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keksdiebin!
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go_exchangeTitle: The Form of An Apple
Recipient:keksdiebin
Author:irisbleufic
Rating: PG-13/R for generally disturbing imagery
Author's Notes: This is a pinch hit, dear recipient, as your gift-giver fell on tough circumstances and has been relieved of duties; my hope is that this, in spite of limited writing-time, won't be too far off the mark! Your second prompt (Aziraphale/Crowley in a historical setting where they are on opposite sides during an epic conflict) was, fortunately, right up my alley, although I've interpreted it in an eccentric fashion. Happy New Year!
Summary: No good ever comes of a commendation, neither from Below, nor from Above.
We see death come into our midst like black smoke, a plague which cuts off the young, a rootless phantom which has no mercy or fair countenance. Woe is me of the shilling in the arm-pit; it is seething, terrible, wherever it may come, a head that gives pain and causes a loud cry, a burden carried under the arms, a painful angry knob, a white lump. It is of the form of an apple, like the head of an onion, a boil that spares no-one. Great is its seething, like a burning cinder, a grievous thing of an ashy colour. It is an ugly eruption that comes with unseemly haste. It is a grievous ornament that breaks out in a rash: the early ornaments of black death.
—Jeuan Gethin, Welsh poet, d. 1349
*
London, 1 November 1348
The commendation turned up in the guise of a crisp vellum missive from one of Crowley's colleagues in the chancery. Hell hadn't quite got the hang of using Crowley's books to communicate—how easy it would've been for Beelzebub or Dagon or whoever to just rearrange some text on the page while he was enjoying a hilariously bad spot of Langland's latest revisions by candlelight—so they tended to send incorporeal underling demons to possess underling human copyists for purposes of writing out missives, which had the unnerving tendency to appear on Crowley's desk.
He'd been aware of the outbreak for months, in an abstract sort of way. Reports coming in from the Continent were both thorough and harrowing, so Crowley had taken to keeping emergency stashes of honey-chamomile ale and Rhineland white wine on hand.
He broke Hastur's seal with the requisite gesture, fingers seizing uncomfortably.
Three paragraphs into the commendation, both of his hands started to shake.
Crowley dropped the correspondence on his rush-and-lavender strewn floor and reached for his cloak on the door-peg, wondering if he'd regret the walk to Southwark at this time of night.
As it turned out, the streets were empty: every shutter drawn, eerily backlit by tapers.
Aziraphale didn't answer his first knock—or his second, or his third. Just as Crowley prepared, teeth gritted, to kick down the door (not something he liked to do terribly often, as humans tended to notice and grow skittish around such things as displays of unnatural strength), it swung inward.
“Ah,” said the angel, lifting the brim of Crowley's hat up from his eyes. “What are you doing here?”
“Asking you what in Go—Sa—what in the world is going on,” Crowley hissed, pushing his way inside Aziraphale's humble one-room lodging. “I got a commendation for Himself's latest crack at a cleansing by plague. Why'd you do it, eh? Did they tell you the buggers are just breeding too fast for their own good and could sand a thorough cull? No, wait, let me guess—it's got something to do with this explosion of bawdy vernacular literature and a corresponding drop in piety rates, so they've ordered you to sort it all out by killing off at least a third of the population—”
“Half,” said Aziraphale, calmly, closing the door behind Crowley as he ranted and paced.
Crowley stopped dead in his tracks, clenching his outstretched hands.
“What do you mean, half?” he demanded, incredulous.
“One day they'll call it Yersinia pestis,” Aziraphale explained. “The bacteria responsible for this contagion, I mean. I'd always assumed that your people—”
“As I recall, my people didn't create the bloody Garden and all of its various pathogens.”
Aziraphale blanched and made for the cupboard, in which he kept a ready supply of Gascon red.
“Have a drink,” he said, offering Crowley some wine in a wooden tumbler. “You'll feel better.”
“Why don't you offer some to the poor souls starting to puff up with fever and rot?” retorted Crowley, and knocked the proffered cup out of Aziraphale's hand. “See what good it does them?”
Angrily, Aziraphale fetched the vessel, refilled it, and downed half its contents.
