crowley the biggest and sturdiest piece of tupperware he owned, filled to the brim with the precious liquid.

“Did you just make all this?”

“Well, yes. Blessing tap water isn’t exactly a lengthy or complicated process.”

“You can make literal gallons of holy water in two minutes, and it took you a hundred years to decide to give me two cups’ worth of it last time?!” The demon complained, without moving to grasp the container. “How very generous of you!”

“I didn’t know what you were planning to do with it! I was concerned!”

“Of what?!”

“That you might… mishandle it and get hurt! You wouldn’t give your sharpest kitchen knife to a five-year-old child just because he asked for it, would you?”

“I would. Anyway that’s a very unflattering comparison and I resent it.”

“Well, yes, here’s more holy water than you’ll ever need, hopefully.” Aziraphale impatiently held out the pitcher towards Crowley’s chest, who positively jumped back holding his arms out defensively.

“Wait wait wait wait! Your cuff is wet! Have you even dried your hands? Are you trying to kill me?”

“What- That’s just normal water! I blessed the one in the container after sealing it! Do you really think I’m that outrageously clumsy?”

“Considering that you’ve discorporated yourself through sheer clumsiness just the other day, yeah, kind of.”

“Oh, for Heaven’s- look, if you want it, it’s here. If not, do whatever you want.” Aziraphale put down the plastic carafe on the table primly, and then he finally set down to sip his cocoa. Crowley eyed the container from every possible angle, clearly expecting to find some traitorous droplet rolling down its sides, then he poked the lid gingerly.

“I don’t trust this thing not to burst open by accident before I can put it somewhere safer. Got any tape?”

Aziraphale fetched some packing tape from the cupboard and handed it to Crowley. He stood beside him, watching him secure the lid meticulously for a couple of minutes. Now that the idle bickering wasn’t distracting him any more, Aziraphale found his own soul attuning again with the background thrumming of the demon’s past anguish. It felt only natural for Aziraphale to squeeze the other’s shoulder warmly.

“You know, I’m very proud of you.”

“...Uh?” Crowley squinted at him as if the angel had just sprouted a second head. That is to say, not as if he’d done something utterly impossible, but merely something very random for no reason whatsoever.

“For showing up at Tadfield, even after all this. You were hunted down by your own brethren, you suffered a painful loss, and yet you reined in your wrath and braced your sorrow and still found the will to fight for this world. It was very brave, and selfless.”

“Uhm.” Crowley answered, with a strange dumbfounded look that instantly raised a few doubts in Aziraphale’s mind.

“That’s… that’s what you did, isn’t it?”

“Uuuuuuuuuuh- Yeah. Yeah, yeah, of course.” Crowley floundered with the elegance of a beached whale. “That’s what I did… eventually- which is to say- yeah-”

“‘Eventually’? What do you mean, ‘eventually’?”

“I mean- not right away, I needed a moment to... You know, my human operatives never managed to locate the Antichrist, so I was… kind of lost as to what I should have been doing in that moment-”

“What did you do?”

“And even if I had known where to go, what were the odds of me, all alone, averting the apocalypse? Realistically speaking-”

“What did you do, Crowley?”

“Well, since you were no more, and the Earth was going to be no more very soon regardless of what I did, I thought… you know, I may as well enjoy one last bottle of scotch in that old-fashioned pub in Hollen Street-”

“...Good Lord.” Aziraphale covered his eyes with his hand, his tone falling as flat as his expectations. “You were going to get hopelessly drunk and do nothing whatsoever about Armageddon, weren’t you?”

“Hey, don’t you dare use that tone with me! Not when I was the one who had to convince you to do anything in the first place! You were merrily going to let the sea bubble and all the creatures, great and small, be vaporized in a blaze of divine glory, remember?”

“For an entirely different reason! I was simply trying my best to follow God’s plan! You never cared a trifle about that! You only ever cared about your earthly pleasures - such as getting drunk while the whole world goes up in flames, apparently-”

“Look, what was I supposed to do?! I didn’t even know where to go! If it wasn’t for your book-”

”My book? What book?”

