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aethelflaedladyofmercia · 4 years

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Hey, everyone! I’ve been saying for a bit I want to get some fics from prompts I’ve written onto AO3 but...it’s so hard...ok it’s not hard, Executive Dysfunction is just kicking my butt. I’m going to post some of them to Tumblr today. If you want to help these babies get on AO3, they need: titles, tags, you pestering me in the comments. If you don’t think they’re good enough for AO3 - fair enough, just hit the little heart if they make you smile!

Prompt: Aziraphale reading to Crowley

(Requested by @zadusk and @lyricwritesprose)

“Sorry, can’t help you,” the innkeeper said, “just rented out our last room.”

“What?” Crowley crossed his arms, huffing through his nose. This was Bethlehem all over again. “This town is in the middle of nowhere, it has three inns, how can they all be sold out?”

“I don’t know what to tell you.” The innkeeper shut the ledger. “Everyone’s headed down to London, and we’re on the way. Now. I can offer you a hot meal, and for, let’s say, half the price of a room you can sleep in the stables. The hay loft is clean, apart from the mice—”

“Stablesss!” Crowley hissed, slapping his hand on the counter. “Do I look like someone who sleeps in stables?”

The innkeeper didn’t appear remotely impressed. “You look like someone who is going to be sleeping in a hedge. Looks like a storm tonight. Good evening.” And he spun away, calling out to the cook in the back room.

“Oi!” Crowley shouted. “Get back here, you—!”

“Crowley! Whatever are you doing here?” The familiar voice was half delighted, half scolding. Aziraphale appeared beside him, same white suit as the last time they’d met, top hat tucked under his arm. “I thought I made it clear we shouldn’t see each other so often. Since I opened the shop, it’s been—”

“Yes, I know.” Crowley waved a hand and turned away. “I’m not here for you, Angel, I have actual business in York.”

“Really?” Despite his words, Aziraphale trailed behind him. “How interesting. I’m just returning from York – oh, no, you don’t think they’ve sent you to undo all my work again, do you?”

Crowley snorted. “No bet.” He dropped his voice into a low whisper. “This is why we need to meet up more often. Look at all this time we’re wasting! And now I have to march through the bloody night in the rain because there’s no place to sleep—”

“Oh! Well, I wouldn’t dream of it. You can share my room.”

“Ngk?!” Crowley’s brain crashed into his skull with all the speed and grace of a train wreck. “Mf. Yk. No I can’t – Aziraphale!”

“Oh, my word – obviously, I’m not planning – that!” His voice dropped even lower and he tugged on Crowley’s elbow. “Don’t be crude, dear fellow. I have a room with a bed that I’m not intending to use. You can have it. I just need a chair to sit in while I read.”

“Jgk.” Crowley turned away, taking a deep breath through his nose. It made sense. He could sleep. Aziraphale could read. No getting soaked, or lost in the dark, or needing to fight off highwaymen or anything of the sort. “Fffine. We can. Er. Do that.”

“Jolly good.” He could practically hear the angel straightening his waistcoat. “Now that’s settled. I’ve already had my supper and was about to head up. Unless you’re hungry—”

“No, no, now is fine.” He still couldn’t quite meet Aziraphale’s eyes. “Lead the way.”

The room, it turned out, was nearly as advertised.

A double-sized bed with a straw-tick and a quilt. A little stand with a pitcher of water and bowl for washing up. Windows that could be tightly shuttered to block out some of the city noise.

The only thing missing, really, was the chair.

“Oh.” Aziraphale’s fingers tapped on his book and he glanced around, as if a seat might be hiding in the corner. “Well, er…”

“It’s fine. I can leave.” Crowley turned on his heel and reached for the latch.

“Absolutely not! I won’t hear of it. You get settled and I’ll – ah – I’ll miracle in a chair.” He peered around the narrow room. “Somewhere.”

“Look, I can—”

“No. Miracle yourself a nightgown or whatever it is you need.”

“I—”

“Hush!”

Resigning himself, Crowley waved his clothes into something more comfortable for sleeping and crawled under the blanket. It was…slightly better than sleeping in the stables, he supposed. The straw was lumpy and the sheet covering it coarse, but the pillow was well-stuffed with goose-down, a luxury he could get used to. He shifted onto his back, trying to find a comfortable angle.

Instead, he found Aziraphale, standing beside the bed, staring blankly at the wall. “There…well…it would appear there isn’t room for a chair,” he confessed. “Not one that will fit my, er…my current corporation comfortably, that is.”

Crowley looked at the ceiling. He could sleep up there, but it would mean abandoning the pillow. Or. Or.

“Look, Angel,” he said as casually as he could. You can, um, you can sit on the bed. I’m not going to be offended or anything. It’s fine.”

“No, I couldn’t – couldn’t possibly—”

“Aziraphale. It’s really fine.”

The quilt tugged, folded back, and with a rustle of straw Aziraphale settled into the mattress. He sat straight, stiff, and so close to the edge he might topple off.

Even so, he was alarmingly close.

“You, um. You need the candle?”

“No, my own light will be sufficient, thank you.”

“Yeah. Obviously.” Crowley tossed his glasses onto the little table and waved a finger at the candle, which immediately snuffed out, leaving the room dark except for the soft glow of Aziraphale, gently illuminating his book.

Crowley closed his eyes and prepared to fall asleep.

He turned onto one side. No good, too close to the edge.

He turned the other way, or started to, freezing when he felt how close the angel’s warmth was.

Then he lay on his back again. The whole room fell very, very still.

“Bless it, Aziraphale, will you relax?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I can practically hear your muscles creaking. How am I supposed to all asleep with all that – that tension barely six inches away!”

“I don’t know what you might be referring to. I am – am perfectly relaxed here, reading my book and you – you interrupt with these – these pointless accusations.”

Crowley gave up and turned on his side, facing Aziraphale, giving him as hard a stare as he could manage. “Your book is upside down, Angel.”

“Is it?” He swallowed. “I mean, of course it is. I am training myself to read upside-down text, a highly useful skill, which I’m sure—”

Crowley shut his eyes. “This was a terrible idea.” He sat up, swinging his legs off the bed.

“Where are you going?”

“Look, Aziraphale, neither of us is actually comfortable with this. So I’m just going to head out. If I leave now, I might make it to the next town before the rain starts, and maybe they’ll have a room. You can have this one and—”

“Crowley,” he said, voice much softer than expected. “My dear fellow. I won’t be able to relax knowing you’re out there. I know you won’t be in – in any real danger but…I would rather know that you’re safe.”

He stared ahead, sitting perfectly still in the way that only beings who aren’t really alive can – no breath, no heartbeat, no tiny motions.

Then, slowly, Crowley pulled his legs back under the quilt and lay on his back.

“What’s this book about, anyway?” he asked.

“Aren’t you supposed to be sleeping?”

“It’ll help. Trust me. What is it – poetry? Ancient epics about glorious wars? Not Hamlet again, I hope, that play is a gloomy mess of—”

“No, nothing of the sort. It’s…well, it’s a sort of love story.”

That didn’t sound too bad. “Sort of?”

“Well, yes, it’s more a – a study of the manners and traditions of courtship. Our heroine is the second of five sisters, and there’s a great deal riding on finding them suitable husbands, but her choices are, well…not especially appealing.”

“Does she tell them to go jump in a lake?”

“Not in so many words,” Aziraphale said disapprovingly. “But yes, she has so far turned down two proposals quite bitingly. Although I think she was a bit hasty in her judgement of one of the young men.”

“I like it.” Crowley turned to look at Aziraphale, and found the angel had relaxed, and moved just a little closer. “What’s it called, anyway?”

“Pride and Prejudice.” His fingers tapped against it. “Just released last year. I must try and find the author’s other work when I finish.”

“Well, you’ll have to tell me how it ends.”

“Oh, are you…interested?”

“Hmm,” Crowley settled his head a little further into the pillow. “I do like a good drawing room drama. Perhaps I should pick out a few dresses and spend a year or two back in those circles.”

“As I recall, you were always deceitful and wicked and caused many a scandal.”

“I should hope so. Otherwise, what’s the point?”

Aziraphale smiled down at him, and it made Crowley feel light-headed in a way that had nothing to do with sleep. “Then I imagine you’ll be brilliant at it.” He suddenly turned away, looking at the shuttered window. “Oh! Do you hear that? The rain has started.” The first drops were tapping against the shutters fitfully.

“Good thing I didn’t go out.”

“Yes.” Aziraphale looked at the book again. “Er, would you like me to…to read it to you? Just the first part, until you fall asleep.”

“I…” Crowley cleared his throat. “Yeah. I mean, your voice puts me to sleep half the time anyway, so…”

“Oh, yes, absolutely wonderful. Let me just get the first volume.” He hopped out of bed and hurried over to his jacket, rummaging in the pocket to pull out another hardcover book. When he returned to the bed, it was with almost no self-consciousness, wriggling comfortably against his pillow only a few inches away from Crowley.

“Now, let’s see…yes, here. ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife…’”

It was strange, seeing the angel from this angle, round face slightly lit by his own glow, little smile curving up his lips as the words bubbled out excitedly. His voice rose and fell as he read, trying to paint a picture of Longbourne and Netherfield and the lives of the Bennet sisters. Crowley could get used to it, the look, the sound, the soft familiarity of it all. Not that he was likely to have an opportunity.

He didn’t close his eyes. Not yet.

“‘But I can assure you,’ she added,” Aziraphale was quite enjoying the voice he had chosen for Mrs. Bennet, raising it now in slightly erratic excitement. “‘that Lizzy does not lose much by not suiting his fancy; for he is a most disagreeable, horrid man, not at all worth pleasing.’” He shifted again, raising his arm to better articulate the dialogue. “‘So high and so conceited that there was no enduring him! He walked here, and he walked there, fancying himself so very great! Not handsome enough to dance with!’” He dropped his voice into a vicious hiss. “‘I wish you had been there, my dear, to have given him one of your set downs. I quite detest the man.’”

He glanced to his left, grinning, hoping to see Crowley’s reaction to his bit of acting, but the demon had at some point fallen asleep. He lay half on his back, still facing Aziraphale, shock of red hair across the white pillow. His mouth hung slightly open and something emerged that was almost a snore, but rather too small to really qualify. It was drowned out by the wind and rain outside, rattling the shutters. Now and then, in the distance, thunder rumbled.

“Well. I suppose…yes, you sleep now.” Aziraphale turned to put the book down, thinking to find the second volume and pick up where he’d left off.

“Nf.” Crowley turned onto his side, one arm flinging out towards Aziraphale’s waist. “D’n stp,” he mumbled. “Jus’ gettn gud.”

“Er, are you…awake?” The arm tightened slightly, and Crowley pulled closer, pressing himself against Aziraphale’s side. “Crowley, er, dear…you’re…”

“M’fine.” He sighed, not seeming aware of the world at all. “S’nice.”

For a long moment, Aziraphale stared at the demon who had – had invaded his space. Had settled against him in a most – most awkward and undignified way.

Well. There was really only one thing to do.

Aziraphale slid a little lower against the pillow, until he’d surrounded Crowley in the crook of his arm. “Is that better, dear?”

“St’ry.” But he settled into that space between Aziraphale’s side and his arm with a content sigh, arm now draped across the angel’s chest.

Oh, dear. This is not going to be easy to explain when he wakes up. But that wouldn’t be for several hours, at least, and right now, there was a very small smile on Crowley’s lips.

“Well. Chapter four. ‘When Jane and Elizabeth were alone, the former, who had been cautious in her praise of Mr. Bingley before, expressed to her sister how very much she admired him…’”

Thanks for reading! Pride and Prejudice was initially published in three volumes, in 1813, attributed simply to “The Author of Sense and Sensibility.” I have no idea what was going on in York in 1814 - I mostly needed someplace they could walk to but would take several days - so feel free to attribute whatever historical events you can think of to these dummies!

#good omens fanfiction #good omens fic #ineffable husbands #aziraphale and crowley #there's only one bed #aziraphale and his books #sleepy cuddles #sleepy snusband #short and sweet #fluff #good omens fluff #my writing #writing prompt #good omens prompts

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toomuchofabastard · 3 years

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O Unhappy Dagger

Fandom: Good Omens (TV)

Rating: T for violence and language

Warnings: Major Character Death, tragedy, violence, mind control, implied suicide, bonus happy ending available in linked post

Word count: 3,711 (+ 760)

Fic Summary: Crowley should have known they’d find some other way to punish him. He’d hoped – naïvely, it seemed – that they didn’t have the creativity, the almost-uniquely human sadism, to think up something like this. To realise the one vulnerability that he’d kept nestled in his heart, hidden from view.

This is my fic for @darkomenszine Vol 1! Vol 2 will be available soon if Good Omens darkfic is your thing 😈

READ ON AO3

___

The sign on the door of the bookshop read ‘closed’, but that didn’t stop Crowley.

Of course, it wouldn’t under normal circumstances, but this time was different. Rather than sauntering up to the threshold with a subtle spring in his step and a ready grin for his angel, Crowley’s heart pounded with terror as he approached the entrance to A. Z. Fell & Co. He felt as though some phantom hand had a grip around his throat, applying a pressure so crushing that he couldn’t speak and could barely breathe. What breaths he could draw were rapid with panic. His footsteps rang out against the flagstones as he strode forward – except that they weren’t his footsteps. Oh, it was his body, drawing closer and closer to the familiar doorway. But Hell’s footsteps. Hell’s oppressive malice invading every corner of his mind, and Hell making him grip the object behind his back so tightly that his knuckles hurt.

He should have known they’d find some other way to punish him. He’d hoped – naïvely, it seemed – that they didn’t have the creativity, the almost-uniquely human sadism, to think up something like this. To realise the one vulnerability that he’d kept nestled in his heart, hidden from view.

Tucked behind him, the flames continued to burn. Gripped in his hand back there was a dagger, a dark, cruel-looking thing, not just viciously sharp on its own, but also wreathed in infernal flame. The billows were gnawing away at his back, leaving his rather expensive jacket charred and ragged – not that Hell would give a blessèd fuck about that. In this moment, he didn’t either. There was only a single, dreadful thought clawing at his brain.

Infernal flame could be meant for only one thing. Aziraphale. The only thing that could kill an angel.