“I have nothing to do with it! The first news I've had, in fact, comes by way of this nonsense,” he said, shoving a piece of wrinkled vellum into Crowley's hands.
Crowley scanned the terrifyingly elegant script, which could only have been Gabriel's.
“I don't believe this,” he said. “They think we're behind it.”
“Now you're the one talking nonsense. They don't know about our little...er...”
“You don't understand,” Crowley said, handing the vellum back to Aziraphale. “I got a commendation, too, but the major difference is that mine makes no mention of a projected death toll. I don't give much thought to the statistics accompanying human illness, but your boy Gabriel must be a regular aficionado. Does he keep sample cultures to hand for reference?”
“Crowley,” said Aziraphale, suddenly brandishing a chair at him. “Sit down.”
Much to his dismay, Crowley didn't make it to the chair. His legs gave out, so Aziraphale hauled him up by the armpits and settled him in it somewhat ungracefully. He didn't protest when Aziraphale refilled the tumbler and thrust it into his hands. He drank deep and hiccupped, his vision swimming.
“I don't know what came over me,” he murmured, pensively swilling the wine.
“I suspect it's to do with the prospect of losing half or more of your targets.”
Crowley lowered the tumbler and stared despairingly at the angel.
“Targets,” he echoed. “Is that how you think of them?”
Aziraphale sniffed, busy pouring himself a fresh tumbler of wine.
“It doesn't behoove one to wax sentimental,” he said. “They're humans.”
“They're complicated,” Crowley shot back. “They're clever.”
“I don't follow,” Aziraphale said, taking a long swig of wine.
“If not for them, we'd have no alcohol, for starters.”
Aziraphale pulled a stool up beside Crowley's chair, lost in thought.
“I suppose you're right,” he said at length, and then reached to briskly pat Crowley's knee. “Still, it's their lot to tarry here in sorrow. Part of the Great Plan, et cetera. Ineffable.”
Crowley set his empty tumbler down on the floor and folded his arms.
“So it wasn't you and it wasn't me, and it wasn't Upstairs and it wasn't Downstairs, but they'd both like to think they can claim credit. That's just swell. Don't you ever feel stuck in the middle?”
“Dear boy, we are stuck in the middle,” sighed Aziraphale. “Technically speaking.”
“Well, at times like this, I hate it,” said Crowley, flatly. “D'you know what it'll be like?”
“What what'll be like?” asked Aziraphale, neatly finishing off his wine.
“Watching them die,” Crowley continued. “Do you know how they're suffering, these first victims? One of my people at court was in Melcombe when the first case arrived by sea.”
“Dreadfully unpleasant symptoms, I should think,” said Aziraphale, shrugging.
Crowley indicated his left armpit, which was bruised thanks to Aziraphale's manhandling.
“The lymph nodes swell and form hard, fever-hot pustules. They burst and ooze, spreading the contagion. Some say it can directly enter the blood, and my guess is they'd be right.”
“It'll be airborne before too long,” said Aziraphale, frowning into his tumbler.
“Either you'd best get on with healing a poor sod or two when and as you can, or leave me to it in peace if you're not so inclined,” said Crowley, rising. “I'm going home. This is giving me a headache.”
“Then fix it,” said Aziraphale, following him to the door, wearing an expression that almost passed for one of concern. “You needn't suffer as they do. That is, we needn't—”
“They're the size and shape of an apple,” Crowley said, his hand on the latch. “And as hard.”
Aziraphale covered Crowley's hand with his own, staying it.
“But it needn't be,” he insisted. “Stay and share the rest of this bottle, won't you?”
“The next time either one of us gets a commendation, I want to make damned sure we deserve it,” Crowley seethed. “In this instance, no one does, least of all the humans. Where's your mercy now, eh? Where will it be as thousands perish in torment?”
Aziraphale coaxed Crowley's fingers off the latch and set his soft palm to Crowley's forehead.
“We mustn't burn with them,” he said simply, and then stroked Crowley's temple.
“No,” said Crowley, suddenly weary, and carefully side-stepped the touch. “Wine?”
