#who the hell putting geometry mathematics into their art

[syrinq]

thinking about some art tips just being so unnecessarily over the top and/or complicated. no i'm not going to put in a whole ass ruler to calculate the ∆ABC degrees to have proper landscapes. no i'm not going to draw 50 rows of ovals just to get an idea of tower perspective. no i'm not going to draw 10 million help lines to get the toes just right. no i'm not going to remember that x part is 5x longer than y part and sits approximately 6/99th away from z part. i'm going to fucking rawdog that canvas and draw it badly if i goddamn want to!

[bethagain]

Thank you @my-citrus-pocket for the prompt of “Crowley adjusting Aziraphale’s bowtie.” As usual, things took on a life of their own here and I ended up writing something prompt-adjacent. But it’s about bow ties, I promise!

(Another installment in my ongoing meanderings about the sorts of casual touches that might happen in a 6,000 year friendship.)

—–

Crowley gets interested in things. 

When he emerges after his nap that lasted most of the 19th century, one of the new things he notices is: Aziraphale has started wearing a bow tie.

He looks at it and thinks, huh. 

Cravats, now, those have always seemed straightforward. Knot at the neck, let the rest of the lace or silk or whatever hang down across your shirt front. Since Crowley usually manifests his clothing instead of buying it, he never has learned how to tie one. For years he managed elegant-looking cravats in luxurious fabrics without ever once realizing there was an art to arranging them just so.

But these new bow ties. How do they do that? The knot in front always looks symmetrical and smooth, the bows make perfect triangles on either side. He knows it’s not simply sewn that way. He sees Aziraphale (as few beings ever do) with his tie undone and shirt collar open, on the occasional night when, long conversation taking them through to sunrise, the angel forgets to be quite so buttoned up.

What miracle of tailoring allows that scrap of fabric to be tied, untied, and tied again, and still hold that crisp shape? 

This is geometry, and maybe physics, and Crowley is interested.

So, he buys himself a bow tie. Black silk, measured to his own neck. One has to keep one’s aesthetic. 

The salesman assumes he knows what to do with it. Crowley makes sure of that. Well-dressed middle-aged gentleman shopping in Men’s Furnishings, of course he knows how to tie a bow tie. Don’t embarrass yourself or him by asking.

Now, in the sparsely furnished flat that isn’t home because he doesn’t live there (he doesn’t, strictly speaking, live anywhere), he studies the shape of it. The neckband is a simple strip of fabric with neat seams at the sides. The part that would make the bow is a mystery of curved shapes vaguely resembling an hourglass, but an hourglass that could only be stood on one end. The other end, closer to the neckband, bows out and then tapers in again to make an oval. 

Crowley lays the bow tie out on the dining table in his rarely-used kitchen. The table is simple, sharp-cornered, and spotless, a dark red cherry wood original from the New Lebanon Shaker workshop. (Both Aziraphale and Crowley find the Shakers interesting. Crowley, because he’s always been intrigued by humans’ penchant to take things to extremes. Aziraphale because, having witnessed all the forms of human love since Eve and Adam were [literally] making Cain in the Garden, he can’t fathom why humans would give up sensuality and call doing so a virtue. Or why Heaven, having invented the sex thing in the first place, would expect them to.)

The whole kitchen is spotless, counters and cabinets all finely made and unadorned. Except for Crowley himself, who actually is pretty much all angles, too, the bow tie is the only soft thing in the room.

He tries tying a bow. It comes out hopelessly lopsided. One side is smaller than the other, the space for the neck is far too narrow, and the crumpled loops don’t resemble triangles in the slightest.

Obviously there’s a trick to it. 

He tries again, careful to hold the fabric in the proper shape as he goes. The whole thing feels a bit stiff, like there’s something stronger in there than two layers of fabric. It doesn’t help, though. It just makes his lopsided effort look more prominently wrong.

A third try is a little better, but still nothing like the neat geometry that adorns Aziraphale’s collar.