Crowley shuddered inwardly with revulsion at the thought. He could actually feel Hell’s evil intent coursing through him, as he ascended the steps and watched his own hand reach for the door handle. Hell’s control had overtaken him so suddenly that he hadn’t even had a chance to fight back. He kept trying to, struggling with every fibre of his being, but to no avail. He could hardly even feel his own corporation, let alone exert control, and seeing it moving against his will was intensely disturbing – violating, even. It was Hell’s way of proving that they could take whatever they wanted from him, just use him as their puppet and then discard him. It made him want to scream, but he couldn’t even do that. He felt himself push the door handle down.

Crowley stepped through the threshold and into the quiet of the bookshop. It took his eyes a few seconds to adjust to the cosy dimness, but then the mountains and spires of books and papers revealed themselves.

Aziraphale stood in the hollow underneath the eastern archway, facing away from Crowley. He looked completely in his element, humming distractedly to himself as he leafed through some old volume. He turned as he heard Crowley shutting the door behind himself.

“Crowley!”

The angel beamed at him, and suddenly the whole room seemed lit up from within, like the sun itself had appeared in their midst. For a brief second, the panic and revulsion in Crowley’s chest was forgotten as the luminosity of Aziraphale’s smile dazzled him. That smile – especially when meant for him – never failed to take his breath away.

Aziraphale’s gaze drifted downwards as he noticed Crowley’s hand tucked behind his back, and the angel’s eyes twinkled, creases forming at their corners as his smile grew even wider. Crowley’s heart lurched again, and the panic returned. He guessed Aziraphale was probably anticipating another box of chocolates, or a nice bottle of wine for them both to share – the sort of surprise Crowley might often reveal with a sly smile, to be met by a paroxysm of delighted wiggles. He was painfully aware of how unlikely it was that Aziraphale would ever even suspect that what was really hidden there was not a doting treat, but a weapon of evil, meant specifically for him.

At his back, the flames had scorched their way through both layers of his jacket and shirt, and were beginning to lick painlessly against the bare skin along his spine. They didn’t leave any marks. Infernal flame could glance off of his corporation just like beads of water off a duck’s back – the perks of being demonic in nature – but Crowley knew it would be devastating to angelic flesh. That knowledge terrified him.

He felt his body start to slink loosely across the room towards the angel, the disobedient muscles and sinews of his legs dragging him involuntarily closer and closer. Run, angel! He tried to scream at Aziraphale, but the words choked in his throat, only echoing emptily inside his mind. His heart was clenched so tight with dread as he approached that he could swear it was no longer beating. Not that Hell needed it to be. Apparently they could twist and use his unwilling body however they liked now, whether it was still functioning or not.

Aziraphale’s eyebrows creased into a puzzled frown as Crowley moved nearer, the smile freezing slightly on his face. The real Crowley would have said something by now, or revealed the gift, or at least returned a crooked grin, rather than the blank expression he could feel was fixed on his face. He was almost surprised the angel couldn’t smell the burning coming from his clothes, but it seemed Aziraphale had eyes only for him.

“What’s wrong, dear boy?” Aziraphale asked as Crowley drew near to him, a light note of concern in his voice.

Angel, it’s not me, Crowley responded desperately inside his head. He felt himself step close. Please run. Please get away from me. Aziraphale stayed where he was. Why wouldn’t he? His trust in Crowley had always been complete, whether Crowley felt he deserved that or not.

Behind his back, Crowley’s fingers flexed on the grip of the dagger and began to draw it out from its hiding place. No no no, Crowley thought. Don’t make me do this. He fought again to regain control of his own arm, but could only watch as it rose menacingly of its own accord.

“Crowley–?” Aziraphale began, sounding shocked, and he was suddenly cut off as Crowley slashed the blade forwards towards his neck.

The chorus of screams in Crowley’s head crescendoed. No!

Aziraphale stumbled backwards out of range – thank Satan – but Crowley found himself quickly attacking again, this time trying for a low, plunging blow to the angel’s stomach. Aziraphale managed to squirm out of the way and the knife sliced instead through the back of his coat, only missing his skin by a hair’s breadth. The acrid stench of burning filled Crowley’s nose again.

“Crowley! What are you doing?” Aziraphale’s voice was aghast as he tried to retreat from Crowley’s oncoming assault. Panic and confusion contorted his face, and he held his hands up in front of him, as if in surrender. “S–Stop!”

Crowley wanted nothing more, but apparently the powers controlling him weren’t going to take that for an answer. The awful marionette of his body continued its relentless advance, numb to his attempts to reassert control, as he pursued the angel speechlessly around the bookshop. He could barely sense anything except for the throbbing echo of his heart as it hammered inside him, and the all-encompassing reek of fire and burning and smoke. That smell sent him almost blind with fear as his worst associations with it invaded his mind. Burning, burning; everything burning. The bookshop was burning, and Aziraphale was lost forever. The world was ending, the ground shaking itself apart, flames spilling up from the cracks. Plummeting downwards through wings of fire. Visions of what infernal flame could do to flesh, the screaming and the sizzling… His own screams reverberated inside his skull.

Aziraphale continued to back away from him, dodging or shrinking from each attack, but Crowley knew – and Aziraphale must also – that he couldn’t evade forever.

He’d never seen Aziraphale look so afraid of him. It was horrific. Just as much as with terror, the angel’s gleaming eyes were wide with disbelief, desperately searching Crowley’s for understanding as he was backed into a corner, clearly unable to conceive that Crowley could do this to him. Even if he could have got them out, Crowley didn’t have the words to reassure him.

The blade in his hand swung up again and speared downwards towards Aziraphale’s face. This time, Aziraphale was able to grab Crowley’s wrist and stop its path, though the point hovered fearfully close to his tearful eyes. Crowley felt the angel’s considerable strength pushing back against him, but the determination he was being filled with was enough to match him. They grappled for a moment.

“Crowley, stop!” Aziraphale begged, his voice cracking with a sob. “Please, I–I don’t want to hurt you!”

Oh fuck, hurt me, angel, Crowley thought, do whatever, just don’t let me–!

His pleas were interrupted as his traitorous body shoved Aziraphale roughly away, freeing himself from the angel’s grip. Aziraphale staggered backwards, and then tripped on the corner of a stack of books and fell down heavily onto his backside. Crowley advanced. Aziraphale still held his hands up in front of him, the heels of his oxfords scraping vainly against the floorboards as he kept trying to shuffle away. Tears were running like dewdrops down his cheeks.

Crowley lunged down onto him and thrust the knife at his breast. Aziraphale caught it again and they struggled against each other, Crowley pressing his whole weight down as the tip hovered perilously above the angel’s chest. The flames from the blade flowed up Crowley’s straining arms until he could feel them licking monstrously at the edges of his cheekbones. His teeth were gritted together. Then, underneath the flicker of the flames, he began to feel a hum vibrating up through him from where Aziraphale’s hands gripped his wrists. His heart pounded harder as he recognised the feeling of divine power – the angel’s – flowing out from the place where they were connected and fusing into him. It stung, but it wasn’t enough yet to smite him – although if Aziraphale kept pressing, he knew it would be.

“Please,” Aziraphale whispered at him. He stared up, distraught, into Crowley’s eyes. Crowley could feel him holding back the full surge of what he was capable of.

Do it, angel!, he tried to yell. Goddammit, just do it!

I’d rather be dead than spill a drop of your blood anyway.

The knife-point inched dangerously closer to the angel’s chest. Aziraphale let out another sob, but his grip on Crowley’s wrists tightened, and then his watery blue irises slowly vanished as brilliant light began to pour out of his eyes.

Crowley felt the light build inside him; scorching hot and bitingly cold at the same time, blinding white. It hurt – fuck, it hurt – but the immense feeling of relief overwhelmed the pain. Hell’s power was ebbing away, banished back into the darkness and out of his body as the light invaded. It was going to be ok. Well, he was going to die now, or whatever the equivalent process was for demons, but that was ok. Dying at Aziraphale’s hands – and in order to protect him, even if from himself – wasn’t such a bad way to go.

Suddenly, an inhuman snarl cut through his thoughts. It took Crowley a moment to realise that it had come from somewhere inside of him. Aziraphale jolted with surprise at the sound and the light wavered for an instant. It was all Hell needed.

With fiery fury, Hell’s control rushed back into Crowley, throwing him almost into a spasm as it gripped his body again. His blood seemed to ignite as it ripped through him. As his mouth opened in a silent scream, the blade in his hands dropped downwards and pierced through the angel’s breast.

No.

A gurgled cry slipped from Aziraphale’s throat, and his eyes widened in shock, his grip on Crowley’s arm clenching.

No.

As quickly as Hell’s power had overtaken Crowley, it vanished, leaving him empty. Crowley thought he could hear a triumphant laugh echo in his head as it fled.

No.

The blinding light faded away from Aziraphale’s eyes, revealing again his blue irises; full of pain, the only light in them now the glimmer of his tears and the reflection of the cursed flames burning in his chest.

For a few moments, Crowley, petrified with shock, could only return his stare. Then suddenly, his senses rushed back to him and he noticed his hands still gripping the fiery blade which was buried in his angel’s body. He hastily ripped it out – causing Aziraphale to let out another strangled cry – and flung it aside.

“Oh shit,” he gasped, scrambling over to cradle Aziraphale in his arms. The angel jerked away as Crowley lifted him into his lap, though whether from the pain of the movement or from fear of him, Crowley didn’t know. He pulled Aziraphale close and cradled his head to him, one hand in the back of his blonde curls. Aziraphale gazed up at him, his expression heartbroken and disbelieving, as he tried to gasp for breath.

“Angel!” Crowley began, finally able to use his voice again. “Angel, I–I didn’t mean to– it–it wasn’t me, I didn’t–… oh, fuck.” His free hand fumbled aimlessly around the wound in Aziraphale’s chest, as if trying to close it up. Golden blood quickly coated his palm and smeared messily across Aziraphale’s waistcoat, but worse was the infernal glow that smouldered at the edges of the wound, slowly infecting its way into the angel’s being. Deep down, Crowley knew that the damage was already done. God, how could he have done this?

“I’m sorry,” he gasped at Aziraphale. “I’m so sorry. It–it wasn’t me!” He didn’t know how else to explain it. “Hell, they– I– … I’m so sorry, angel.”

Slowly, a flush of understanding dawned in Aziraphale’s eyes, and the horror faded, but then they quickly scrunched closed, his face twisting as another spasm of pain convulsed through him. Crowley could only hold him close until it had passed.

Aziraphale coughed weakly and his eyes opened again. “It–it’s alright,” he stuttered, and then reached a trembling hand up to caress the side of Crowley’s face. Crowley’s heart flipped as the angel’s fingertips brushed lightly against his cheek. “Crowley…” Aziraphale murmured. His voice was already growing distant, the light in his eyes beginning to dim.

“No, sshsssh, don’t… don’t try to talk,” Crowley gulped, absently stroking the angel’s forehead. He clasped Aziraphale’s hand in his and squeezed it tight. “It’s ok. It’s gonna be ok, just– just hold on, yeah?”

Would it? His heart pounding in his chest knew otherwise, and Aziraphale didn’t look fooled either.

The angel was suddenly seized with another fit of agony, and this time a few tiny shining flecks of blood appeared on his lips as he coughed and spluttered. A poorly-stifled groan left his mouth between the wheezing breaths.

Crowley cast his eyes around the room desperately as Aziraphale writhed in his arms, distractedly pressing the angel’s knuckles to his lips and rubbing his fingers with his thumb, as if that would do anything to ease his pain. There was a hole ripped in his chest, burning him up from the inside. Shitshitshit. There had to be something he could do. He could fix this. Somehow. He had to. Come on! He couldn’t lose him like this.

“Crowley…” Aziraphale’s voice drifted weakly up to him again. Crowley looked down and met his watery gaze. Despite the pain, a look of peace seemed to settle on the angel’s face. A slight smile lifted the corners of his mouth and his eyes, fixed on Crowley, shone with affection, even as they dimmed further.

“I love you,” Aziraphale whispered tenderly up at him.

“No, angel, don’t say that,” Crowley hissed back. He didn’t like how final that sounded. “H–hold on, come on, you have to stay with me.” He shifted and clutched the angel closer.

Aziraphale blinked up at him like he hadn’t even heard. Then his face darkened as if in thought, his brow creasing briefly into a frown and his concerned gaze scanning Crowley’s face, before he spoke again.

“I forgive you.”

His voice, though shaky, was earnest and meaningful, full of empathy. A single tear overflowed from his eyes and slid down his still-smiling cheek.

Crowley could only shake his head, mouthing wordless no’s at the angel. He faintly felt matching tears streaming down his own face. Damn him. Dying in his arms, and he was still the one trying to offer comfort. Blessed, perceptive bastard. He knows I’ll always blame myself for this.

Even as Aziraphale’s eyes remained fixed on him, Crowley could see the focus in them wavering, dwindling away. The interval between each gasped breath the angel tried to draw in was growing longer. A precious few seconds seemed to pass like an entire lifetime, and then the gasps stopped altogether, and the light inside him finally faded away into nothing. Aziraphale went still.

“No, please,” Crowley begged. “Stay with me, angel.” Aziraphale didn’t respond.

“Come on! Aziraphale!” Crowley yelled, and shook him angrily, panting with the desperation for a response. Aziraphale’s body lolled limply. Crowley stared at the angel’s sightless eyes and something within him seemed to collapse, the anger fleeing as a wave of grief came crashing, tearing through him.

“Don’t go,” he whimpered, clasping at the side of Aziraphale’s face. His voice shook and he felt his lower lip begin to tremble uncontrollably. “Please don’t go.”

It’s too late. Crowley’s face screwed up with pain as the thought broke upon him, and he found himself crumpling, pressing his forehead close to the angel’s as choked sobs began to wrack his body. “Don’t leave me,” he snivelled quietly into him. No.

“Please!” He suddenly jolted upright and screamed up at the sky in anguish. “Don’t–…” He choked again, staring at the ceiling. Then he looked back down at Aziraphale’s body, slumped loosely in his arms, and his voice became terribly small, almost child-like. “Please don’t take him from me.”