“Wine,” said Aziraphale, firmly, and went to fetch the bottle from his cupboard.
Crowley resumed his seat in the chair, watching as the window taper guttered.
—Continue: As Above, So Below (Part 1)—
Recipient:
keksdiebinAuthor:
irisbleuficRating: PG-13/R for generally disturbing imagery
Author's Notes: This is a pinch hit, dear recipient, as your gift-giver fell on tough circumstances and has been relieved of duties; my hope is that this, in spite of limited writing-time, won't be too far off the mark! Your second prompt (Aziraphale/Crowley in a historical setting where they are on opposite sides during an epic conflict) was, fortunately, right up my alley, although I've interpreted it in an eccentric fashion. Happy New Year!
Summary: No good ever comes of a commendation, neither from Below, nor from Above.
We see death come into our midst like black smoke, a plague which cuts off the young, a rootless phantom which has no mercy or fair countenance. Woe is me of the shilling in the arm-pit; it is seething, terrible, wherever it may come, a head that gives pain and causes a loud cry, a burden carried under the arms, a painful angry knob, a white lump. It is of the form of an apple, like the head of an onion, a boil that spares no-one. Great is its seething, like a burning cinder, a grievous thing of an ashy colour. It is an ugly eruption that comes with unseemly haste. It is a grievous ornament that breaks out in a rash: the early ornaments of black death.
—Jeuan Gethin, Welsh poet, d. 1349
*
London, 1 November 1348
The commendation turned up in the guise of a crisp vellum missive from one of Crowley's colleagues in the chancery. Hell hadn't quite got the hang of using Crowley's books to communicate—how easy it would've been for Beelzebub or Dagon or whoever to just rearrange some text on the page while he was enjoying a hilariously bad spot of Langland's latest revisions by candlelight—so they tended to send incorporeal underling demons to possess underling human copyists for purposes of writing out missives, which had the unnerving tendency to appear on Crowley's desk.
He'd been aware of the outbreak for months, in an abstract sort of way. Reports coming in from the Continent were both thorough and harrowing, so Crowley had taken to keeping emergency stashes of honey-chamomile ale and Rhineland white wine on hand.
He broke Hastur's seal with the requisite gesture, fingers seizing uncomfortably.
Three paragraphs into the commendation, both of his hands started to shake.
Crowley dropped the correspondence on his rush-and-lavender strewn floor and reached for his cloak on the door-peg, wondering if he'd regret the walk to Southwark at this time of night.
As it turned out, the streets were empty: every shutter drawn, eerily backlit by tapers.
Aziraphale didn't answer his first knock—or his second, or his third. Just as Crowley prepared, teeth gritted, to kick down the door (not something he liked to do terribly often, as humans tended to notice and grow skittish around such things as displays of unnatural strength), it swung inward.
“Ah,” said the angel, lifting the brim of Crowley's hat up from his eyes. “What are you doing here?”
“Asking you what in Go—Sa—what in the world is going on,” Crowley hissed, pushing his way inside Aziraphale's humble one-room lodging. “I got a commendation for Himself's latest crack at a cleansing by plague. Why'd you do it, eh? Did they tell you the buggers are just breeding too fast for their own good and could sand a thorough cull? No, wait, let me guess—it's got something to do with this explosion of bawdy vernacular literature and a corresponding drop in piety rates, so they've ordered you to sort it all out by killing off at least a third of the population—”
“Half,” said Aziraphale, calmly, closing the door behind Crowley as he ranted and paced.
Crowley stopped dead in his tracks, clenching his outstretched hands.
“What do you mean, half?” he demanded, incredulous.
“One day they'll call it Yersinia pestis,” Aziraphale explained. “The bacteria responsible for this contagion, I mean. I'd always assumed that your people—”
“As I recall, my people didn't create the bloody Garden and all of its various pathogens.”
Aziraphale blanched and made for the cupboard, in which he kept a ready supply of Gascon red.
“Have a drink,” he said, offering Crowley some wine in a wooden tumbler. “You'll feel better.”
“Why don't you offer some to the poor souls starting to puff up with fever and rot?” retorted Crowley, and knocked the proffered cup out of Aziraphale's hand. “See what good it does them?”