“Well, not your book, the American lady’s book. Agnes Nutter’s Something Something Prophecies.” Crowley resumed plastering tape all over the already foolproof lid. “I found it here while I was looking for you and I took it, because why not? And then I was leafing through it at the pub and I found your notes about Adam and the airbase and- and then this strange thing happened, you know? I opened the book on a completely random page and the very first prophecy I read was… I don’t remember how it went exactly, but it was… obviously aimed at me. In a very specific way. And it said that my ethereal companion hadn’t vanished, but I’d meet him again at the place of the final confrontation, or something like that, and I’d just read on your notes that everything written on the book is invariably true, and I thought…’Oh.’”

“Oh.” Aziraphale echoed.

“Yeah.”

While Crowley’s peculiar tale depicted a somewhat less virtuous attitude towards pain and unfavourable odds than what he’d first envisioned, Aziraphale had to admit that there was something undeniably noble in the idea of the demon abandoning his drunken stupor and speeding across the country on a flaming car the moment a few key indications and the promise of reuniting with his best friend reignited his hope. There was something undeniably touching about it on a very personal level too.

“Well... I suppose I can’t- that’s enough tape, don’t you think?” Aziraphale said gesturing at the carafe, which was by now mummified under layers of ugly brown tape.

“Uh. Right.” Crowley blinked at the container as if he’d just become aware of its existence before sitting down to finally take a sip of his own cocoa. As he sat back as well, Aziraphale took care of heating the beverage up to a pleasant temperature with a thought before it reached the demon’s lips.

“I was saying, I suppose I can’t blame you for taking a moment to… gather your thoughts, so to speak. I must confess that I myself haven’t acted quite as promptly as I could have in the last days.”

“Oh. Really?”

“Yes. Admittedly, by the time I called you, I’d been aware of the Antichrist’s whereabouts for… a little bit.”

“Yeah?” Crowley frowned. “How little, exactly?”

“Oh, roughly… twelve hours, I think.”

“Twelve hours?!” Crowley sputtered. “We could have got to Tadfield twelve hours earlier?! Do you have any idea how much trouble we’d have spared ourselves with a twelve-hour advance?”

“Well-”

“I wouldn’t have had to drive my car through a bloody wall of fire, for one!” Crowley threw his hands in the air in exasperation. “What have you even been doing in all that time?”

“I was… considering the situation. You’ll admit I was in a rather delicate position, and I felt that I had to choose my actions carefully.” Aziraphale argued. “Eventually I decided to tell you, and the upper offices as well. It seemed like a good way to help our cause without, you know, openly obstructing Heaven’s plans.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“What else did you decide?”

“Nothing. That was what I came up with, and so I-”

“And it took you twelve hours to decide that?” Crowley groaned, covering his face. “Quick thinking really isn’t your thing, is it?”

“Well, there’s no reason to dwell on recriminations.” Aziraphale stated briskly. “Everything turned out just fine, in the end.”

“If by ‘fine’ you mean that ten million demons’ and ten million angels’ best laid plans and efforts went completely into smoke for no purpose other than postponing the inevitable battle for another… I don’t know, one or two thousand years - then sure, everything’s just dandy.” Crowley muttered to his cocoa. “Do you seriously believe this was all God’s plan? All of this for nothing? What’s the bloody point?”

“You know I can’t answer that question. But I wouldn’t say this was all for nothing. From my very limited and imperfect perspective, for example, I can clearly see at least two creatures who have ultimately benefited from this whole Apocalypse ordeal. But I’m sure there must be many, many more.”

“And those would be?”

“Adam, for one. Armageddon truly brought out the best in him. Didn’t you hear him talk with the Horsepeople? His words were so humble and simple, yet such an inspiring embodiment of all virtues! Prudence and temperance above all, and then justice and courage-”

“Yeah, yeah, just wait until he reaches puberty and then we’ll see where all those virtues will go.”