Whatever reply he had been hoping for, none came. The bookshop was almost eerily silent around him, no sound but his own breaths echoing throughout the now empty and cold-seeming space. No one was listening to his calls, as ever. He was abandoned, cast out. There was only one person who had ever truly cared for him, and now… They’d made him kill the only person he’d ever… ever…

His eyes ran compulsively up and down the angel’s body and face again. He felt himself trembling and starting to hyperventilate, and a grief like something inside him was shattering, as he finally collapsed into Aziraphale, burying his face in his chest, and howled. He clutched brokenly at him, rocking himself through the pain, and squeezing so tight it was like he was trying to merge the angel into his own being. Wrenching, wretched sobs forced their way out of him, muffled by the angel’s breast, his whole body convulsing with the strain, and along with the cries came whimpered fragments of words; pleases and no’s and angels that tumbled feebly out of him. He had no other words left to say. He just wept – pressing his body against Aziraphale’s, with his hands gripping him close and his face burrowed into the side of his neck – until he could cry no more. And then he stayed that way for a long time.

◥|⧗|◤

Some weeks later, a dove managed to find its way into the bookshop – probably through an open window left forgotten – and flitted about in the upstairs rafters.

The fluttering of wings was enough to stir Crowley from his stupor. His closed eyelids slid sluggishly open, revealing serpentine irises dull with pain. He lay, unmoving, for several minutes on top of Aziraphale’s body. In his mind, he was trying to muster up something to think, but the grief was so crushing that it was as though all conscious thought had just been bled out of him into the dirt. He was nothing but pain.

Eventually, he slowly lifted his head and looked once more at Aziraphale’s face. In the time they’d lain there, a fine layer of dust had settled across the room, coating the angel’s body as well as his own. Aziraphale’s glazed eyes were shrouded underneath its grey film, staring up at the ceiling. It hurt to see.

It was just the husk, Crowley told himself. Only his Earthly corporation. Everything that had been his angel was long gone.

It still hurt.

Achingly, Crowley peeled himself off of Aziraphale and lurched to his knees. Looking down, he noticed the smears of golden blood – now dried to peeling flakes – all across his necktie, jacket and sleeves, mirroring the angel’s chest. His hands itched with it too. There wouldn’t be enough water in the world to wipe the feeling away.

He still had some holy water somewhere.

The thought registered suddenly, without prompting, and without emotion. Oh. Yeah. His ‘exit solution’. A way out… and maybe a way back to him.

Crowley considered that. It could be that there was no life after death for their kind, only emptiness and nothingness, but he realised that he didn’t much care either way anymore. He had a penance to pay. And he was ready to join Aziraphale, in whatever lay beyond. He nodded to himself. Yes. He’d made him wait long enough already.

Still feeling empty inside, he bent down close over Aziraphale.

“I’m coming, angel,” he whispered to him, his voice hoarse. “Wherever you are… I’m coming to you.”

He placed one final, soft-lipped, lingering kiss on Aziraphale’s forehead. He paused against him for one final moment, eyes closed, taking shaky but even breaths. Then he straightened, and rose, and then turned and headed off, in search of a tartan thermos.

◥|⧗|◤

Need a happy ending? No prob, check out the bonus one here [tumblr link]. 💙

#my fanfiction #good omens #major character death #suicide tw #whump #aziraphale!whump #crowley!whump #angst #dark omens #long post

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ineffable-endearments · 3 years

Text

AO3

Angels sprang into existence fully formed. They weren’t like humans exactly, but they were made of a lot of the same stuff. God’s imagination, for a start. They weren’t imbued with all the same instincts that humans would be, didn’t come equipped with neurobiology and other such baggage, but at their cores were some similar experiences - love, anger, wonder, disgust, desire, fear. And each angel, for reasons no one understands, was a little bit different from the last.

This, some would argue, caused the Rebellion and the Fall. Suddenly, angel-kind was divided. Where they had previously understood no real division aside from their own organizational rankings, the angels of Heaven were now defined by their Fallen counterparts, and vice versa.

The Fallen were changed fundamentally. Their dive into the sulfuric pits of what would one day become the Earth’s Hell twisted their bodies until they took on the aspects of the Earth’s beasts, a reminder that they were now to view themselves as lesser than angels and, someday, humans. Their metaphysical traces changed into something angels would be able to identify (and hate). They were even, it seemed, injected with a newfound desire for chaos.

And yet.

They didn’t lose all their memories, nor did they lose free will. The remains of what the Fallen once were still existed, at their cores, charred and far worse for wear but intact all the same. The beasts they became still had the same emotional capabilities - love, anger, wonder, disgust, desire, fear. And each of them was still a little bit different from the last.

However, each of them was left with a chasm of emptiness that resulted from losing Heaven. And exploiting that chasm is how the Devil came to dominate Hell with nothing but disgust and anger and fear. Most demons did their best to snuff out their desires, their loves, their senses of wonder. After all, they had been put beneath such experiences, and such vulnerabilities would be used against them.

Still, the tiny embers that could flare into those experiences are inside them to this day, as they’re inside angels, as they’re inside humans. Either God didn’t want them gone, or She didn’t believe they should be taken, or She couldn’t take them.

Crowley has always, deep down, secretly wanted to be special. He'd never say it out loud, not with the mocking tone the word has been given, but it's true.

God supposedly loved all of Her creations, but that...wasn’t what Crowley had been looking for, exactly. Not even from the start. Her love had been sorely missed, of course, when it had been withdrawn, but there was something more Crowley had sought. If You feel the same about all of us, then why did You make us different? And if You’d love all of us no matter our differences, then why are there some things we’re not allowed to do? Can I be loved not regardless of who and what I am, but because of it? Perhaps these were the seeds of pride. Thousands of years later, people would say, “Pride goes before the Fall.”

Eve had been a bit of an experiment.

It sounds cold to put it like that. But at the time, Crowley - then Crawly - hadn’t known Adam or Eve or humanity and its nature. He’d just known God had given somebody else a chance after She’d rejected half her angels, and he’d wanted to see what She’d do if the humans rebelled against Her will, too. It was a brilliant way to achieve the objective of his mission and satisfy his own personal curiosity. What he’d felt on watching the humans get exiled hadn’t exactly been regret, since his continued torture-free existence depended on his ability to “make trouble” and he also wasn’t the one who had decided to mete out the punishment, but there’d been an inkling of kinship. Sympathy.

Then there’d been the angel at the gate. Over the next several millennia, Crowley would discover that his desire to be special had not been burned out of him.

He satisfied that desire in complicated plans for Hell, both in proving his wiles against humans and in grifting his Hellish bosses. Another way to satisfy it, Crowley discovered, was Aziraphale.

Aziraphale had expected him to act like an enemy, but had remained polite anyway. And when Crowley surprised Aziraphale, the angel was genuinely delighted. He didn’t have to pretend not to be a demon. But he didn’t have to conform to Hell’s expectations, either. Though there was still a great deal of hiding to do, Crowley got to make more of his own personal choices with Aziraphale than he’d ever been allowed before.

Aziraphale would explain he didn’t believe in choice for angels and demons because, factually, they weren’t supposed to have choices. But he’d given Crowley one. He’d wanted Crowley to have it.

It isn’t merely the burn of desperation that draws Crowley toward Aziraphale. He isn’t a rat sniffing around for discarded food. No, he’s genuinely fascinated by this stubborn piece of Heaven who is somehow both the worst and the best angel at the same time. Aziraphale is a comfort and a curiosity and a delight, a cornerstone for Crowley’s experience here on Earth. Where Crowley was supposed to reject humanity, Aziraphale had introduced him to the pleasures of the world. Where Crowley was supposed to ignore every trace of his consideration for others, Aziraphale had rewarded him for being gentle. Where Crowley was supposed to wring the need for comfort out of himself, Aziraphale had been there to offer a wing, a meal, a smile, a bottle of whisky.

And even now, even through the haze of fear, Aziraphale...wants him. He wants Crowley. He wants the bits of Crowley that don’t fit into Hell and he wants the bits that didn’t fit into Heaven. In other words, with Aziraphale, Crowley gets to be special. That tiny ember hasn’t gone away. Aziraphale has kept it warm and dry and safe.

Please, Crowley can’t say out loud. Please let me have more. Please keep wanting me. Even before the Fall, She didn’t want me like you. We didn’t have secrets together.

There is a question of what want means. What kind of intimacy? It doesn’t have the same meaning to supernaturals as it does to human people. Although Crowley is open to trying it all in due time, the only important thing he really knows is that he wants to be close, to wrap around Aziraphale and bask in his warmth.

After Armageddon, after the end of the old world and the start of a new one, Crowley gets that chance. He starts out holding the angel gently, but Aziraphale presses further and further into his embrace. Crowley knows he’s wanted, has known for ages. He isn’t quite prepared for how much.

They breathe, like humans. They’re warm, like humans. Those embers they’ve had at their cores for so long play together, safe between the pair of them. And they don’t move for days.

#good omens #good omens fanfiction #ineffable husbands #ineffable partners #ineffable spouses

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infinitevariety · 3 years

Text

May Your Days Be Merry

Having never been able to celebrate previously, Aziraphale and Crowley decide to embrace the festive season and make the most of their first December together since the world didn’t end.

Chapter Twenty Three: Love (AO3)

Secrets are revealed when Aziraphale pops by Crowley's flat unexpectedly.

Crowley is bored. It’s a few too many hours early to head to the bookshop. He and Aziraphale have spent time together every day this month, and with the visitors they had yesterday Crowley wants to give Aziraphale time to decompress and be alone with his books.

Which is why Crowley is lounging on the sofa in his flat, his second favourite Christmas film playing on the TV and music blaring from another room. He’s not paying attention to either of them, instead playing a festive edition of Candy Crush on his phone and absent-mindedly sipping on his drink.

Crowley’s eyes glance to the time and he curses internally. It’s still too early to leave. Of course it’s still too early. He only checked the time two minutes previously. He focuses even harder on the little candy canes, Christmas trees, baubles, and bells.

The noise of the TV, music, and game, along with Crowley’s determination to distract himself, in hindsight, is a mistake.

“Crowley?” Aziraphale’s voice is loud in an effort to be heard over the various devices, and Crowley suspects it’s not the first time Aziraphale has said his name.

As his eyes move from his phone screen to Aziraphale, Crowley jumps up from the sofa and immediately panics. He wasn’t expecting this. He snaps his fingers, lowering the volume on the TV, music player, and his phone to a more sedate level. Then he glances around the room, remembering the state of his entire flat.

“Crowley,” repeats Aziraphale.

“I can explain!”

“I don’t think you need to, my dear.” Aziraphale isn’t looking at Crowley. His eyes roam over the room as he continues to speak. “I suspected you might be giving me some time to myself, but I missed you. So thought I’d pop by. There was no answer when I knocked so I…”

“Barged in?” Crowley completes for him.

That, at least, draws Aziraphale’s attention. He turns to look at Crowley with soft eyes and a tilted head.

“There’s no need to get defensive, dear. I think this is lovely.”

Crowley physically cringes. “Of course you do.”

“Ah,” says Aziraphale. A look of understanding crossing his face. “The problem isn’t that I like it, it’s that I now know that you like it.”

Aziraphale draws closer to Crowley, smiling. Crowley avoids Aziraphale’s eye. Instead, he looks around at his flat.

At the Christmas tree set up in the corner, with glittery baubles and flashing coloured lights. At the Let it Snow banner hung across the doorway. At the red neon Hohoho sign on his coffee table. At the fairy lights around his television. At the TV screen where Mark is confessing is love to Juliet on a series of signs. At the rapidly cooling mug of hot chocolate sitting by his phone. At himself, wearing a black jumper with candy cane striped words on it declaring Crowley to be Festive AF.

They are silent for several long seconds as Rocking Around the Christmas Tree plays from the other room. Then Aziraphale reaches out to Crowley, grasping his hand and squeezing. Despite himself, Crowley feels reassured by the gesture.

“It’s stupid,” mumbles Crowley as he looks down at his woolly sock clad feet.

“If you think this is stupid you must have hated spending time at the bookshop with me all month.”

“No, angel—” Crowley quickly raises his head to look at Aziraphale, who’s smiling back at him.

“I know you haven’t, Crowley. I know you’ve been having a wonderful month doing festive things with me. I already know you like Christmas.”

Crowley shrugs, but doesn’t speak. He doesn’t count it as conceding the point, but he also knows Aziraphale doesn’t need him to.

“Now, what’s an angel got to do to get a mulled wine around here? I know you must have some on the go—I can smell it.”

“I’ll go fetch you one.” Crowley smiles. “Get comfy on the sofa, maybe we can watch a film?”

“What film is this?” asks Aziraphale, looking at the screen, where Judy is leaning in to kiss John. “It looks nice.”

“Oh, no, that’s just some nonsense rubbish, I wasn’t even really watching it. We’ll find something else,” says Crowley dismissively. Aziraphale might have realised Crowley is fond of Christmas but he can’t find out one of his favourite Christmas films is Love Actually.

He wanders to the kitchen, and by the time Crowley comes back with two steaming glasses of mulled wine, Aziraphale is curled up under one of the blankets unwrapping a chocolate coin. He also has his Santa hat on.

“Nice hat,” says Crowley as he hands Aziraphale his drink.

“Well, I had to match you, my dear.”

Crowley’s eyes widen as he absently reaches up to confirm that, yes, he put his reindeer antlers on this morning. Aziraphale, the beautiful bastard, just beams up at him and wiggles with joy.

“What do you fancy watching, angel?” Crowley scrolls through the Christmas selection on Netflix, hoping for inspiration or for something to catch Aziraphale’s eye.

And something does catch Aziraphale’s eye. Just nothing on the TV.

“Are those my presents?” asks Aziraphale innocently.

Crowley turns to look at what Aziraphale has seen. Off to the side and poorly hidden under a side table are several Christmas gift bags in various sizes. Crowley hasn’t bothered to hide them away properly, because Aziraphale wasn’t supposed to have come over.

“Whether they’re your gifts or not—” And really, who else’s are they going be, when they exchanged gifts with their friends yesterday? “—they aren’t being opened until the 25th.”

“Or tomorrow,” counters Aziraphale, “if we stay up until midnight.”

“Don’t open all your presents while I’m asleep!”

“Don’t go to sleep, then.”

“Or you could sleep with me.”

“I—” Aziraphale seems lost for words.

“I just meant—” Crowley fervently hopes they’re on the same page about this. “—sleep.”

“I—” Some tension seems to leave Aziraphale’s posture. “Yes. Perhaps we can try that.”

“Want to try one of these?” Keen to break the tension fully, Crowley holds out a tray of Ferrero Rocher.