Angrily, Aziraphale fetched the vessel, refilled it, and downed half its contents.
“I have nothing to do with it! The first news I've had, in fact, comes by way of this nonsense,” he said, shoving a piece of wrinkled vellum into Crowley's hands.
Crowley scanned the terrifyingly elegant script, which could only have been Gabriel's.
“I don't believe this,” he said. “They think we're behind it.”
“Now you're the one talking nonsense. They don't know about our little...er...”
“You don't understand,” Crowley said, handing the vellum back to Aziraphale. “I got a commendation, too, but the major difference is that mine makes no mention of a projected death toll. I don't give much thought to the statistics accompanying human illness, but your boy Gabriel must be a regular aficionado. Does he keep sample cultures to hand for reference?”
“Crowley,” said Aziraphale, suddenly brandishing a chair at him. “Sit down.”
Much to his dismay, Crowley didn't make it to the chair. His legs gave out, so Aziraphale hauled him up by the armpits and settled him in it somewhat ungracefully. He didn't protest when Aziraphale refilled the tumbler and thrust it into his hands. He drank deep and hiccupped, his vision swimming.
“I don't know what came over me,” he murmured, pensively swilling the wine.
“I suspect it's to do with the prospect of losing half or more of your targets.”
Crowley lowered the tumbler and stared despairingly at the angel.
“Targets,” he echoed. “Is that how you think of them?”
Aziraphale sniffed, busy pouring himself a fresh tumbler of wine.
“It doesn't behoove one to wax sentimental,” he said. “They're humans.”
“They're complicated,” Crowley shot back. “They're clever.”
“I don't follow,” Aziraphale said, taking a long swig of wine.
“If not for them, we'd have no alcohol, for starters.”
Aziraphale pulled a stool up beside Crowley's chair, lost in thought.
“I suppose you're right,” he said at length, and then reached to briskly pat Crowley's knee. “Still, it's their lot to tarry here in sorrow. Part of the Great Plan, et cetera. Ineffable.”
Crowley set his empty tumbler down on the floor and folded his arms.
“So it wasn't you and it wasn't me, and it wasn't Upstairs and it wasn't Downstairs, but they'd both like to think they can claim credit. That's just swell. Don't you ever feel stuck in the middle?”
“Dear boy, we are stuck in the middle,” sighed Aziraphale. “Technically speaking.”
“Well, at times like this, I hate it,” said Crowley, flatly. “D'you know what it'll be like?”
“What what'll be like?” asked Aziraphale, neatly finishing off his wine.
“Watching them die,” Crowley continued. “Do you know how they're suffering, these first victims? One of my people at court was in Melcombe when the first case arrived by sea.”
“Dreadfully unpleasant symptoms, I should think,” said Aziraphale, shrugging.
Crowley indicated his left armpit, which was bruised thanks to Aziraphale's manhandling.
“The lymph nodes swell and form hard, fever-hot pustules. They burst and ooze, spreading the contagion. Some say it can directly enter the blood, and my guess is they'd be right.”
“It'll be airborne before too long,” said Aziraphale, frowning into his tumbler.
“Either you'd best get on with healing a poor sod or two when and as you can, or leave me to it in peace if you're not so inclined,” said Crowley, rising. “I'm going home. This is giving me a headache.”
“Then fix it,” said Aziraphale, following him to the door, wearing an expression that almost passed for one of concern. “You needn't suffer as they do. That is, we needn't—”
“They're the size and shape of an apple,” Crowley said, his hand on the latch. “And as hard.”
Aziraphale covered Crowley's hand with his own, staying it.
“But it needn't be,” he insisted. “Stay and share the rest of this bottle, won't you?”
“The next time either one of us gets a commendation, I want to make damned sure we deserve it,” Crowley seethed. “In this instance, no one does, least of all the humans. Where's your mercy now, eh? Where will it be as thousands perish in torment?”
Aziraphale coaxed Crowley's fingers off the latch and set his soft palm to Crowley's forehead.
“We mustn't burn with them,” he said simply, and then stroked Crowley's temple.