“Still, you have to admit that, for someone who’s supposed to be the literal spawn of Evil, his spirit is remarkably untainted. I’m sure he wouldn’t have turned out like this without going through the process of human life, or if he had come into existence among demons in the depths of Hell. Maybe this was all this proto-Armageddon was about: offering a chance of redemption to what would have otherwise been unredeemable spirits.”

“Mmmh.” Crowley crossed his arms with evident skepticism. “And who’s the other one?”

“Why you, of course.” Aziraphale couldn’t hold back a smile at Crowley’s stunned silence.

“...Sorry, what?”

“Isn’t it obvious? As I said, during the past week you have displayed an admirably selfless side-”

“Watch it, angel.” Crowley muttered. “Keep casting aspersions on me and no miracle will be able to fix what I’ll do to your collection of Bibles.”

“Oh, don’t be a child about it. It’s perfectly understandable, considering how much time you spent around me. I am a Principality, after all-”

“Excuse me. I must have misheard.” Crowley raised his finger, then he leaned towards Aziraphale across the table with a malevolent squint. “Are you by any chance telling me that you’ve been trying to inspire goodness in me?”

“Maybe.” Aziraphale gave him an apologetic smile. “I didn’t hold much hope to succeed, but I’ll admit I was rather curious. A few good deeds now and then, less evil ones performed in person, after yours truly accepted to carry them out for you… I wonder if all that could tip the moral scales at least a little bit, so to speak.” Aziraphale let out a small laugh in response to Crowley’s stunned silence. “What? Haven’t you been trying to do the same since we met?”

Crowley’s eyebrows raised so much that they almost disappeared into his hairline, and he opened and closed his mouth soundlessly like a fish gasping for air before he managed to put together a reply. “I- You- you knew?”

“Of course I knew! Why else would a demon associate so freely with a sworn enemy?”

“But- then- why did you keep seeing me?!”

“Because there was no way you’d succeed, obviously. An angel being corrupted, in this day and age! And me, of all people! No offense, but the mere idea is laughable.”

“It’s no more laughable than a demon being redeemed!”

“I disagree on that. Demons used to be angels, after all. Evil is an acquired trait for your lot, and who’s to say your innate core of Goodness isn’t still there, ready to be unburied?”

“No. No no no, all right, this is much more than ridiculous. This is blasphemous. You thought you could pave the road to the redemption of someone who’s been irrevocably deemed unforgivable? You thought you could single-handedly overturn a sentence of eternal damnation issued by the Almighty Herself? You thought you knew better than God?” Crowley spread his arms in outrage. “And they said Lucifer had too high an opinion of himself!”

“I never said that God was wrong.” Aziraphale raised his hands defensively. “Your punishment was amply deserved. But that happened thousands of years ago. Some things have changed. Some demons may have changed too. And God has always been way more forgiving than your lot credited Her for.”

“You are out of your mind.”

“But… Oh, you must see my point! Think of the lives you saved- think of the whole world you saved!”

“Literally none of that was done out of goodwill. Especially not for the humans. I just like what they’ve done with the place, therefore I want it to keep existing. For myself. It’s entirely selfish. End of the story.”

“And,” Aziraphale pressed on, leaning towards Crowley as well, “you rebelled!”

“Uh… Yeah. Yeah, I did. That’s what I’m saying, it isn’t the kind of thing God just gets over with-” 

“No, I don’t mean against God! You rebelled against Satan! If you had reported to Hell about the baby swapping as soon as you learnt of it, they still could have found a solution- tailing the hound, for example. But you did not! You sabotaged them, you went as far as to fight other demons-!

“Out of self presevation! No one in their right mind would keep working for someone who’s just going to slaughter them at the end of the job! I was doing anything I could think of doing to save my skin! You know, selfishly! How are you struggling to grasp this basic concept so much?!”