Aziraphale squints at him suspiciously. “Absolutely not.”

Crowley laughs. “More for me, then.” He unwraps one of the perfectly normal chocolates and chomps delightedly on it.

“I’m going to get another mulled wine,” says Aziraphale as he stands up and wanders off to the kitchen.

While he’s gone, Crowley finally settles on a film (Trolls Holiday Special—Aziraphale is going to hate it), and works his way through three more Ferrero Rocher.

“Crowley?” Aziraphale calls from the back of the room.

“Hmm?” Crowley gets up and wanders over to him.

Aziraphale is standing at the card holder Crowley put up a week or so ago, after his windowsill got full. In his hands are a couple of cards that he’d pulled down to read. Crowley peers over his shoulder to see. One is from Roger, the young bloke in one of the lower flats, and the other is from Florence, the old lady who lives directly below Crowley’s. What both cards have in common, Crowley now realises, it that they include a message thanking Crowley for his card.

“Crowley,” repeats Aziraphale, “did you send all of your neighbours Christmas cards?”

“Ngk—yes,” admits Crowley.

Aziraphale turns and looks up at Crowley in wonder. Crowley knows the jig is up. It’s time to be honest.

“You were wrong, earlier,” he tells Aziraphale. “I don’t like Christmas.”

Aziraphale eyebrows draw together and he looks unaccountably sad for a moment. But only for a moment, because Crowley isn’t finished.

“I love Christmas. I told myself I was doing all this stuff for you—the decorating, the films, the traditions… and I was, at first. Making sure you’re so happy is my mission in life. Then, I don’t know exactly when, and I’m sure not even God knows why, but at some point, I just started enjoying it all myself, too. It’s gaudy and full of friendliness and I’ll never like tinsel, but… it’s actually a lot of fucking fun.” Crowley shrugs, not knowing how to follow up his admission.

“I love you.” Aziraphale says it urgently, like it’s been living inside of him just waiting for the right moment to make its escape. Maybe it has. “I love you for loving Christmas, and for so much more. For everything.”

Crowley smiles. If this is what happens when he admits how much he likes something, maybe he should declare his love for dumb shit more often.

“I love puppies and kittens, too.”

Aziraphale rolls his eyes.

“Oh, and helping old ladies across the road.”

“Shut up,” says Aziraphale, before pulling Crowley into a hug.

#good omens #good omens fic #ineffable husbands #ineffable husbands fic #ace ineffable husbands #ineffably festive #fic: may your days be merry #2020 advent ficlet challenge #i wrote this

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charlottemadison42 · 4 years

Text

Timepiece

A new short story on AO3, 2.3k words, rated G, dedicated to the very dear @musegnome!

----

Crowley got a new watch at least once a year.

He liked them sharp and cutting-edge, bespoke and exclusive and expensive. By the time anyone else heard of the craftsman or the brand, he was ready to cast it off and find something better. From the first decorative clunkers of the early 1500's to the quartz revolution, he was always up to speed on the best of the best. Connoisseurs in Geneva and Tokyo and Dubai kept a lookout on his behalf these days. When they called, doubtless raving about a new mechanism or a new maker, he always picked up.

He didn't think about why he liked watches. If anyone had ever asked Crowley (nobody did) he'd have shrugged. His corvid instinct to collect shiny status markers was reason enough.

(And if every skip of the second hand offered proof of his progress away from the fourteenth century -- one step farther from Golgotha, farther from the flood, farther from the Fall -- that thought was seldom admitted entry to the fortress of his mind. Crowley looked forward, not back.)

Aziraphale had owned a total of four watches in his life thus far.

He liked the kind of timepiece that required winding by hand, with a little key, although he often forgot to. Luckily when he needed to know the exact time, his watch obliged him anyway.

It was conceivable that Aziraphale enjoyed the sensation of suddenly remembering, "Oh! I forgot to wind my pocketwatch!" because he delighted in having some small duty to do, a simple task at which he could not fail, a way he could help the world tick along.

For -- what was a mechanical pocketwatch, if not an elegant dynamic sculpture of the universe as humans experienced it? Aziraphale waxed philosophical about such things in the comfort of his favorite reading chair, while he smoothed the shiny etched surface with his thumb til he knew every groove. He meditated often and fondly about his watch as a Metaphor for Things.

(But the angel never asked where it might be leading him. Aziraphale looked over his shoulder at history with a loving melancholy sigh, watchfully guarding over the sum of human experience. But he did not look ahead. He hated endings.)

+++

Warlock Dowling went through an especially rambunctious phase at age six. He was old enough that his parents' neglect was starting to emerge from the background of his young reality into a Phenomenon that he Noticed. And the more Warlock Noticed it, the more he Did Not Like it, and he took it out on everyone within reach.

Nanny Ashtoreth's attempts to dress him resulted in arching and kicking and flailing fists. Brother Francis's nature walks ended with tantrums in the dirt. Warlock began to enjoy ruining things when he learned that he could: tearing up his own drawings, ripping leaves off the tulips and ferns, pouring grape juice on white linens, breaking toys. It made him feel powerful.

"Hell could learn a thing or two from this one," Crowley muttered.

"I expect they're going to, since he'll be running the show if we fail to do something about this," Aziraphale snapped in reply.

Neither angel nor demon had been prepared for the inexhaustible physical frenzy of an outraged six-year-old Antichrist.

But when Warlock finally smashed Aziraphale's pocketwatch on a paving stone in a fit of rage, the poor child broke through something else, too.

Warlock stared at the pieces of glass and the crushed face on the ground, at the minute hand all bent out of shape. He looked up at Brother Francis. He looked at Nanny, running across the lawn toward them.

And he started bawling. ...

[Click through to read more or finish on AO3]

Warlock knew that watch was special. He knew it was very old and delicate. In fact, the watch was the reason he'd learned the definitions of "fragile" and "breakable" and "irreplaceable." Once he had command of those words, he'd been allowed to hold it while seated on Brother Francis's lap. He'd even learned how to wind it, awestruck by the action and the shine. He always included the watch when he drew pictures of Brother Francis, attached by a chain of lumpy circles to the pocket of his baggy trousers.

Now the fragile breakable irreplaceable thing lay in pieces on the garden path.

Aziraphale was terrible at hiding his feelings. He was shocked and saddened, and it showed all over his face, though he did his best to suppress it. Every time Warlock looked up at him, the child cried harder.

Aziraphale was rapidly realizing that if he miracled his watch back together, even discreetly, Warlock was old enough that he would notice its reappearance. Warlock noticed everything. So the watch would have to stay at home, unworn, for several years at least -- perhaps until the end of the world. It had survived the Blitz, the trenches, the Seven Years' War, the Crimean War, and a number of unfortunate dining mishaps (though it was perhaps helped along by a few frivolous miracles). Aziraphale had not gone without it since he purchased it from the watchmaker himself back in 1689, in a dim workshop on the outskirts of Zürich. The angel felt some epoch ending. Endings made him sad. Especially these days, when they reminded him of The End.

But Crowley was there; of course Crowley was there. She scooped Warlock up in her arms even though he was getting big for that. She held him tight as he sobbed.

"Here's a how-de-do," she groaned, assessing the situation.

Aziraphale had been crouched over the ruined watch for so long now that his knees were stiff. He stood up and sighed heavily. "I suppose it's...it's only a watch," he said, dispirited. "I shouldn't grow so attached to worldly goods. ...And it's an opportunity to teach compassion, model forgiveness, and discuss respect for others' things, as well." He was letting the accent slip in his sadness, but Warlock was as far from paying attention as he could be.

"He's six! He can't track all that!" huffed Crowley.

"Well he's certainly tracking the bit about crushing the world under his heel!"

"Nnnnnrrrrrrgh," Crowley snarled in frustration. She was caught between her mandate to teach Warlock to be fantastically evil and her fear that succeeding would bring about the end of the world.

In the end, though, Warlock surprised them both by doing something entirely human, entirely his own. He cried himself out for several minutes on the lawn, and once he could speak again, he asked Aziraphale:

"Brother Francis, why did I do that?"

Then he looked to his Nanny, silently repeating the question to her with his bleary eyes.

Crowley and Aziraphale looked at one another, blinking.

"Um," said Crowley.

"...Why d'you think ye did, me lad?" asked Aziraphale, retreating from his hurt feelings into his ridiculous bucktoothed persona.

Warlock sniffed. "I don't know. I din't think it would feel like that." He squatted and poked the exposed paper of the clock face.

Crowley knelt down next to him. "Can you put it back together?" she asked.

"No."

"So what do you think you should do now?"

"Nnnno!"

"That's not even...nngh." Crowley looked helplessly to the angel. But they were both at a loss.

"Can we go inside?" Warlock finally pleaded.

And so they did. As Nanny and Warlock walked away, Crowley restored the pocketwatch with a snap of her fingers without even looking back. It was good as new once again.

But Aziraphale knew that its time had come. He picked it up, enjoying the way it fit just so in his palm -- the comfort of a handful of crystallized time -- and then he clicked it shut and sent it back home to the bookshop, where it would have to stay for now.

That evening, just before supper, Warlock showed up on the porch of the greenhouse with Nanny in tow. His little face was wrinkled up in concern and contrition and other Very Grown-Up Feelings as he presented Brother Francis with a card. It featured a colored pencil drawing of all three of them holding hands, and yellow triangles on the ground to represent the afternoon's event. The unsteady lettering inside read "soRRY for yuor wAtch From wARLock."

"I made you this," said Warlock, and he handed over the most awkward little handcrafted project. It was roughly disc-shaped, and it featured play-doh, pipe cleaners, and glitter glue. The face was sharpied directly onto the half-dried crumbling clay, and the chain was made of taped rings of construction paper.

It plucked every heartstring the angel had. He melted on the spot.

Crowley rolled her eyes as Aziraphale poured out fond words of thanks for his new watch and forgiveness for the old one, embracing Warlock between tearful phrases. But Crowley also had her least cruel smirk on, the one that was very nearly affectionate.

Before they left, Crowley also noted in a low voice that there had been no more trouble with kicking and screaming and tearing up houseplants today. Warlock had been upset twice, but had managed to calm himself down without help both times.

After she took Warlock away, Aziraphale tried to miracle protection over his new handmade treasure so that the play-doh wouldn't crumble and the paper wouldn't crush -- only to find that Crowley had already done so.

+++

Two nights later, on a crosstown bus bound for Soho, Aziraphale noticed that the lanky redheaded passenger in front of him happened to leave behind a small shopping bag when he disembarked. Aziraphale folded up his newspaper and slipped into the empty seat to take a closer look. Inside was a wooden box wrapped in plain black paper. It was marked "AZ" in black ink that was only detectable by its slightly more reflective shine.

Aziraphale opened it right there, and of course, of course it was a new pocketwatch. From Crowley. Crowley knew watches. And Crowley knew Aziraphale.

It was hard to date this one exactly, but he estimated the 1820's, and English-made; it was thin and modern and elegant, much lighter than the other. It was in excellent condition, although pleasantly worn with time. He spent the rest of the bus ride home admiring it, listening to it, growing familiar with the new face, wondering who it might have belonged to before. When he reached his stop, he slipped it into the waistcoat pocket meant for the purpose, and he felt like a new angel.

Gifts. How strange. A gift from Warlock, and a gift from Crowley. Gifts of time, restored.

Perhaps there was still time enough before the end of the world. Perhaps there might be time, after.

Aziraphale set the new pocketwatch down on his desk back at the bookshop, right next to his old favorite of several hundred years and his handcrafted masterpiece from Warlock. He had never thought to own more than one pocketwatch at a time. Now he had three.

He picked up the telephone to call the responsible party and offer sincerest thanks, but after some dithering, he decided not to. Crowley hated thanks. Crowley could even be endangered by thanks, if the two of them weren't careful.

Perhaps, instead, Brother Francis could show the new timepiece to Warlock and Nanny in the morning. He could explain how precious this watch was, since it was a gift from a friend. He could say that breaking something irreplaceable was sad, but it was not the end, not as long as the world spun on. He could talk about the way new things follow old ones -- and though the new things might be different, they could be lovely too. New things were worth holding out hope for, and worth learning to treasure, given time.

And after explaining all of that to Warlock, he could give Crowley a wink.

Which would communicate his thanks for the gift far better than any phone call.

+++

Over the next few years, Crowley found himself browsing for new wristwatches more and more often in his spare time. He bought them at a faster clip, too -- three in the year Warlock turned seven, six the year after that. Each was sturdier than the last, made to withstand impacts and temperatures and pressure that no watch was likely to encounter in the wild. But Crowley could feel the world running down, he could see the future he looked forward to contracting into nothing, and he burned with protective instincts as everything in him rebelled.

Meanwhile, Aziraphale spent more and more time with his books, especially history and memoirs. As he looked back over the story of humanity that he loved, the story he'd spent so much time recording and remembering, he felt it all spinning up to something awful indeed: The End. When Warlock turned nine, Aziraphale turned to his books of prophecy, feeling no small amount of distress. Looking ahead was painful for him, especially now. The future was unsafe, it was wild, it was ineffable, and unfortunately it looked to be very very short. Aziraphale did not forget to wind his pocketwatch anymore. It was a tool now more than a treasure, as The End drew near. It seemed important to remember what time it was, these days.

+++

As it happened, Aziraphale almost didn't notice when his fourth watch joined the collection.

In his defense, it was rather a busy day.

And since the new pocketwatch was identical to the one that Crowley had given him, down to the last molecule, it was unsurprising that making the connection took the angel a little time.

But some weeks after the End of All Things didn’t quite, Aziraphale realized that the watch in his waistcoat pocket was a gift as well. And this time it wasn't from Crowley.

When the thought occurred to him, sitting in his favorite chair in his restored bookshop, Aziraphale gasped faintly and set aside his well-worn copy of Now We Are Six. He had been revisiting children's literature lately for some reason. The Just William books had set him on a roll.

"Crowley, dear," he said.

"Nnnnghm?" Crowley hummed from the couch, where he sprawled limbless and relaxed as a squashed spider might if it were sort of into being squashed.

"We really ought to go and visit Tadfield sometime soon, don't you think?"

"Ngk."

"I have a great deal to thank Adam for, after all. And we should check in on everyone."

"Mmf."

