#phewww what is crazy fusion boy up to TUNE IN NEXT WEEK TO FIND OUT

[shipaholic]

Omens Universe, Chapter 7

Pivotal chapter no. 1, here we go...

This chapter has drinking. So much drinking. Also, Crowley finally has the Bentley, so this will be the first chapter (of many?) in which he totally invents speeding.

The music in this chapter is V Stands For Victory

And I Could Write a Book (Eddy Duchin, 1941).

Link to next part at the end.

(From the beginning)

(last part)

(chrono)

---

Chapter 7

Crowley’s ridiculous contraption bombed down the street at ninety miles per hour. Aziraphale was hardly aware. His eyes were fixed on Crowley’s face as he drove.

This was bad, he thought, dreamily.

Telling himself that made no dent in his emotional state. His mind was wrapped in cotton candy. Cotton candy that was moving very fast… possibly still in the whirly machine they made it in… he shouldn’t try to devise metaphors at a time like this. The point was, despite Crowley being Demonic and Evil and the rest of the standard specs for a minion of Hell, upon realising he loved him, Aziraphale could not make himself feel anything other than Good. Both definitions. This was right. This was what he was made for.

It wasn’t as if Crowley had ever been capital-E Evil, really. In fact, so long as he was being honest with himself (a dreadful prospect, but it turned out love made him brave), he had known this ever since the first time they fused. All those thousands of years ago. That was probably a big part of the reason he had hit the proverbial roof. It was a blow to one’s identity as a font of goodness, to merge minds with your opposite number and learn that he had more in common with you, morally, than most of your allies. Back then, he had refused to accept being humbled and had lashed out at Crowley instead. He’d behaved terribly. Worse than he’d even admitted before now.

But that was in the past, and the present was a carousel, a delicious dreamscape, gliding through the velvet dark with Crowley beside him -

The Bentley screeched to a halt. Aziraphale nearly slammed into the windscreen.

“Home sweet home,” Crowley said, cheerfully.

It was fortunate he didn’t have to love everything about Crowley, because this infernal machine was definitely out.

Crowley peered out of the window. “Hasn’t changed a bit,” he said, approvingly. He opened his door and hopped out. “Coming?”

Aziraphale looked out. They were already at the bookshop. He hadn’t been paying attention.

He collected himself, and his bag of books. He opened the car door with trepidation, as if the handle might explode.

It didn’t. He got from the car and followed Crowley in a daze towards the shop.

Crowley snapped his fingers. A soundproof bubble settled over the shop. Another snap dropped the blinds, and a third clicked the door latch into place.

Aziraphale hovered near the entrance. His familiar space had just become soft and dark and intimate. He wasn’t sure what thresholds would be crossed if he went all the way inside.

It had been years since Crowley had been back here. He revolved, drinking it in.

“Ahh. Place looks good. Very… impenetrable.”

Aziraphale preened. “In its heyday, this place could go six months at a time without selling a single book.”

Crowley gave him a fond smile. Aziraphale was going to spontaneously combust before the night was over.

Crowley clapped his hands together. “So! What are you in the mood for?”

Aziraphale took a breath and tried for a normal answer. “Alcohol seems just the ticket.”

“No surprise there.” Crowley miracled up some brandy glasses.

“Well, of course. I was just in mortal peril, you know.” Aziraphale followed him to the back room.

“Immortal peril. Barely counts.”

~*~

It was an old, familiar scene.

Crowley took over the whole sofa in increasingly supine, twisty positions the drunker he got. Aziraphale sat in the armchair, head and surroundings merrily spinning. He wasn’t entirely sure what they were talking about, but he knew it involved vociferously nitpicking something one of them had said half an hour ago.

“Tha’snot true. Totally unfair. I was going to come by.”

“Lies.” Aziraphale poured another brandy and missed.

“I just fell asleep. For a few years. And forgot.”

“Wimped out, more like.”

“Wimped out? Me? What the Hell did you get up to in there?”

“I’ll never tell. Because you didn’t come by.”

Crowley tried to sit up, wrestled with the throw, and sunk back, defeated.

“I knew it wasn’t all games of Old Maid in there,” he said. “You dark horse.”

“We did some of that…” Aziraphale said, dreamily.

“You what?”

Perhaps he shouldn’t have said that. “Erm. We did - the Gavotte?”

“...Is that a euphemism?”

“No, it’s a jolly lovely time.”

An unbroken row of them, linking arms and kicking their feet. Aziraphale had been one of the better dancers by the end. It helped to be single-handed - no, minded...

He bolted upright. “Crowley! I should show you.”

“Whassat?”

Aziraphale sprung to his feet, after a couple of false starts. He took a moment to let the brandy inside him slosh back to an even level.

“The Gavotte. Watch me. Watch me, Crowley.”

He stepped over a few piles of books. He needed some room… was his shop always this cluttered? He pushed ineffectually at a small table covered in ornaments, then gave up and snapped his fingers. The furniture in the middle of the room obligingly tidied itself off to the side. V Stands For Victory parped its opening notes from the gramophone.

Crowley watched, mouth slightly agape, from halfway off the sofa. Aziraphale beckoned him with more and more insistence, until Crowley slid all the way off, crawled nearer and pulled himself up against the arm of Aziraphale’s chair.

Satisfied that Crowley could at least see, even if his eyes were unfocused, Aziraphale prepared himself. He bounced from his knees a few times and swung his elbows. He’d have to just imagine the rest of the chaps.

“A one, a two, a three, a four -”

Five energetic minutes passed.