“And then you fought Satan himself!” Aziraphale proclaimed, undeterred by the growing heat of Crowley’s answers. “You did not run, you did not turn sides-”

“As if you could just run from the boss. And fighting is a bit of a strong word, isn’t it? The kid didn’t let even the tip of his horns out of the pavement-”

“That hardly matters, what matters is the intent! You held your ground, proud and determined, ready to fight him ‘til the bitter end, armed only with the one thing you loved most in the world in your hand-”

“Oi, oi, oi!” Crowley sputtered. “Lay it on a bit thicker, will you? Where did that- You can’t just-”

Crowley’s confusion gave Aziraphale pause. The demon was growing considerably red. Oh dear. Could he ignite out of sheer rage? That would be a first. “I really don’t think I’m exaggerating. You were ready to die fighting him, we both were.”

“Not that! The thing- the ‘thing you love the most’ thing, what even-”

“That too. At least I had a proper weapon, but you only had that… what was that, a piece of your Bentley? I’m sure it had a huge emotional value for you, but in terms of offensive capabilities… Talk about David and Goliath…”

That shocked Crowley into silence. “...Oh. The car.” He eventually managed. “Yeah. The car. Yeah.”

“Yes. What did you think I was-” The answer struck Aziraphale before the question was finished. He had only two hands, after all. “...Oh, Crowley-”

“All right, that’s IT!” Crowley suddenly shouted, shooting up on his feet and banging his fist on the table. The sunlight filtering from the window behind Crowley was blocked by the magnificent pair of wings that spread from his back, casting a looming shadow above the sitting angel. The rest of the room grew inexplicably darker as well as the demon towered above Aziraphale, mouth twisted and teeth bared in an enraged snarl. He pointed towards his wings. “Look. Look at these, do you see them? Not a single white feather. Not a lighter shade of grey anywhere. Do you see them? Black. Charred. Tainted. Not by fire, or tar, or soot, or mud. By God. God changed them. Changed everything. And you can’t fix God’s work. You can’t get a bloody word in edgewise, actually. Believe me, we’re the ones who tried. Now,” Crowley bent downwards still, his back arched like a predator ready to strike, his nose mere centimetres away from Aziraphale, “I don’t know what gave you the impression of being smarter than the highest order of the universe, but I think we can agree that whatever little self-empowering game you’ve been playing hasn’t changed anything. Right?”

“Right.” Aziraphale replied without the slightest inflection, as he was starting to feel like he’d overstepped some boundary. Not so much with the universe as with his friend.

“Right. So quit yapping about goodness and selflessness and whatnot before I show you exactly what’s the difference between the two of us.” Aziraphale remained respectfully silent. Finally Crowley straightened up as his wings disappeared and the room cleared up again. The demon fixed his jacket, scowling at the surrounding shelves as if they had personally offended him. “Keep the water, I don’t need it. I have plenty of other tricks up my sleeve. Bye.”

“What? Wait! Where are you going?” Aziraphale startled, hurrying after Crowley as he walked off to the front door.

“Away. I’m busy.”

“I thought you were on holiday.” The angel almost bumped into the other as he stopped and turned on his heels abruptly, another snarling reply ready to fire. “And I was wondering if we could have lunch together at the Ritz.”

“Why? So that your ethereal influence can polish my spirit a bit more?”

“Really, now. You know me better than that.” Aziraphale gave him his most conciliatory smile. “No point in saving the world if we don’t get to enjoy it, right?”

Crowley hesitated just long enough to let Aziraphale know that he was well aware of being played. And then he did it anyway. “...Right. But you’re paying.”

“Of course.”

“What do you think would happen to us, if we were to die from now on?” Aziraphale asked, several hours and a lucullan lunch later.

“Well, aren’t you a bundle of laughs lately?” Crowley deadpanned. He was enjoying the fine afternoon breeze and the idle quacking of the ducks in St. James’ Park too much to embark in such grim elucubrations.