Aziraphale palmed the fourth watch he had ever owned and ran his thumb over the back. "Do you think a wristwatch would be an appropriate belated birthday gift for someone Adam's age?" he asked absently.

Crowley windmilled himself up off the couch and sauntered over to give Aziraphale a peck on the cheek. "Hell if I know. Prob'ly. Maybe. More tea?"

"Yes, it's about that time, isn't it? Thank you, darling. Ever so."

#good omens #promptposal #aziraphale and crowley #aziraphale #crowley #fanfic #ao3 #crowley's ridiculous deep sea diving watch was one of many #warlock #nanny ashtoreth #brother francis #good omens anniversary

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wanderingalicewrites · 4 years

Text

Come Together

(Also on AO3)

This is the second fic I promised for Wolfjackle, who is amazing. It’s also probably the closest I’ve ever come to NSFW (even though it never actually reaches that territory). Thanks for giving me this prompt. It was exactly what I needed to write in order to get myself back on track with my ongoing fic. <3

---

It is the night After. After the apocalypse. After escaping both Heaven and Hell. After eleven years of fear. After six millenia of Waiting for the End. After. And yet, also Before. Before every last moment of the rest of their lives.

Crowley sprawls on Aziraphale’s couch, drunk on nothing so much as freedom. Aziraphale watches him from the chair by his desk, reveling in light in those uncovered eyes. He’s always loved the yellow of them. It’s so bright. Like dandelions. Like the sun.

“Ah, Crowley,” he says, hesitating even now. Because it is After, but it is also Before. That moment of uncertainty at the top of a cliff. Do you jump? If you do, will you fall? Or will you fly?

“Angel?” Crowley watches him, sun-bright eyes on his face and not the way his fingers turn the ring over and over on his finger - the telltale sign of his nerves.

“I- that is- ah,” it is hard to begin, when he has spent so long waiting. When so much of his life has been of fear. Crowley waits, as he ever has, the very soul of patience.

“There’s something-” Aziraphale starts, then stops again, looking down. He does not know how to break six thousand years of silence. He stands, needing to move, hoping the motion will knock the words loose inside of him. “I-”

“It’s alright,” Crowley tells him, smiling gently. “I can wait. Go as slow as you like.”

“No.” His vehemence surprises them both. “No, I’m done with waiting. With going slow. Hiding what I- what I feel. What I want. I don’t want to wait one second more.”

“Then what do you want, Angel?” Crowley asks, a careful hope in his words.

Aziraphale goes to him and takes him by the hand, pulling him up until he’s standing bare inches away. Crowley freezes there, eyes wide, not daring to move. Afraid of spooking him should he come too close or move too fast. It breaks his heart to see it. He never wants to be the cause of Crowley’s fear. Never again.

He takes a deep breath, there on the edge of the cliff between what is After and what is Before. And then, he makes the jump.

“I want you.”

He pauses, and the world does not shatter. No clash of thunder or flash of lightning. No horns of war battle drums sound in the distance. No searing pain as his wings burn to black. The retribution he spent so long fearing does not come.

“I want you,” he says again, and the only other sound is Crowley’s harsh breathing. Emboldened by the silence, he continues, the words starting out as a trickle but coming easier and easier until they are a flood. “I want you in any way and every way you care to give me. Whether it’s just as we’ve been, or something more. I want you here, safe, where neither Heaven nor Hell can take you from me. I want walks in the park. I want dinner at the Ritz. I want to ride with you in that infernal car of yours, and to watch you yell at your plants. I want you to make fun of my magic tricks and roll your eyes at me when you think I’m being ridiculous. I want to not need to find excuses for us to see each other. I want- I want our side. Not just not-Heaven and not-Hell, but you and I. Together. I-” He stops, and still the world does not erupt into flames.

“I want,” he adds softly, taking Crowley’s hands in his as the demon stands there, stunned to silence. “To stop this dance we’ve done around each other for the past six thousand years. I want to stop waiting, and tell you exactly what you are to me.”

Crowley closes his eyes, shoulders shaking from the monumental effort of holding back six thousand years of longing.

“Is that…” Aziraphale stops, hesitant, suddenly afraid he’d assumed too much. Had read too far into this dance they’ve always done, orbiting around each other like binary stars. “Is that something you might want, too?”

“Angel,” Crowley breathes, the word itself a prayer. “Go- Sata- yes.” He opens those sun-bright eyes and meets Aziraphale’s own sea-blue gaze. They are standing so close now. Just a hairs breadth away. Crowley’s breath brushes his cheeks every time he exhales. One step closer is all it would take. All he has to do is reach out, and Crowley would be in his arms. He has never wanted anything so badly. Nor been so completely incapable of movement.

“I would like- that is to say, um,” his eyes flick down to Crowley’s lips and then away. “I, only if you want to, of course, but, well. I’ve wanted to for so long. And now, well, now I can, um. If you’ll let me, that is. I-”

“Angel,” Crowley interrupts. “If you don’t kiss me, right now, I think I’m going to explode.”

“Well now,” Aziraphale grins. “We wouldn’t want that, now, would we?” He takes a step forward, and takes Crowley’s face in his hands, burying his fingers in soft scarlet hair.

“You’re shaking,” he observes. This close, he can feel it with his whole body.

“Just-” Crowley swallows. “Just nerves. Angel, you don’t know how long I-”

“I think I do.” He runs his thumbs over Crowley’s cheekbones, reveling in the feel of him, the reality of him, there and solid and real under his hands. His Crowley. His. “I’ve wanted this since… oh, Rome, maybe. Or even before.”

“I’ve wanted you since Eden,” the demon murmurs, hands coming to rest on Aziraphale’s arms. “When I saw you’d given up your sword for the humans. That’s when I knew you were special.”

Aziraphale blinks, astonished. “That long?”

“Mm.” Crowley’s staring at his lips now. “That long.”

There’s a breath. A pause. A moment to capture and hold in his mind for eternity. Then he leans in, ever so slightly, and presses their lips together.

It is… there aren’t words for this. Not in any book that has ever been or will ever be. It is like coming home after a long day to find your lover waiting for you with a smile. It is like sinking into a warm bath, or taking that first sip of the perfect hot cocoa. Like breathing in the fresh autumn air, or watching snow fall beyond the window next to a roaring fire. Like an oath, a promise, that here in this moment this person is yours and you are theirs. That you will never, ever let go. It is lightning racing through your veins and singing down your nerves, electric, making you feel that much more alive. It is a dance of hands and bodies and breath, two lives coming together, for just a moment so close as to be one.

Crowley’s hands are in Aziraphale’s hair, fingers tangled in white curls. He lets out a soft moan, and Aziraphale all but melts, running his hands down his back and clutching at his hips, pulling him closer, closer, until there is no room even for air between them. Crowley presses closer still, holding on as if his life depends upon it. He’s shaking still, hard enough Aziraphale fears he might fly apart.

“It’s alright, darling,” he murmurs into the kiss, not wanting to pull back for even a second. “I’ve got you.”

Crowley sighs, wrapping his arms around the angel, grabbing the fabric of his shirt in his fists. Aziraphale holds him gently, slowing the urgency of the kiss. He runs his hands up and down Crowley’s back, soothing him until his shaking stops. His fingers find the place where Crowley’s shirt rides up, exposing a thin strip of pale skin. He draws small circles there, tracing around the scales that are scattered along the demon’s spine.

Crowley gasps at the sudden sensation, breaking this kiss and pulling his face away.

Aziraphale freezes, hands going still. “Too much?”

“Don’t stop,” Crowley hisses, and captures his lips again. Aziraphale hums in pleasure, resuming his exploration of Crowley’s back. Scales, freckles, and scars, his fingers find and map them all as he memorizes the shape of him, the feel of him, here in his arms.

“Never,” Aziraphale promises. He won’t. He swears it to himself, on every last shred of his faith. He will never again spend a day without moments like this. “I am never letting you go again.”

Crowley chuckles. “Good.”

“I love you.” He hadn’t meant to say it yet. Not so soon. For all his insistence that it’s the demon that goes too fast, Aziraphale knows that in this it he who must be careful. The words had just slipped out, unbidden, centuries of holding back broken by the feel of Crowley in his arms and the taste of his laugh on his lips.

“I know,” Crowley tells him, leaning back just enough to look him in the eyes. “I love you too, Angel.”

Aziraphale smiles at him, as always entranced by those sun-bright eyes. “Good,” he says. “Because I’m afraid, my dear, that you’re rather stuck with me now.”

A surprised grin slides across the demon’s face. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.” Then he leans in, and kisses him again.

#aziraphale/crowley #Ineffable Husbands #my fic #this was really relaxing to write

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goodomensblog · 5 years

Text

Afterward

A Good Omens Choose Your Own Adventure Fic

Here’s how it works:

I’ll write a chapter.

At the end of each chapter, you’ll be presented with 2-3 options for what the characters will choose to do next.

Comment or reblog to vote for your choice. I’ll count all votes within the first 24 hours after each update is posted.

Read Part 1 Here

Afterward - - Part 2

- - - - - - - -

Dark, acrid mist seeps from the ground, spiraling up, ravenous, as though intent on swallowing up the sun. At it’s center, Beelzebub, Lord of the Flies, rises - born of mist and smoke. And there, Crowley stands, one hand on the bookshop door, his back open and unguarded.

Aziraphale is lunging, ancient instincts buried in his bones, deeper than marrow, driving him to throw up his arms as he leaps in front of Crowley.

Several things, then, happen nearly at once. Even if the surrounding humans weren’t instinctively driven to avert their eyes and attentions from the standoff happening before them, they still would not have been physically capable of registering the speed at which the following exchange occurred.

There is a sharp intake of breath and a garbled noise of panic behind Aziraphale. Where they press together, Crowley is rigid, every angled line of his long body tensed - and Aziraphale can feel his body twisting, splayed fingers grasping at the angel’s shoulder, yanking -

Beelzebub is faster.

A soot-stained boot twists, grinding pavement to dust as the Lord of Flies moves-

Aziraphale throws his hands up.

Crowley’s fingers, white-knuckled and grasping, drag at Aziraphale -

And Beelzebub stumbles, knees buckling as the glow in their eyes flickers and extinguishes.

Aziraphale’s hands, which he’d raised to fend off the demon lord’s attack, catch Beelzebub as they drop.

Beelzebub’s dark mist is dispersing, hissing as it falls away from their body; and Aziraphale holds them in much the same way as one might hold a tranquilized wolverine - that is to say, with care. Aziraphale has an arm gingerly hooked around Beelzebub, supporting beneath their arms. The demon lord’s neck is curved and their head dangles forward, limp.

Crowley’s hands are no longer attempting to drag Aziraphale back to the safety of the shop. The angel can feel Crowley pressing into him, fingers clutching at his arm as the demon peers over his shoulder.

Carefully, carefully Aziraphale extends a hand.

Crowley’s touch reflexively squeezes.

With two fingers, Aziraphale tips back Beelzebub’s head.

Crowley sucks in a breath. “What the bless.”

The mist, which had wrapped Beelzebub like a second skin, has all but faded. Beneath bright sun, four long gashes weep red. The left side of their face is flayed. The gashes, which are deep as they are fresh, run from Beelzebub’s dark hairline to the soft, fleshy underside of their chin.

Aziraphale blinks, and then blinks again. As though it will somehow change the reality before him. When he blinks a third time, and Beelzebub is still inconveniently bleeding out in his arms. Aziraphale heaves a deep sigh.

Licking his lips, he presses a hand up under Beelzebub’s chin. As Aziraphale’s hand glows, the demon lord’s skin bubbles, reacting to the ethereal healing touch. The bleeding does, however, slow.

Crowley is rigid, white knuckled fingers clinging to him like a vice.

“Angel,” he says, voice low and insistent. “Drop Beelzebub. We’ve gotta go.”

“Not that dropping a Lord of Hell isn’t an appealing option, but aren’t you the least bit curious-”

“Aziraphale,” Crowley hisses, and the hand at Aziraphale’s shoulder is pressing him forward, guiding him toward the Bentley.

Aziraphale, who hasn’t let go of Beelzebub, stumbles awkwardly with the demon lord in his arms.

“Crowley, hold on. Wait-”

Crowley spins around. Yanking Beelzebub’s head back again, Crowley flings out a hand, gesturing at the demon’s flayed skin. “Does that look like the work of an angel to you?”

“Well of course it’s not. Look at the shape of them, they were obviously made by-”

“Claws. Something demonic. Yeah.”

“Crowley, I don’t understand. Demons fight - you told me that demons sometimes even-”

Groaning, Crowley paces a tight circle. “Yeah demons fight. Demons, however, don’t nearly do in a Lord of Hell,” Crowley says, and stops, pointing emphatically at Beelzebub. “We. Do. Not. Want to be here when whatever did that to good old Beelz climbs up, looking to finish the job.”

Which begs the question-

“What exactly do you think did this, Crowley?”

Raking a hand through his hair, Crowley twitches, and shifts, shaking his head. “I-”

“Satan,” Beelzebub croaks.

Aziraphale, despite his earlier protests, nearly drops the demon in his surprise.

Crowley stills, hands loose and dangling at his sides.

And when the word registers, Aziraphale, despite six thousand years of practice, finds he’s quite forgotten how to breathe.

“Sorry,” he manages, and clears his throat. “What was that?”

Beelzebub’s lip curls. Squinting blearily up, they whisper, “I said, Satan did it.” And then their eyelids flutter. Their pale skin wrinkles as their brows draw together. “He - uh - something’s wrong with him.”

Breath returns without Aziraphale’s permission, and promptly leaves him in a gust of nervous laughter.

“Well yes, I should think there is something wrong with him-”

“No, you idiot,” Beelzebub says, coughing, “There’s something really wrong with him. It’s...different this time. Says he’s going to destroy it. And I believe him.”

“...destroy what?”

Aziraphale watches, out of the corner of his eyes, as Crowley circles them.

“Everything.”

At his back, Crowley hisses a curse.

“I…,” Beelzebub wheezes, and heaves a fortifying breath, “I think...I think I’ve got an idea...of how to stop him. But he’s -” they halt, teeth clenching as they groan, “he’s - gah, he’s coming for me.”

Behind him, Crowley gasps.

Aziraphale turns to see Crowley bracing a hand on the Bentley. His shoulders are hunched, head dipped forward.

“Crowley-”

“We’ve gotta go, angel. We have to hide. Now.”

