Happy Holidays, esia/kieren!
Dec. 21st, 2017 05:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
goe_mod posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
go_exchangeTitle: The Plant Show (Titles are hard)
Recipient Name: esia/kieren
Rating: General
Pairings: Aziraphale/Crowley
Warnings: Crowley being a jerk to plants.
Summary: Crowley goes to the Autumn Garden Show and invites Aziraphale along with him.
The author has allowed the mods to divide this into 2 parts.
The Plant Show
“Aziraphale?”
“Mm?”
“There’s this thing next month...”
“Thing? You’ll have to be more specific.”
“It’s a plant show.”
“Oh! That should be lovely. Yes, I’d love to come along, my dear.”
“I was thinking of competing.”
“… I don’t like the aggressive implications of that “competing” at all, Crowley. I hope you’re not planning any nonsense to put yourself ahead.”
“I have my pride, thank you. By which I mean, I already know my plants are the best in the city, no nonsense on judgment day needed.”
Crowley had looked genuinely insulted, and then quickly genuinely full of himself. But you don’t spend 6000 years with somebody without noticing how things tend to go tumbling downhill when they put their mind to something.
“Alright… But no silly business.”
“No silly business. I promise.”
And so Sunday morning Aziraphale found himself awkwardly hovering beside Crowley’s show table as other contestant bustled by him, preparing their own displays. The spacious showroom was crisply chill to keep the cut arrangements fresh. There was a raw smell in the air not quite unlike newly cut grass. The murmurs of the early birds echoed off the concrete floor and high ceiling, making the place seem even larger and emptier.
Crowley was off unloading the last of his plants from the rental car (1). Aziraphale had offered to help, but Crowley had refused, citing that Aziraphale’s good will towards the shrubbery might ruin his hard work. Couldn’t have them thinking they could slack off when he needed them at their best. And so, with two curt pats to Aziraphale’s shoulder, Crowley had been off.
At least for the moment he had time to stop and appreciate the small things, literally smell a rose or two, watch as Crowley worked over his plants. And the ones he had already brought in were lovely…Glossy leaves, resplendent blooms, not a dead growth in sight. The spiky, pink-flowered one Aziraphale had poked at had been sharp enough to cut him. He didn’t know very much about plants, but that seemed like it probably counted for something.
Crowley returned with the next armful of plants. He gently placed them on the table with their fellows before standing back upright. He raised an unimpressed eyebrow at Aziraphale, who was nursing his pricked finger in his mouth.
“I told you not to touch them.” Crowley pulled a band-aid out of the air with a flick, taking Aziraphale’s hand in his.
“I only wanted a better look at it,” Aziraphale said, despondently watching as Crowley applied the bandage a tad tightly.
Crowley finished with Aziraphale’s cut and turned to exactly the offending plant, already knowing which one Aziraphale must have been pestering.
“Usually I would encourage this kind of thing, but you’ve got to learn to be more discriminating. Undifferentiated meeting out of misery just isn’t strategic and you certainly aren’t doing me any favors pricking that one.” Crowley turned back to Aziraphale with a fond look on his face. “She’s one of my favorites.”
“Of course it is,” Aziraphale said darkly, finger stinging.
“Don’t be like that, you brought it on yourself. It’s not like she pulled herself from her terracotta pot and attacked you,” Crowley snorted.
“She could have…”
“A plant?”
“Those Venus flytraps can move.”
“More reflex than anything.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. But nevermind that, I’ve got something that’ll please you.” Crowley reached for his pants pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He handed it to Aziraphale. “Looks like they’ve got some special tour of the horticultural library. I know you couldn’t give a hoot about what they have to say about plants, but biggest collection of its kind in the world, I’d bet they have a piece or two to pique your interest.”
Aziraphale was indeed pleased, eyeing over the pamphlet, cut forgotten and replaced with thoughts of hand-drawn illustrations and delicate, aged paper.