“I think it’s a legitimate concern. I don’t see either Heaven or Hell granting us a new body after all the trouble we’ve caused.” 

“I guess not. But I think we’re covered at least until Adam remains on Earth. He didn’t even have to snap his fingers to make you a new one.”

“You have remarkable faith in that child, haven’t you?” Aziraphale graced Crowley with an obscenely proud smile. The demon grimaced and waved at him dismissively.

“Faith has nothing to do with it. Faith is blind and deaf and groundless. Adam has put up a pretty effective and tangible demonstration of his powers. And he likes us. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. If you get discorporated, just knock on his mind and he’ll fix it.”

“But he won’t be here forever to help us. He’s still a mortal, just like Jesus.” Aziraphale insisted from above his newly acquired copy of Treasure Island. “What about afterwards?”

“I have a better question for you.” Crowley enunciated importantly, shifting to lean on the bench just a tad more composedly and deciding to change the topic. “What about his afterwards?”

“...You mean what will happen to him after his death? Well, won’t he just go back where he came from?”

“To Hell? Really?” Crowley leaned towards Aziraphale conspiratorially. “Do you really think that Satan will let anyone, including his son - especially his son - potentially endowed with the power to rival him, into his own Reign? Do you have any idea of the trouble it could cause? Demons have a strong tendency to question the authorities, you may have noticed.”

“I… I suppose you do have a point.” Aziraphale had to agree, visibly struck by the realization. “But where would he go then? Surely not to Heaven… The Antichrist in Heaven, could you even imagine it?”

“Not really, no. But there’s another possibility.” Crowley tipped his glasses forwards, staring pointedly at the angel from above the dark lenses. “If neither Reign will want him, he may… you know, carve his own place for himself. A new one. Create his own path.”

“What?” Aziraphale slightly leaned away from Crowley in sheer shock. “A third faction? For the love of God, Crowley, don’t even mention it! Aren’t things already difficult enough with two parties at war? Another schism, whether within Hell itself or from the outside, would only compromise the balance of the universe even further!”

“Looks to me like a third faction has been existing for a long time now.”

“Pardon?”

Crowley gestured vaguely all around. “How would you call the six billions humans currently living on this planet, and all the others who came before them?”

“They’re not a faction. They’re-”

“Sort of cattle, when you think about it-”

“Creatures.” Aziraphale corrected him sternly.

“Creatures that both our lots have been merrily cannibalizing for the last six millennia for the sake of our own petty squabble-”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that your lot has been indeed cannibalizing all the poor souls you could snatch.” Aziraphale pointed out primly. “We, on the other hand, have been educating them. Guiding them. Nurturing them. Cherishing them-”

“Oh yeah, those words sound so much nicer, don’t they?” Crowley sneered, barely repressing the impulse to hiss in annoyance.

“Are you seriously trying to tell me that you see no fundamental difference between what we do and what you do?” Aziraphale asked in dismay. “Do you really, honestly believe Heaven and Hell to be on equal moral ground?”

“All I’m saying is that it’s really easy for me to imagine these guys,” he insisted, pointing at a random couple of passersby who clearly did not appreciate being pointed at by a perfect stranger in the middle of a heated argument, “getting fed up with both our and your interferences sooner or later, and it looks to me like they may just find their own champion in our dear Antichrist.”

“This is ridiculous! We needn’t talk about such a hare-brained notion any longer.” Aziraphale asserted firmly, then a thought struck him and he eyed Crowley suspiciously. “I do hope you aren’t planning to put strange ideas in that child’s head.”

“Putting ideas in his head?! He has enough ideas of his own to build a brand new universe from scratch! He doesn’t need mine!”

“Good, because the last thing everyone needs right now is another Rebellion.”

“Why? Are you scared he might have better luck than we did?” Crowley couldn’t help but smirk.

“Of course not. It’s just… not the right way to go about it.”