Crowley’s book collection includes a number of instruction manuals, but they lean toward chemistry, anatomy, mechanics. He likes knowing how things are made. He likes taking things apart. (He likes putting them back together again, too, everything neatly in place and no parts left over. But don’t tell his superiors. Hell is supposed to be contributing to entropy, not making it go away.) His book collection is also carefully curated to fit on the built-in bookshelves that nestle into a single wall. Freestanding shelves would mar the clean lines of his high-ceilinged rooms.

Crowley’s bookshelves contain information on how to mix a poison, how to remove an appendix, and how to repair a combustion engine. They do not contain a single book that would tell him how to tie a bow tie. 

Nowadays, when he has a question and doesn’t know the answer, Crowley knows how to Google. (He also knows to avoid Bing, because he’s responsible for it.) But here in the early 1900s, when he has a question, he knows the answer can often be found in a place that has much different standards for curation. 

Crowley’s clothing only has pockets when he needs them. Now, he tucks the bow tie in the right-hand hip pocket of his trousers, settles a tweed cap over his hair (short, with a fashionable side part, because it’s his job to notice what humans find attractive these days), and sets off for A.Z. Fell’s bookshop.

“Angel!” Crowley pounds on the door, peering through the dusty glass. The bookshop hours are posted on the door in gilt. They have no connection with when the shop is open. “Aziraphale, it’s me!”

“It’s unlocked,” comes a voice from within.

A moment ago it wasn’t, though, and Crowley lets out an exasperated huff as he turns the doorknob. The shop is dim and pleasantly cool. The angel is nowhere in sight.

“Just going to look for something.” Crowley speaks to the room in general, figuring Aziraphale will hear him. The angel might be up on a ladder, or sitting among a stack of new acquisitions, or curled up in a chair in the back room with the new Zane Grey novel, and not wanting to leave his tea.

The bookshop is roughly organized. Biographies here, science books there, religion over here. Novels in this section, here, but also tossed carelessly on the desk near the cash register, on a coffee table in the back room, on the floor near the angel’s favorite chair. 

“Fashion,” Crowley mutters, scanning the spines of books on the nearest shelf. Do they even make books on fashion? He’s never noticed a separate section for it, so where would they be? A book about bow ties… Art? Mathematics? Spirituality?

He’s making his way slowly through the shelves when Aziraphale’s voice sounds behind him. “Can I help you?”

Crowley doesn’t turn around, but he can’t help his smile as he answers. “Oh, you provide customer service now?”

“You’re hardly a customer.” Aziraphale crowds up behind him and peers past his right shoulder. “Did you suddenly get curious about the history of the Levant during the Classical Age? You were there for most of it.”

“I was curious what they said about me.” 

“I expect many things have been said about you,” Aziraphale says cheerfully. “I’m sure they’re all impressively terrible.”

Crowley reaches into his pocket, elbow brushing against the angel’s side as he does so. Aziraphale takes a step back to see what’s in his hand. He holds out the bow tie. “I was looking for a book about this.” 

“It’s a nice tie,” says Aziraphale, confused. “Are you going someplace fancy?”

“Nah,” says Crowley. “Wouldn’t bother, if I were. Easier to just–” He indicates his clothing, all conjured out of imagination and unearthly matter, with his other hand. “Too fussy, these things.” He holds the tie out to Aziraphale, shakes it by one end. “Did you invent these? Because I swear there’s a miracle involved in this somewhere. Defies the laws of physics.”

The angel’s face lights up. “You’re asking how to tie it!”

“I’m not asking. Just thought, someone must have written it down.”

Aziraphale takes the tie from his hand. He runs it through his fingers, smoothing out wrinkles in the fine fabric. “They are wonderful inventions, aren’t they. Designed for exactly this one purpose. You wouldn’t use this for anything else in the world.”

Crowley, who has witnessed some of the darker sides of human creativity, doesn’t comment. 

“Here,” Aziraphale says, reaching up to set the tie around Crowley’s neck. “I’ll teach you. You can’t really learn it from a diagram, anyway. It’s easier if I show you.”