“No,” said Crowley, suddenly weary, and carefully side-stepped the touch. “Wine?”
“Wine,” said Aziraphale, firmly, and went to fetch the bottle from his cupboard.
Crowley resumed his seat in the chair, watching as the window taper guttered.
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(no subject)
Date: 2013-01-04 01:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-01-11 06:33 am (UTC)I'm pleased in particular to hear that you found this visually engaging. Thank you for reading!
(no subject)
Date: 2013-01-04 10:10 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-01-11 06:34 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-01-04 11:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-01-11 06:35 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-01-05 01:58 am (UTC)Allow me to do a blanket thank you this one year for such a cornucopia of riches--such long, meaty stories as well as short thoughtful or frothy ones, delightful art. It was an unusually bountiful year with something good to find in all of them and much to find as "keepers" for long past the holiday and to be printed out and into my infamous "binders" for permanent retrieval and reading.
Thank you all!
(no subject)
Date: 2013-01-11 06:37 am (UTC)Thank you, and Happy New Year *hugs*
(no subject)
Date: 2013-01-11 07:14 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-01-05 05:18 pm (UTC)I love how emotional Crowley is and how you portrait their relationship <3 And there are quite a few sentences I particularly enjoyed *__*!
“As I recall, my people didn't create the bloody Garden and all of its various pathogens.”
Like this one <33 It's really tragic how ahead they are when it comes to biology... and references to the Garden are always great <3
Just as Crowley prepared, teeth gritted, to kick down the door (not something he liked to do terribly often, as humans tended to notice and grow skittish around such things as displays of unnatural strength), it swung inward.
And this one - oh Crowley <33 I think I need to write a story where he does kick a door open <3
Thanks again for this very awesome gift and I wish you a happy new Year =)!
(no subject)
Date: 2013-01-11 06:39 am (UTC)I'm so glad you liked this. Happy New Year *hugs*
(no subject)
Date: 2013-01-06 04:37 am (UTC)I also love their different and very realistic reactions - you can really see how time changes them into the characters in GO, and the idea that they (in particular, Aziraphale) were slightly colder towards humans and mellowed over the centuries is one of my favourite bits of headcanon and you've done that perfectly here, with Crowley being the one more affected; oh Crowley. *hugs him* And the description of Gabriel fits right in.
Lovely!
(no subject)
Date: 2013-01-11 06:41 am (UTC)Thank you so much, and Happy Holidays!
(no subject)
Date: 2013-01-11 06:55 am (UTC)The research has really helped, I think; you don't beat the reader over the head with well-researched details that may overpower the story (as I often have to stop myself from doing), but it's subtle and in the background, giving a great sense of the historical atmosphere.
Happy Holidays!
(no subject)
Date: 2013-01-06 07:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-01-11 06:42 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-01-11 01:50 pm (UTC)And as sirius_luva earlier commented, the little historic details really anchor this in the time period. I think the difficulty with writing A & C into history is achieving that sense of a particular time period, that the culture they are living in is not a meaningless background, and I think you nailed it.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-01-11 06:51 pm (UTC)He never quite gets over the irony of his unintentional fate, it seems - but, my God, does he ever make the best of a less than desirable situation! He's an incredibly inspiring character, when it comes down to it <3
Thank you so much for reading!
(no subject)
Date: 2013-01-14 03:25 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-01-17 02:16 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-01-15 09:23 am (UTC)Thank you
(no subject)
Date: 2013-01-17 02:18 am (UTC)Thank you so much *hugs*
(no subject)
Date: 2013-01-15 09:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-01-17 02:20 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-01-30 06:31 pm (UTC)“I don't follow,” Aziraphale said, taking a long swig of wine.
This one, oh dear. Perhaps out of admiration to you for writing this earlier Aziraphale so clearly younger, shall we say, I seem to love Aziraphale's coldness itself.
Catching up on the GOE stories, since I realized reading As Above, So Below that I'm behind - wonderful as ever ♥
(no subject)
Date: 2013-02-01 06:37 am (UTC)Thank you for reading *hugs* Happy Holidays!
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