“Asking questions and demanding a little more respect and straightforwardness from your boss isn’t the right way to go about solving a problem? ‘Cause that’s what we did-”

“You raised your hand against God.” Aziraphale’s glare was more scalding and cutting than his sword had ever been. “You took up arms against Her and your own brethren, and you did it first and without provocation, and don’t even try to justify that.”

“I-” Crowley started, but bit his lip not to continue. He hadn’t taken up any arms, surely not first, he thought. He hadn’t, but others had. Others on what he hadn’t realized yet would permanently become ‘his side’. And by the time he had finally grasped the severity of the rift that had formed between those new sides, it was already far too late for reconsiderations. He turned his gaze away from the angel, and focussed instead on a couple of black swans elegantly brawling for the possession of a floating chunk of bread. The park was oddly quiet, and their irked squawking was the only sound the demon could hear for several minutes.

“My point is,” Crowley suddenly said when he spied Aziraphale’s mouth moving to speak, because he would not let him have the last word on that topic even if it killed him, “that if one feels that he isn’t being treated fairly, you can’t really blame him for trying to look after himself. At least we can agree on that, yes? Yes.”

Aziraphale’s silence felt like a hard-earned victory. Neither Heaven nor Hell would be impartial when the moment to judge Adam would come, and if the Antichrist was to be shunned by both sides, wouldn’t it be only natural for him to-

“Is that why you rebelled?” The angel asked, eyes fixed on the book open on his lap. It took Crowley by surprise, how delicately Aziraphale had uttered that ‘you’, so very different from the spiteful ‘you’ of the rivalling group. It was a very personal question, the most personal question the angel had ever asked him.

Crowley didn’t answer. Aziraphale didn’t ask again.

“Well,” the angel sighed after a long silence, “I guess my point is that we’d better be extremely careful not to be discorporated in the future. Our sudden reappearance in our respective head offices might have rather unpleasant consequences.”

“You just can’t stop worrying about it, can you?” Crowley remarked, a tad mockingly. “I guess it comes with spending your entire existence as an upstanding Heaven citizen. Never really got on God’s bad side, have you?”

“Well, there was that little mishap with my sword...”

“Psh, I’m not talking about misplacing your toys. I mean Her really bad side. I’m talking about going openly against Her will - like you may very well have done by averting Armageddon-”

“Excuse you, I firmly believe I’ve been doing nothing but serving the Greater Good during these trying times.” Aziraphale countered, rather piqued. “And the Greater Good is God’s will by definition, so I don’t see why She should be in any way displeased by my actions… I believe.” A flash of uncertainty crossed the angel’s features, but he shook it off immediately. “Besides, everything that happens anywhere and at any time is part of Her plan, and therefore part of Her will, and therefore good.”

“Well, excuse you, but by that ridiculous logic the Rebellion was part of Her plan too, and therefore good, and therefore none of us should have been banished and doomed to eternal spite and damnation. And yet.” 

“No! That is an entirely different matter, and-” Aziraphale stopped talking abruptly. He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed deeply. “Let us not talk about politics. It never ends well.”

“Yeah, I wonder why.” Crowley crossed his arms belligerently, but he didn’t push the argument further. Not that specific argument, at least. “Anyway, I still don’t see why you’re having kittens over this disobedience thing. If you think God Herself has no beef with you, what’s the matter? What’s the worst thing your seraphic superiors could do to you, uh? Call you back up to head office and confine you to a boring desk job where you couldn’t possibly hinder their holy machinations? Oh boy, oh dear, mighty scary punishment-”

“It’s not myself I’m worried about, Crowley!” Aziraphale interrupted him vehemently, hands tightly clasped in his lap. It took Crowley frankly too long to figure out the meaning of his troubled grimace.

“...You’re worried about me?”