And then Aziraphale feels it - a dark, malignant energy, pulsing - rising.

“Beelzebub-”

“Yeah, I know. We might need them,” Crowley says with obvious distaste. “Bring them along. Just for someone’s sake, hurry!”

By the time Aziraphale has tossed Beelzebub in the back seat and flung himself into the passenger side, Crowley is trembling, bent over the wheel.

“Can you-”

“Course,” Crowley snaps, and throws the car into drive. It growls, leaping into motion. “The Bentley can get us anywhere we need to go, but we’re gonna have to find a damn good place to hide.”

Aziraphale stammers, bracing a hand on the dash as the car roars, accelerating. “There’s Adam Young, of course, in Tadfield. He’s given up his powers, but there might be enough residual…” Aziraphale sucks in a breath as they take a sharp turn, wheels skidding over pavement. “It could be dangerous for him though - for Newton and Anathema as well. We could also go to America. Hide out near where the Dowlings settled. You know the place? There’s enough of a demonic aura there, perhaps, to conceal us - for a little while. At least until-”

From the back seat, Beelzebub groans.

“Gabriel,” they mutter, voice nearly drowned out by the snarling engine.

“Excuse me?” Crowley says, golden eyes flashing over the tops of his glasses.

“Find...Gabriel,” Beelzebub says, and moans, sinking back into unconsciousness.

“Gabriel,” Aziraphale says, and even the name leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.

He and Crowley share a glance.

“I can’t imagine Gabriel would be keen on helping us.”

Fingers clenching over the wheel, Crowley shakes his head. “Can’t imagine it either.”

Golden eyes flick up, checking the rear-view mirror.

“Angel, I can get us anywhere. Anywhere in the world - and beyond. Just bloody give me an idea of where to go.”

- - - - - - - - - -

Aziraphale tells Crowley to go to…

Tadfield to enlist the help of Adam, Anathema, and Newton.

Find Gabriel (preferably while armed with a flaming sword) to ask for his aid.

America, near where the Dowlings now live and get unlikely help from… Warlock??

Comment or reblog to vote :)

(And I’m seriously excited about all three of the options and the direction they’d each take the story in. So I can’t wait to see what you all choose)

Read Part 3 Here

#my writing #choose your own adventure #good omens #good omens fic #good omens fanfic #good omens fanfiction #ineffable husbands #ineffable husbands fanfic #ineffable husbands fanfiction #ineffable husbands fic #aziraphale #crowley #aziraphale x crowley #crowley x aziraphale #otp: ineffable #ineffable partners #gomens fanfiction #gomens fanfic

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wanna-b-poet31 · 5 years

Text

Gabriel: He Hath Turn'd A Heaven Unto Hell

I felt like clarifying my earlier Meta on Gabriel’s Gaslighting in Good Omens.

So like, we know that Gabriel is a dick but what makes him worse (and abusive), is how he uses his position of privilege and power over Aziraphale.

Even though I’ve read some amazing metas that assert Aziraphale would be canonically higher ranked than the archangels, the bureaucracy favors Gabriel. While Aziraphale may have been given troops to command and a garden to protect, Michael refers to Gabriel’s choices when confronting the evidence against Aziraphale for his demonic “boyfriend”, Sandalphon allows Gabriel to direct the “surprise” meeting in the bookshop, and Gabriel appears at the airfield, in a position equal to Beelzebub, Prince of Hell. So even if it isn’t a God-ordained position of power, he clearly is treated as the authority figure over Heaven.

His abuse is rooted in the desire to gain and maintain power and control over Aziraphale. And like real talk, Show!Gabriel is sickeningly effective at emotionally abusing Aziraphale, and his most insidious tool is gaslighting.

Broadly, what I mean is that Gabriel is (trying to) reshape Aziraphale’s perception of reality using techniques like:

pretending not to understand why Aziraphale is so worried about being unable to stop the war (Withholding);

purposefully making Aziraphale’s feelings/interests feel insignificant (Trivializing);

Changing topics when Aziraphale starts to question his or Heaven’s motives for the war(Diverting);

Forgetting or denying events that have previously happened (Denial)

Purposefully questioning the victim’s memory/even despite knowing their account of events to be true (Countering)

Gaslighting IS abuse. Full Stop.

Although it can masquerade as genuine confusion or concern, the National Domestic Violence Hotline reminds us how over time, these abusive patterns of behaviors lead to a victim who “can become confused, anxious, isolated and depressed while losing all sense of what is actually happening. Then, the victim may start relying on the abusive partner more and more to define reality, which creates a very difficult situation to escape”

Affect on Aziraphale

Because? Honestly? Gabriel’s behavior is not nice, or innocent.

Who here can honestly say that Aziraphale doesn’t constantly second-guess himself? And that he doesn’t have trouble making decisions?

Or ask himself if he’s too sensitive? too soft?

Maybe that he’s confused, or crazy? That he has to apologize for Heaven/Gabriel’s behavior to friends? That he feels like he has to withhold information to avoid making excuses or explaining Heaven/Gabriel’s behavior?

Does anyone think he’s happy despite apparently “good” things happening for angels? That he should feel happier for his circumstances? Or that he knows something is terribly wrong, but unable to express what it is? To Gabriel? To God? To Crowley? Even To himself?

We already know he uses lying as a coping mechanism to avoid put-downs! And When he’s away from Heaven he’s a radically different person. That he’s more confident, more fun-loving, more relaxed when away from his abusers.

He’s absolutely joyless around Gabriel,

and been made to feel he can’t do anything right.

These are all the symptoms of being gaslit (gaslighted?), and it takes a heavy psychological toll on Aziraphale’s mental health.

He is being controlled.

Through gaslighting, Gabriel can control Aziraphale’s perception of reality and consequently control his actions.

Gabriel’s Guilting Pleasure

Gabriel cares about humanity about as much as one cares about their obligatory dental appointment. They do it, sure, but through requirement, and clinical distance. He doesn’t choose to love humanity, he chooses to manage Humanity. He chooses to treat them like cattle: to be kept in a pen [earth], kept for slaughter. He yearns for control, and that control extends to the angels who depend on him for leadership.

Contrast that with how Aziraphale >and Crowely< who unabashedly choose to love humanity.

Aziraphale is, at heart, a lover of food. He finds genuine joy and pleasure from eating, and in many ways, it’s an intimate part of who Aziraphale IS. It’s not that Aziraphale is a glutton, but it sparks joy in him.

Crowley clearly takes note of this, and on more than one occasion has gone out of his way to eat with him. Book!Crowley explicitly shares food with Aziraphale, purposefully ordering desserts that his angel can steal bites. It’s tender, it’s sweet, and it clearly shows the mutual respect the two share.

When unconstrained by the bounds of Heaven, we can see in the above GIF, just how relaxed Aziraphale can be. He has a soft calm smile, unafraid features. and a body language that to me communicates the feeling of safety. This is an entity who unabashedly happy, but not just about Sushi. He has a semblance of freedom here.

But, the scene abruptly changes when a Wild Gabriel appears!

Aziraphale goes from relaxed, care-free, to tense in 0.01 seconds. Once he finishes *appreciating the sushi* there’s a magical jingling sound, Aziraphale almost instinctually turns left because Crowley is always on his left, and Gabriel’s face greets him in the mirror.

We have a few precious seconds where we can see Aziraphale’s face journey: relax joy turns to expectant smile:

Look at the crinkled eyes, the flared nostrils, the look of joy. He’s clearly expecting pleasant company to join him.

In the below gif, we get a slice of the impact of Gabriel’s control. Once it’s revealed to be Gabriel, not Crowley, who asks to join him, his entire face falls. Notice how the smile is long gone, and his glance at the food is hesitant like he’s doing something wrong by being there.

Gabriel then asks: “Why do you consume that? You’re an angel” with palatable judgment. Mean, but harmless right?

No.

Aziraphale instantly starts making excuses, hiding an integral part of who he is, because he is trying to avoid the inevitable ridicule from someone who is supposed to support him and love him unconditionally.

Gabriel is asking a question that he can infer an answer from: that either Aziraphale deems eating necessary, or he enjoys doing it. He’s feigning forgetfulness and calling Aziraphale’s choices into question.

Further, by bringing attention to the “you’re an angel” Gabriel is drawing a line in the sand, defining that to be an Angel, at least a good angel, you can’t eat, lest they “desecrate” their holiness. You can see Aziraphale’s face IMMEDIATELY fall.

We, the audience, can see this is untrue. There’s no reason to believe food is harmful to supernatural entities, and more importantly, it brings so much unbridled JOY to Aziraphale. So why point it out? Why deliberately trivialize our favorite Angel’s feelings like that?

Control.

Trivializing Aziraphale’s passions allow him to impose his own agenda.

Gaslighting the War

Okay, so Aziraphale lies ALOT, but we know for a fact that he’s told Gabriel his intentions to try stopping the war. Several times. Over the course of 11 years. It should be no surprise to Gabriel that Aziraphale has a singular goal: saving humanity.

Although Aziraphale conveniently forgets to mention Crowley’s role in helping prevent the war, Gabriel knows the general gist of Aziraphale’s plan to “prevent” the war. Aziraphale has made his intentions excruciatingly clear.

However, besides blatantly lying to him about Heaven’s position on saving the world, he trivializes the very real concerns Aziraphale poses. It’s not just that he thinks Aziraphale can’t stop the war, it’s that Gabriel deliberately misleads him. Aziraphale up until the end of Episode 4, firmly believes his “side” will sanction the salvation of humanity. And Gabriel specifically strings him along, letting our angel believe that if he successfully climbs his mountain, he would be accepted by Heaven. (He’s not)

Then, in the above GIF, he dismisses Aziraphale’s transparent, clear plea for help.

CONTEXT: This is how Episode 4 opens. Aziraphale has found the Anti-Christ, met and rejected Crowley’s offer to fly off to Alpha Centauri at the Bandstand, told the love of his life his best friend that he doesn’t even like him and is in full out freak mode. Then, apropos of nothing “runs” into Gabriel and is in dire need of support to stop the end of the world. He NEEDS a lifeline, now that he thinks Crowley is fleeing Earth, never to see him again.

He firmly asserts that humanity is worth saving and that they COULD do it, (they’re Heavenly after all), but Gabriel does not give a single flying fuck about Aziraphale’s feelings.

Instead of answering Aziraphale’s prayers, Gabriel reinforces his own interests (see: the never-ending war) and changes the conversation to focus Aziraphale’s “gut”. The glance in the below GIF is unnervingly condescending.

Look at how “disappointed” Gabriel appears glancing up to meet Aziraphale’s eyes before pointedly looking to Aziraphale’s belly. It is if, with his eyes, Gabriel is insinuating Aziraphale’s appearance is a personal failing and a somehow more important problem than stopping the end of the world.

The pivot from Aziraphale plea “we need to stop the end of the world” to “you’ need to lose the gut” is classic “Diverting” from the situation. It deflects from his own manipulative behavior and leaves Aziraphale to constantly second-guess himself. It puts the power squarely in Gabriel’s hands because the topic is no longer rooted in Aziraphale’s valid concerns or feelings.

Gabriel leaves the scene, with a visibly distraught Aziraphale and, we hear Azirgaphale say he’s soft, in a hopeless, joyless voice that’s full of self-doubt. It’s a heartbreaking moment because of how powerless Gabriel has made him feel.

He has no support system.

However, Gabriel’s gaslighting comes to a head once Aziraphale is pushed passed his breaking point.

Aziraphale Want(s) To Break Free

Gabriel doesn’t encounter Aziraphale again until after the armageddon has been thoroughly avoided (read: Aziraphale’s concerns have been validated, he’s taken steps to address his issues, and he’s reformed relationships with people his abuser pushed him to second-guess).

When Gabriel reappears, he has every reason to believe that his gaslighting will work to “control” Aziraphale. Because, while he may now be aware of Aziraphale’s friendship with Crowley, abusers will do anything to get the desired power dynamic (with them controlling all of it, and the victim none), and why abandon his most effective tool?

So he tells Aziraphale to shut up, presuming he can still control Aziraphale. That Aziraphale’s inclusion is not just unneeded, but unwanted.

Just one thing though, Aziraphale defies his abuser.

It’s HIS turn to start questioning Gabriel’s grasp of reality. To buck against not just the system, but the authority figure who has constantly been belittling and gaslighting him.

Why? What changes?

Crowley.

Crowley absolutely does not gaslight Aziraphale. Instead, he seeks to understand and validate his Angel’s concerns. Sure, occasionally they’ll fight, or push each other’s buttons, but Crowley never tries to manipulate of control Aziraphale. He remembers and encourages Aziraphale’s passions, actively seeks to participate in joint interests, and the sole act of saving Aziraphale’s books because he knows just how damn important those books are to his angel.

He’ll even go as far as to prioritize Aziraphale’s needs/comfort above his own. Is Aziraphale chained in a prison during the Reign of Terror? Sure, let’s just appear to rescue him. Aziraphale is getting double-crossed by Nazi bastards? Let’s just put ourselves in danger and walk on the consecrated ground and be to rescue him and his books.

It would be a bit of an understatement to say that Crowley cares about Aziraphale and wants to promote his wellbeing.

At the Airfield, Gabriel has never interacted with Aziraphale with Crowley around (deleted scenes notwithstanding) and able to support him. But Crowley isn’t just there, he steps up, beside Adam, besides Aziraphale and affirms Aziraphale’s sense of reality. No, he’s not crazy, and his question IS valid.

The simple act of having a support system there definitely boosts Aziraphale’s confidence and gives him the strength to make an actual choice.

Intervene.

He chooses to walk up to Beelzebub and Gabriel and ask, if they are sure of their reality, because, now Aziraphale sure as hell is. He knows where he stands and who he stands with.

He is no longer under Gabriel’s control.

Never before has Aziraphale had a single honest choice. Sure, he made the choice to enter the “arrangement” with Crowley, to raise the (wrong) anti-christ, to lie to God. But these choices are rooted in self-preservation and self-defense. Also, he’s not transparent about these choices to Gabriel.

Once Armageddon is averted, and Aziraphale’s chosen to side with Crowley, to jump out of Heaven if need be for humanity, there is very little holding Aziraphale back. And, Aziraphale is finally being lifted up.