Aziraphale thrust both arms towards Crowley in the universally recognised sign for ‘tah-dah!’ The gramophone tooted to a stop, sounding embarrassed.

Crowley’s mouth hung open.

“It’s better than your magic act, thank Satan,” he said at last.

“Oh, come now.” Aziraphale frowned.

Crowley groped for the nearest drink. “That’s cheered me up about giving the old club a miss.”

“You’re no fun. It’s better with more people.”

Perhaps a one-person Gavotte was too reliant on the imagination of the audience. Aziraphale thought for a moment. He pointed to the gramophone. It cranked reluctantly up again.

“This music is poor even by Heavenly standards,” Crowley said.

Aziraphale tripped forward before he could overthink it, and grabbed Crowley’s hand. They swayed, as though reaching for each other on a deck over choppy waters. Crowley’s face was scarlet from alcohol. He blinked at Aziraphale, his eyes a haze of gold.

“Dance with me.” Aziraphale meant to sound authoritative. It came out slightly breathless.

“Ngk,” said Crowley.

Aziraphale shuffled backwards. He felt self-conscious hanging onto Crowley’s hand, so tried to pull away unobtrusively. Drunk as they were, their fingers tangled together, and withdrawing his far-too-hot hand ended up being a bit of a nightmare. Crowley’s face was even redder by the time their hands loosened. Still he drifted towards Aziraphale as if the tether was still there.

The music was awfully trumpety, Aziraphale had to admit, as they stood face to face in the bit of floor space that was clear. He stepped up beside Crowley, and slipped his arm through his.

“Now, it’s not so hard. Even I got it in the end. You move like this -”

He took a step. Crowley stepped the other way, and collided with him.

Things did not improve. The gramophone sounded irritated by the third play through, and Aziraphale and Crowley had dissolved into arguing while Aziraphale tried to watch both their feet.

“This is stupid. Whoever invented this dance did not have demons in mind. Or humans. Maybe horses. This is a horse dance.”

“I doubt this dance was intended for horses - no, you do this with your arms. How many elbows do you have?”

“Two, or none, depending. Hmm. Would you say a snake is basically one long elbow?”

“Thinking about that is above my paygrade. Will you stop getting underfoot?”

“You’re stepping on my feet!”

“How am I supposed to avoid that? They’re everywhere.”

“This is why I never bloody turned up.”

“Honestly -”

Aziraphale held Crowley closer, hoping to wrangle him through the steps.

He really was all elbows and knees. And so warm, radiating hell’s heat through that sharp suit. No hat, no glasses, eyes like suns floating in a swamp. Strands of short red hair teased loose over his forehead. His brows had such character. They were scrunched in that bemused, slightly glum way Aziraphale had noted hundreds of times. He hadn’t quite known he was recording it. Crowley’s face, Crowley’s looks. His angelic memory was long, and its catalogue of Crowley was fathomless.

The music had changed. Someone crooned:

‘About the way you walk, and whisper, and look…’

That seemed unnecessarily on-the-nose.

Aziraphale wondered which of them had done that. He didn’t recall making a conscious attempt. Perhaps it had reacted to both of them.

He could no longer pretend what they were doing bore any resemblance to a Gavotte.

He ought to pull away. His eyes fixed on his hand, resting beside Crowley’s lapel. There was no heart beneath it; nothing so human. But something beat anyway. Something in Crowley was in rhythm with him. They pushed and pulled together. Despite a lack of innate ability, they danced.

He looked up, and searched Crowley’s face.

Crowley looked…

Stunned, a little. Fearful. Yearning.

He’d seen this look before. Stifled versions of it. So many times.

Aziraphale’s heart wrenched towards Crowley’s, and it made no difference that neither of them really had one.

~*~

The gramophone concluded that it would make two lovers of friends. The brilliant white glow that had flared into every corner of the room died away like the last light of summer.

Zadkiel twirled to a stop. He had wrapped his arms around himself. He sighed, and opened his eyes.

He was him. Again. Better and fuller and brighter than ever before.

It was like a loose connection in his brain had snapped into place, and lit up an entire circuit he didn’t know was there.

Of course they loved each other. Of course. He’d always known, without being truly allowed to know. Cognitive dissonance, that was the term. Normally, when people had it, it manifested as plain old denial. For Zadkiel, it was what happened when one of your component parts was very much aware they were in love, and the other part was utterly unaware, no matter how apparent it should have been to literally anyone.

No more. Now, their feelings were an open book. He was remade, and everything was different.

He couldn’t wait to get started.

He snapped his fingers at the gramophone. It gratefully fell silent.

Another snap, and Aziraphale’s furniture shuffled back into place. He had to hop about to avoid his shins getting bashed.

Finally, he snapped to unlock the door.

It fell ajar. The smell of night air stirred through the shop, dark as ink, and full of a thousand small noises.

Zadkiel turned in place. He drank in the long-loved sight of the bookshop. What a wonderful friend it had been. A true home, after centuries of wandering. If he could take it with him, he would.

He straightened his tie, banished the lingering alcohol from his bloodstream, and strode to the door.

His final act was to fish his sunglasses out of his jacket pocket. He left them on a table. He wouldn’t need them where he was going.

He exited the shop smartly. The door snapped shut behind him.

~*~

The street rolled away into the dark distance.

Zadkiel tilted his head up. The night sky was empty of stars and gods, and it was all waiting for him.

Both pairs of wings spread out behind him. He let them both have a good stretch. They’d need it.

He had loved the Earth. He always would. Still… time for something new.

He wished the world the fondest of farewells, and took off into the night.

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(Link to next part)