“Of course I am! Desk jobs and bureaucracy will be the last of your worries if you end up within the grasp of a cohort of vengeful demons! They’ve already tried to destroy you once-”

“No, no no no, you don’t get it, it’s fine. I’m not in danger!” Crowley exclaimed, stretching the truth roughly to the size of Australia. “They’ll never manage to get their hands on me. The top brass wouldn’t come up here just to retrieve a small fry like me, they’ll just send a couple of brainless grunts now and then. And I’m not calling them brainless as gratuitous slander, they really are unbelievably stupid. Not even remotely a threat.”

“You’ve destroyed a demon! One of your own kind! They won’t overlook such an act so easily, for sure!”

“All right, listen. First of all, demons killing other demons isn’t nearly as outrageous as you think. Happens every other day. One day you’re chatting with Valak from Heat Management about the new strain of flies Beelzebub’s sporting and the next day, poof! Someone tells you that he’s been shoved into a furnace by a pissed-off Count because of a broken thermostat. Not even worth a slap on the wrist.”

“Still,” Aziraphale hesitated, “your case is clearly different. It’s outright treason! They’ll send some skillful operatives-”

“The ones they already sent were the skillful ones! Dukes of Hell, no less! And I dispatched both of them literally in five minutes! Want to know how?” Crowley stood up and started pacing back and forth in front of the bench, gesturing wildly to re-en-act his epic tale of cunning and strategy. “All right, here’s how. The holy water you gave me, right? I poured that into a bucket and put the bucket on top of the door of the study, which was ajar - what are you looking at? Get lost!” He added, glaring at a couple of nearby kids who had interrupted their aimless running around to stare at him as he stood poised on the tip of his toes to position an invisible prop on top of an invisible surface. The brats scampered away immediately. “Anyway, Ligur opened the door and bam, one Duke of Hell melted into nothingness, just like that. And the second? Well, actually I did have a plan involving holy water for him too, but that one didn’t really fly - but then!” Crowley pointed at Aziraphale suddenly and enthusiastically enough to make him flinch. “You called, and I - brilliantly - got inspired by that and trapped Hastur into my phone! ...For a while - but the point is that it was just that easy.”

“Why, wasn’t that ingenious of you?” Aziraphale said, his eyes shining with such disarming and honest admiration that Crowley completely lost track of his thoughts.

“I- well, yeah, I guess I-” He started, before his brain rebooted and he smacked his forehead in frustration. “No! No, it wasn’t! It was dumb! That’s my point! A bucket on a door, Aziraphale! Two Dukes of Hell tricked by the sort of pranks that some dumb human toddlers- Oi! Why are you still here?!” He suddenly shouted, as his gaze fell on a bush that did absolutely nothing to hide the same couple of brats he’d just shooed away, still spying on his little pantomime. As they ran away again, Crowley took care of summoning a couple of ringed snakes and sending them on their heels, just to provide that extra zest of entertainment that their afternoon clearly lacked.

“Ehr, you were saying?” Aziraphale asked, eyeing the hissing grass with mild concern.

“I was saying that my esteemed colleagues have the tactical prowess of drunk baboons, and they don’t even bother to keep up with what’s going on up here. A child with a mobile phone could outsmart them. So no, they’re never going to get me.” Crowley plopped back on the bench heavily, crossing both arms and legs and deliberately channeling a good three decades of macho cinematography in his stance. “Not on my turf.”

“That’s reassuring, but it doesn’t quite put all my worries at rest. Don’t you think we should at least keep a close eye on each other for a while?”

“How so?”

“Oh, just seeing each other. More often than once a decade, I mean. Exchanging information, checking that we’re still around in one piece.”

“And if we aren’t? What if one day I just disappear, uh? Are you going to march into the depths of Hell armed with your non-existent army and your lost sword?”

“I was thinking more of a tanker filled with holy water.”

Crowley snorted. “That would be a sight.”

“So? What do you say? Once a month? Once a week? At least until things get calmer.”

“Oh boy, I don’t know if I have all this free time to ‘keep an eye’ on you. I’ll have to check my agenda.”

“You’re still on a self-proclaimed holiday.”

“And do you have any idea how time-consuming that is?”