Gabriel tries to intimidate Aziraphale into submission, to tell him the questions he’s asking are insignificant, and that his opinion doesn’t matter. But, Aziraphale no longer is blind to the gaslighting, and pushes on. Crowley, in turn, backs him up and they support each other (and Adam) as they defy their respective abusers.

TLDR: Really, Please, Fuck Off Gabriel

Thanks for coming to my Tedtalk

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fuckyeahgoodomens · 5 years

Link

If angels and demons walk among us, as they do in Good Omens, how are we to tell them apart from us mere mortals? The longer they live on Earth, the more human they can appear, which is usually a good giveaway. The thing is, "more human," doesn't necessarily mean "more fashionable," as the Amazon series' costume designer explains.

Aziraphale doesn't care quite as much about fashion as his archangel boss, Gabriel. In the original script, author Neil Gaiman noted that Aziraphale is a "kind-looking gentleman whose sartorial style runs to bow-ties. He thinks a little tartan is nifty, and would use the word 'nifty' with pride."

With that being her primary direction, costume designer Claire Anderson tells SYFY WIRE that she decided Aziraphale would have a more traditional look and would wear clothes that look like he's worn them for hundreds of years. She decided on Victorian-era clothing, and added gold threads to his bow-tie — a look that actor Michael Sheen approves of.

"I wanted him to look like a comfortable sofa," Sheen says. "He likes quality and craftsmanship, so he's elegant, but he's also a bit threadbare."

Gabriel, however, would never tolerate looking a bit rundown. As played by Jon Hamm, the archangel wears bespoke suits and coats when he pops down to Earth (thanks to a Zegna tailor on Bond Street), and cashmere is his primary fabric, even for his running clothes. "Cashmere just floats around you," Anderson says. "It sits where it touches. It's delicious to wear. It feels sensational. And it just drips off of him."

"The celestial heavenly creatures were festooned with the best of everything," Hamm explains, "but they don't get any joy out of it."

"Gabriel thinks of his luxury clothes as more disposable, and would just wear it for a season and be done with it," Anderson noted. "That's not very angelic, is it?"

Gabriel's clothes have a lilac color scheme – silvery pearl-gray and blue-gray – to give him a bit of iridescence and match his otherworldly eyes. "To make Jon Hamm the most beautiful man in the world, what more can they do?" Anderson says. "He's already tall and handsome and he looks great in everything. So it's tiny, but we gave him Elizabeth Taylor eyes."

Not Elizabeth Taylor-like eyes, but her actual eyes. "Gabriel went and stole Liz Taylor's eyes and put them in his head," Hamm says. "He thought, 'Those are beautiful and unique and perfect, so I'll take those.'"

The effect is done, of course, with colored contacts, as are the various reptilian eyes of our respective demons. Hastur and Ligur, who don't come to Earth as often, aren't as skilled at hiding their true selves, and don't seem to realize what they look like they've just emerged up through the ground.

"I love the demons," Anderson says. "When I did my first drawings of them, I thought about the fires of Hell, and thought they should have burned feet and shoes that could be boiled and greased and given scorch marks. The bottoms of their coats are scorched. Their clothing is blackened and shredded at the hems. Everything is muddy and broken down and distressed."

Hastur, Ligur, and other Dukes of Hell wear what they died in, but Crowley (played by David Tennant) has been on Earth the longest and has had 6,000 years to acquire a good wardrobe. Like Gabriel, Crowley also appreciates human style, but only so it can make him look like the coolest guy in the room.

"He's sort of like Christian Bale in American Psycho," Tennant says. "He's kind of what yuppies were 30 years ago, so whatever version of that exists now. What currency does that give you? Crowley thinks he's really cool, and he wants to adapt his coolness to the time period, and so he's very profligate with his looks, his version of what's on trend."

Unlike Gabriel, Crowley is not too tailored — his clothes have an undone quality about them, although with sharp lines, to feel more modern. He's rather like a snake who sheds his skin, constantly updating his wardrobe (even if he remains a bit behind), wearing a few things that are a bit too tight so they're wrapped around him, and shirts that tumble open. And most of his look — from the serpentine eyes well-hidden by sunglasses, the serpent tattoo sideburn, a belt with a snakehead with gleaming eyes to the snakeskin shoes with red soles — harkens back to his origins as a snake with a red underbelly.

"He has slicks of red around his collars, and red embroidery in his fabrics," Anderson says.

Most of Crowley's clothing was made for the production, but there is at least one designer piece — a cropped Balenciaga jacket worn in an Episode 1 flashback ‚ that adds to his rock-star swagger. "Aziraphale looks at Crowley and thinks, 'I could never get away with that,'" Sheen says. "He would never dare."

#good omens #claire anderson #bts #aziraphale #gabriel #crowley #clothing #interview #fun fact

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ineffably-good · 4 years

Text

Snake Husbandry, 1/2 (GO Fic)

Summary: Aziraphale has some secret books he hides from Crowley about understanding his favorite snake. This story explores a few myths and realities about snake behavior.

Part of my Serpent and the Seagull series.

Complete! Read the whole thing on AO3!

______________________________

Chapter 1

One thing Aziraphale had learned in the first year of marriage was that Crowley always curious about what he was reading. It was nice, most of the time, having his partner show a steady interest in what he was thinking about and looking at and doing. But every once in a while, he just wanted to look at a book that he didn’t feel like sharing – something more private. He kept these books in the deepest drawer of his desk, behind a pile of folders.

The hidden books generally fell into one of three categories: romance novels, which he was secretly addicted to and which Crowley would tease him mercilessly about; books about things Crowley considered dangerous, such as spells that could injure one or the other of them but which he nonetheless felt it his duty to be somewhat informed about; and a few books that Aziraphale had acquired very early in their relationship, shortly after he’d first brought Frederick home. He had three – a slim volume on basic snake care that he’d used rather extensively at the beginning to ensure his new companion was healthy and happy, a rather fascinating and more academic book about different types of snakes and their characteristics, and one thick volume which would daunt any but the most passionate of snake enthusiasts – crammed full of tiny type and hand drawn illustrations and tissue-thin pages and titled “The Enthusiast’s Handbook of Snake Husbandry and Care.”

The third one was the one he most often reached for. Its academic and research-heavy focus appealed to him, but best of all it went on and on about snake lore – the myths and legends that had developed around snakes over the centuries – and took its time in proving or disproving them one by one. It spent a good deal of time on snake psychology and mating habits, and so help him, Aziraphale couldn’t help but draw parallels now and then not only between the book and Frederick, but between it and his spouse. Crowley was, after all, part snake. Sometimes, and especially in the winter, he was all snake, and for longer periods of time than one might expect.

Whenever he wanted to read it, he first made sure that Crowley was out and occupied for a few hours. Then he usually arranged it so that Frederick was curled up around his neck or shoulders. Best to have a plausible reason he was reading about snake husbandry if Crowley showed up unexpectedly and inquired.

But in all honestly, the truth was that he was reading and ruminating about both of the snakes in his life.

What could possibly be the harm?

Myth: Snakes will attack you if confronted.

Fact: Most snakes are not likely to attack unless they truly have no other option. When cornered, a snake will panic and do just about anything to flee the situation before resorting to brute force.

“Crowley?” Aziraphale called from the kitchen.

Crowley looked up from his spot on the couch. “What?”

“Come in here please?”

Oh shit, he thought, the angel sounded snippy. Snippy was never good. What had he done or forgotten to do?

“I’m comfy,” he whined, just to buy time. If he was extremely lucky, it would work and the angel would give up and take care of whatever it was himself.

“I really must insist!” the angel said.

Definitely an increase in snippiness there. Snippitude? Was that a word, Crowley thought? It should be. No one could be as snippitudinous as his angel.

He heaved himself up with a sigh and sauntered his way into the kitchen. The angel was standing with portions of the coffee maker in his hand, looking prissy.

“We’ve talked about this, Crowley,” he said, shaking the basket at him. “You have to empty the grounds out of it at least once in a while! Look at this buildup, it’s obviously been sitting there dirty for most of the week!”

Crowley sighed. “Oh cmon, angel, we’re ethereal beings! We don’t have to clean things the hard way! You just –” he snapped a finger and the basket was suddenly magically clean – “take care of it the quick way.”

Aziraphale frowned. “That is not the point! We need to talk about household chores again, Crowley. Again! You’re going to have a seat at the table and we’re going to go over the chart of things that need to be done for the eleventh time and try to –”

“Oh, I’d love to angel, really!” Crowley said over his shoulder as he made a break for it as quickly as he could without literally running. “But I’ve got a client meeting – important, very important, thwarting to be done, freelance job – you know how it is –”

“Crowley, come back here!” Aziraphale called after him, sounding exasperated.

“Can’t right now!” Crowley shouted, fingers closing around the doorknob in triumph. “Back later and we can, uh, do that thing. The talking thing. Bye!”

He made straight for the park, where he found a bench in an area he knew Aziraphale rarely visited, and set about having a long nap in the sun.

Myth: Snakes strike without warning.

Fact: Snakes will warn you before they strike – if they can sense you, that is.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Crowley warned, as Aziraphale leaned over to pick up Frederick out of the basket where he was noodled up into a tight ball.

Aziraphale straightened up. “Whyever not?”

“Because he’s in a mood.”

Aziraphale tutted. “He’s not in a mood, he’s a lovely little snake, aren’t you Frederick?” he asked, peering into the basket.

Frederick reared up his head and spat at the fuzzy angel, giving his best, loudest warning. He truly didn’t feel like biting the angel today, not unless he had no other choice.

Aziraphale pulled back, then looked up at Crowley, who made no effort whatsoever to not have a “told you so” look on his face. “What happened?”

“He had a little fight with his intended breakfast,” Crowley said.

“Which was?”

“Greckle,” Crowley said.

“All right, please explain.”

“There was a greckle hopping around on the window by your desk, and Freddie here somehow got himself up onto the sill, and tried to eat him, not realizing there was glass in between them.”

Aziraphale winced. “Did he hurt himself?”

“Hurt his pride, maybe,” Crowley said. “The stupid bird mocked him mercilessly once he saw him face plant on the window. You know how greckles are. Only thing worse than a greckle is a starling.”

Aziraphale hrmed in agreement. He couldn’t put his finger quite on why, but even he knew that starlings were utter bastards.

TELL HIM TO STAY AWAY! Frederick shrieked, his voice somewhat muffled by the fact that his head was buried beneath several loops of his body. I’M FEELING VERY BITEY!

“He says to stay away, he’s feeling bitey,” Crowley dutifully translated.

Aziraphale sat down and picked up his teacup. “Well,” he said pleasantly, “nice of him to warn me off, I suppose. Better than just sinking his teeth into my thumb. He’s a good snake, regardless of what any bird might have said.”

“Shh, angel, he’ll hear you,” Crowley said. “And then he’ll just be unbearable.”

TOO LATE! Came the muffled cry from the basket.

Crowley rolled his eyes.

Myth: snakes have excellent eyesight and use it to see movement in their intended prey.

Fact: Snakes don’t always see as clearly as you might think.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said one day, a tone of inquiry in his voice.

Crowley looked up from his rather fascinating game of candy crush. “Yes?”

“I read in an article the other day that snakes can only see dichromatically – just two colors, blue and green,” Aziraphale said. “Is that true?”

“I dunno,” Crowley said. “Do you want me to ask him?”

“Ask who?”

“Frederick, you pillock,” Crowley said. “I’ve never specifically talked to him about what he sees. Could be interesting to find out.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale said, shifting guiltily in his chair, and then lighting up with false bravado. “Why yes, that’s exactly what I meant. Yes, indeed, let’s do that. Spirit of scientific inquiry and all that!”

Crowley narrowed his eyes. “You meant me, didn’t you?”

“What?” Aziraphale demurred. “Heavens no. I certainly did not.”

“You did,” Crowley drawled. “Just a big ol’ serpent to you, aren’t I?”

Aziraphale looked at him pointedly. “Did you or did you not just spend two weeks mostly in snake form because it got below freezing outside?”

Crowley knew when it was time to change tactics. “Don’t you think that if I could only see the colors blue and green you would have heard about it sometime in the last six THOUSAND years?”

“Well I don’t know, do I?” Aziraphale protested. “Your eyes are very special, and it’s not like we sit around and – and paint! And I nearly ALWAYS have a blue shirt on. And the Bentley is black and the only real color in your old apartment came from the green of the plants! It seemed plausible that maybe I might have missed something.”

Crowley harrumphed. He stood up and walked over to the bookshelf to the left of the desk and ran his finger along the spines of the books there.

“Red,” he said snarkily. “Blue. Light blue. Gray. Tan. White. Kind of an orange. Dark yellow. Turquoise –”

“Oh, that last one is really more cerulean, my dear,” the angel cut in.

The demon glared at him. He came over to the desk and starting flinging Aziraphale’s pencils onto the desktop. “White. Goldenrod. Yellow. Brown. Red --”

“Actually –” the angel chirped.

“So help me, if you’re breaking in to tell me that one is more of a claret, we are going to have an argument, angel.”

Aziraphale blinked helplessly at him. “All right then,” he said faintly. “You can see colors. I don’t see what you’re so upset about.”

Crowley sat back down on the couch with a thump. He picked up his glass. “Red, by the way,” he said. “I’m drinking red.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake. You’re being such a child.” Aziraphale turned back towards his work.

They both sat in silence, Aziraphale scratching away on his ledgers and Crowley staring into space, until the demon broke the silence a few minutes later.

“We should test Frederick though,” he said. “It’d be interesting.”

Figuring out how to do so was a challenge. They’d learned that Freddie could point to things with his tail, so they finally settled on printing out a kind of simple color wheel for him that they laid in front of him on the kitchen table. Just the primary and secondary colors, plus black, white, and gray, all big and easy to identify. Then they got his agreement to look at various objects and try to tell them what color they were.

They held up an apple.

Frederick pointed to gray.

Carrot – gray. Lettuce – green. A picture of the sky – blue. Aziraphale – blue. Crowley – green.

“Wait a minute,” Crowley said. “What do you mean that he’s blue and I’m green? Our skin? Our hair? What are you seeing?”

Frederick looked confused, and confusion always made him irritated. I DON’T KNOW, he shrieked. HE’S JUST BLUE. BLUE IS SOFT. YOU’RE ALL GREEN AND SHARP.

“I’m mostly black and red,” Crowley pointed out to him, after translating for Aziraphale.

DON’T BE AN IDIOT, YOU’RE GREEN, JUST LIKE ME.

“He says he’s green too,” Crowley told Aziraphale.

“Fascinating!”

CAN WE BE DONE WITH THIS STUPID GAME NOW? Frederick shrieked. I’M COLD. PUT ME BACK UNDER THE HEAT LAMP, PLEASE!

Crowley sighed. “He says he’s done.” He picked him up and took him back to his heat lamp on the table in the office.

IF YOU’VE GOT ANY MORE STUPID IDEAS ABOUT THE STATE OF THE WORLD THAT YOU NEED DISPROVEN, JUST LET ME KNOW! Freddie said sarcastically as he settled back in his warm spot.

“I’ll be sure to do that,” Crowley assured him. “You’re first on the list.”

HONESTLY, BLACK AND RED. YOU’RE UNBELIEVABLE.

Crowley turned the lamp up to just the right setting, and left him to continue to snicker quietly to himself about his ridiculous owners.

Myth: Snakes are social animals and enjoy the company of other snakes.

Fact: Snakes, in general, do not like other snakes.

Despite the many, many instances in which Aziraphale threatened to never take him out of the bookstore ever again, the angel often couldn’t resist taking Frederick out for a stroll on a particularly nice day. All the snake had to do was look at him in a certain way – a sort of helpless, pouty kind of expression, punctuated by a tiny tongue flick – and the fluffy one would roll his eyes, stuff him in a pocket or wrap him around his neck, and bring him along on his intended walk through the park. Frederick, for his part, would contentedly hiss and settle in for the ride, determined to be good.

It wasn’t his fault if at least some of the time, a rambunctious bird made that impossible. And better not to discuss the incident with the rat beneath the raspberry bush at all. Some things were best forgotten.

On this particular day, the fluffy one and the pointy one were heading out to St. James with a bag of frozen peas for the ducks when Frederick decided he was not going to be left behind.

YO SNAKEBIRD, he shouted. I WANNA COME.

Crowley checked in with the angel, then shrugged and came over to his basket and picked him up. “Fine,” he said, draping the snake around his neck, “but you’re riding with me.”

Fine with him, Frederick thought. The nice thing about riding around Crowley’s neck was that they could actually talk the whole time. He curled up with his head on the demon’s shoulder, facing front, so he could watch all the people going by and insult them as needed. This was going to be fun.

It was a warm, beautiful day in early spring, and it seemed like half of London had headed to the park. They saw on a bench and fed the ducks their peas, then spread a blanket out on a sunny hillside and sprawled out for a rest. They were sitting there, munching on olives, when suddenly Frederick hissed and pulled his head up to stare pointedly at something.

“What?” Crowley said. “What is it?”

JUST LOOK! The snake shrieked. LOOK AT THAT!

Both of his companions turned to follow the direction he was pointing in and saw a man sitting about ten yards away. He was slim, with tight cropped hair and tattoos visible on both arms, but what was most notable about him was the extremely large yellow and white snake that was wrapped around his neck and shoulders. The snake appeared to be a yellow boa, intricately patterned in yellow and white, and had to be close to eight feet long. It literally rippled with muscle and a sense of tightly coiled power. It laid with its head on the man’s chest, languid and warm in the sun.

“Oh my,” Aziraphale said. “What a lovely specimen!” He immediately felt both of his companions turn to glare at him and couldn’t quite help himself from needling them just a little. “I mean, he’s such a lovely color… I do like yellow, you know.”

“That’s enough, angel,” Crowley hissed. “You’re insulting both of us, here.”

Aziraphale raised an eyebrow. “I’m insulting you both by admiring another snake?”

YES YOU ARE, DUHHHHHH, Frederick shouted.

Crowley translated. “Especially him,” he added.

WE HATE HIM, Frederick howled.

“We do,” Crowley confirmed, continuing to share Freddie’s comments with the angel.

Aziraphale blinked. “Well,” he said firmly, “I do think the yellow, while attractive, is a bit showy. I much prefer snakes in shades of black and red, as you both know.”

Crowley rolled his shoulders and allowed himself to be mollified as Aziraphale went back to his book. He and Frederick, though, continued to watch the yellow boa and make sneering comments to each other.

“He’s not very smart, is he?” Crowley muttered at one point as the boa just… laid there.

TOTAL POSER, Frederick agreed.

The snake, possibly picking up on some of the negativity wafting his way from a few blankets over, lifted its head and sighted them both for a moment, flicking its tongue out to scent them, and then went back to staring at whatever it had been staring at before. It looked unimpressed.

“All brawn, no brains,” Crowley said under his breath.

STRICTLY DECORATIVE.

“Couldn’t catch a bird if his life depended on it.”

PROBABLY TOO FAT TO EVEN MOVE.

Aziraphale slapped his book shut. “Will you two please stop?” he said. “You’re going to start some kind of skirmish and I’m going to have to separate everyone and then one of us is going to punched by the rather muscle-bound owner of the snake in question, and then I will be very put out.”

Frederick and Crowley both looked at him, Crowley blinking innocently and Frederick doing his best completely-harmless look.

“Why do you hate him anyways?” he asked, puzzled. “He hasn’t done anything to you.”

Crowley, eloquent as always shrugged.

JUST DO, Frederick shrieked. DON’T LIKE OTHER SNAKES.

Crowley dutifully translated.

“But… you two like each other,” Aziraphale said.

Crowley and Frederick looked a little surprised at that, and they eyed each other warily for a moment as if startled to be reminded that this should have been an issue between them.

Crowley flapped a hand around dismissively. “That’s different,” he said. “Freddie’s the only true snake here. I’m a serpent demon. It’s not the same thing at all.”

HE’S HALF BIRD, Frederick squawked indignantly. IT DOESN’T COUNT.

Plus, he thought, well aware that he’d never share these thoughts with either of them, Crowley was just cool. He was the largest snake Freddie had ever seen or heard of, he could fly, he had magic powers, and he was, inexplicably, a member of his family. He wasn’t about to look a gift serpent in the mouth. He knew he was one lucky king snake to end up where he was.

“Snakes don’t like other snakes,” Crowley said. “You know that. We aren’t social creatures.”

I DON’T LIKE THE LOOK OF HIM. Frederick screeched. LET’S GO OVER AND TALK TO HIM AND TELL HIM HE’S STUPID.

“Perhaps we should go,” Aziraphale said, sensing trouble.

PROBABLY, Freddie shouted. I’M PRETTY SURE I’LL END UP BEATING HIM UP IF WE STAY.

“It would save him the humiliation,” Crowley affirmed.

HE’D PROBABLY CRY.

“Almost certainly.”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes, tucked his book away and stood up and pushed the other two aside to shake out the blanket. He rolled it up into a tight cylinder and tucked it inside the picnic basket, then ushered Crowley and his juvenile delinquent towards the sidewalk in the opposite direction from the boa.

“Keep walking,” he said tersely as they both turned their heads to take one last glare at the yellow serpent.

The boa’s owner, looking vaguely amused, raised a hand in greeting to Aziraphale, who politely waved back.

Too bad, he thought. He seemed like a nice man. It would have been interesting to talk to him about his snake friend and see if he had any tips to share. He had the sudden urge to read more of his snake book at home, and see if he could ever hope to understand these two. He’d have to find something distracting for them both to do when they returned to the shop.

#good omens fanfiction #aziraphale x crowley #ineffable husbands #snek fiction #understanding your snake

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wordtotherose · 5 years

Note

if you’re still accepting prompts could you do something where a kid comes to the bookshop for hours every day and eventually the ineffable husbands realise the kid’s parents are abusive and the kid’s been going to the bookshop to get away from them as much as possible so they’re like “screw it we’re your parents now”

Now there was going to be a ‘kids can’t drink, Crowley!’ joke but also I like to headcanon that Crowley is good with kids and would know that. So alas I cut it. Thank you for this request! Hope you enjoy! On AO3

She goes to the bookshop because it’s raining and the snow that’s only been there since very early morning has been turned to slush underfoot making every surface dangerous. She’s trying not to cry because the cold already hurts and adding salt water trails on her cheeks to the mix doesn’t seem like it’d help any. So she hugs her arms around her chest, trying to make up for the lack of a coat. Or scarf. Or hat or gloves. It’s with little trepidation and a lot of exhaustion that she opens the door, the bell ringing loudly.

It’s warm inside. Not sweltering like the owner has the radiators on full whack to overpower the outside. But comfortingly warm. Her face hurts at the sudden change, stinging. And her glasses fog up. She stands stock still until they clear slowly. It’s empty. The only other occupant of the room being a blond man smiling down at his phone behind the desk, his back to her. He doesn’t turn to greet her. A small blessing, she thinks.

She stays in the shop for half an hour. Browsing the shelves without touching. She catches the man looking at her only once. There’s pity in the slant of his frown. She turns away and he doesn’t so much as call out a goodbye as the door closes behind her.

***

The next time she visits, a week later, she stays for an hour. The man watches her this time. She watches back. She’s fourteen and looks younger. It makes sense for him not to trust her. She admires the hanging plants in front of his one unblocked window for a while. He smiles at her then.

***

She visits the very next day and finds the doors locked. Not wanting to go home, she sits down on the front step to think through her options. Anywhere else she goes there’s the expectation of her buying something in exchange for spending time there. Here, the owner, who she assumes to be Mr Fell, seems more than happy for her to not spend her meagre savings on books she probably can not even scrap 1% of the cost for. The other option is the park. Where it’s cold. And windy. And exposed to all sorts of people even though it’s only nine in the morning.

She’s still sitting there when a very old looking car roars up to the pavement and stops in speeds that she’s not sure should be possible and definitely aren’t safe. A lanky man gets out. Red hair. Dark clothes. He steps onto the pavement and stops dead when he sees her.

“Uh. Hi.”

She waves, awkwardly forcing a smile. He smiles back, a little sarcastic in nature.

“You looking for someone?”

She shakes her head.

“If you’re waiting for him,” he nods at the shop doors behind her, “to open up, I can pretty much guarantee he isn’t going to.”

She sighs and stands, brushing off her jeans. He steps out of her way as she crosses the street in the direction of the park.

***

She’s been in the shop for an hour, just like yesterday, already as the clock chimes 5pm. Mr Fell knows she’s here. He’d given her a cup of earl grey tea without asking her anything or saying much beyond “please don’t spill it”. She’s still sipping at the last dregs of it, wanting to make it last as if it would be a good enough excuse for Mr Fell to not kick her out. She just doesn’t want to go home. It’s getting worse there and another night spent under that roof seems like hell to her. So she lingers long enough to see the red haired man stalk into the shop.

“Angel! You fucking stood me up! We had plans! You better be discorporated or something, Zira.” The man is clearly covering his distress with the anger, it’s a painfully familiar tone.

She rounds a shelf into the main floor space in time for the man to spin around, sunglasses hiding his eyes even indoors. He sees her and frowns.

“Oi. Kid. Weren’t you loitering outside a couple days ago? Where’s Aziraphale?”

She puffs her chest out, straightening her shoulders in an attempt to not let her fear show. His frown becomes more sad than pissed. She’s not sure if that’s better. Before he can demand an answer she doesn’t want to give, Mr Fell comes down the stairs looking rather harried.

“Crowley! I’m so sorry, my dear, it completely slipped my mind because, you see- oh you’ve met Maddie.”

She’s frowning now too, she’d never told him her name. Hadn’t uttered a single word to the man. Still, the lanky man (Crowley, apparently) walks over to Mr Fell (Zira? Angel?) and crosses his arms, glaring down at him. Mr Fell just smiles softly and kisses his cheek.

“I am truly sorry.”

“Yeah, well. Don’t do it again.”

“Of course.”

It’s hard not to feel like she’s intruding so she sets the empty mug down on the nearest book-free surface and unties her jacket from her waist to slip it on. The men turn to look at her again. Then share a look as she moves for the door. Mr Fell clears his throat. She looks over her shoulder at them. Crowley has a hand on Mr Fell’s shoulder; he doesn’t even look like he knows he’s doing it.

“Maddie? That is your name, yes?”

She nods.

“Would you like to take the sofa for the night? I know you don’t, um…want to go home.”

Crowley dips his head to whisper in Mr Fell’s ear but he isn’t quiet enough for her not to hear. “You’re gonna scare her, angel. I doubt she told you that herself, did she?”

Mr Fell blushes a little, wringing his hands together. “Ah. Hm. Not exactly.”

She can’t help the huff of a laugh that escapes and draws their attention. Mr Fell smiles back. She signs a quick thank you but no and leaves before catching their reaction.

***

Mr Fell opens the door when she knocks and she knows by now that that is not common practice for him. But she’s crying and shaking and carrying a scarily empty rucksack with all her clothes and half her necessities in there. He opens the door and his face falls. She sniffs and tries to sign an apology but her hands are so cold and she’s shaking and he’s already ushering her inside anyway so what’s the point.

“Crowley!” he calls through as he shows her onto a sofa in the backroom.

Crowley runs down the stairs, flinging himself round the edge of the wall. Relaxing a little when he sets eyes on Mr Fell but tensing again when he sees her. Mr Fell presses a steaming cup of tea into her hands. She doesn’t remember any kettle boiling. Or taking her rucksack off but it’s sitting against her feet now. Crowley comes over. Draws Mr Fell off to the side.

“She wants to not go back,” Crowley whispers, poorly.

“I rather figured that out myself, my dear.”

Crowley raises a brow over his glasses at him. “Fine then. What else does she want then?”

Mr Fell scuffs his foot on the carpet.

“Thought so,” Crowley says, smug. “She wants to stay, Zira.”

Crowley doesn’t make a judgement on it. And she’s so tired of trying to do this on her own. They’re so kind and she’s seen both of them kick out horrible people who have come in before. They’re strong and completely in love with each other. They don’t mind that she doesn’t talk, doesn’t want to. Can’t bring herself to. Mr Fell even lets her sit and read some of the books now. Mr Fell looks over at her. Crowley looks at him.

“It’s not like we haven’t raised kids before,” Mr Fell murmurs.

Crowley snorts a laugh and turns to her. “Hey, kid. Want some cake?”

She grins back and nods. Yeah. Things are going to start looking up.

#good omens #ineffable husbands #crowley x aziraphale #my writing #fanfic #fanfiction #prompted fic #anon prompt #writing #outsider pov #fluff #light angst

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