“Well! I would hate to leave you, moral support and all, but I’m sure I’d just be a distraction anyway, wouldn’t want to bumble something and hurt your chances, it seems you have it in hand, so…” Aziraphale was already turning away, attempting to decipher the tiny, inaccurate map printed on the paper. Surely Crowley would be fine on his own for a bit, he would only be gone for an hour, or two…
“Have fun,” Crowley called, amused, to Aziraphale’s unhearing back.
[1. Despite Crowley’s equal love for the Bentley and his plants, never the twain shall meet. Can’t risk the dirt stains.]
And so Aziraphale in fact spent four hours and twenty-seven minutes in the collections. He had slipped the guide soon after she had begun discussing the minor leaf differences between two 12 syllable species of crab apple and had had himself a fine time simply admiring the artistry - and rarity – of the library’s botanical catalogues.
Though he had stayed longer than he had intended, he did make sure to return to Crowley before the judging began, phone alarm buzzing in his pocket (2). Aziraphale silenced it and double-checked the time as he approached Crowley’s table. Only a handful of minutes left before the judges would be coming by. There was Crowley now, lounging back in his plastic folding chair and arms crossed behind his head. Better overconfident than pacing and wringing his hands and working himself into a mess like he’s wont to do, I suppose, Aziraphale thought to himself.
“Crowley! Forgive me, I know the time got a bit away from me,” Aziraphale said with a chuckle.
Crowley only frowned at him in greeting.
“… You’re upset.”
“I guess it’s an improvement that you can at least tell that much.” Crowley paused and then hastily added; “I’m not upset. Annoyed. Ticked off.”
“Whichever it is, I am sorry, I didn’t think you’d mind me being gone for a few hours when you showed me that flyer. You know what I’m like when you let me around new, old books.” A lopsided, amused smile streaked across Crowley’s face fast as a bullet the second before he reigned it in. Aziraphale continued, encouraged. “I really thought you would be happy to keep yourself busy with all the quaint little plant stalls around.”
“Well. I did for a bit. I got talked into this interesting moraea hybrid. And then I had to find other ways to amuse myself.”
“Crowley, we talked about this!” Aziraphale said, exasperated. He cast about to see if he could spy any of the inevitable mischief Crowley must have caused, but did not see anything immediate.
“The absence of silly business was based on the assumption that you would be around to tell me off if it happened, and that you wouldn’t disappear for five hours –“
“Three minutes short of even four and a half, actually.” Aziraphale said. He poked Crowley in the shoulder. “Honestly, I’m tempted to say you’re worse these days than before our Arrangement.”
“There’s no tempted, you already said it. And that’s because you think it’s endearing now.” Crowley finally let up and grinned.
“My absentmindedness can’t be similarly forgiven?” Aziraphale tried.
“Nah. That’s only funny when it’s happening to other people. Ah, here come the judges.” Crowley stood. Aziraphale saw him wring his hands once before hiding them behind his back. Perhaps not as free of nerves as he appeared.
The three judges had just finished with the stall across the aisle and were now approaching them. Behind the three, Aziraphale could see the previous contestant, standing over some quite nice cactuses. They looked downtrodden, in the way a child looks downtrodden when they bring a stick figure drawing to the school art show and their teacher tells them, unbearably politely, “Oh, isn’t that nice…”
Aziraphale was exactly the same breed of unbearably polite and he recognized his kin in the judges faces immediately. He had a bad feeling about this.
“Hello, contestant 37D?” Said the judge with the name tag Arnold, and a voice as thick as the glasses sitting on his face.
“Yes, uh, hi,” Crowley gave a little wave before he shoved his hand behind his back again. “You can call me Crowley, actually.”
“Of course, contestant,” Arnold said, attention already on Crowley’s plants. Aziraphale’s nose prickled.
“What have you got for us today, sir?” said another of the judges, this one’s name Evan. They looked over their clipboard and tapped it with a long, glittery nail “This says you’re in the miscellaneous category?”
“Yeah,” Crowley’s stance relaxed. Aziraphale relaxed, too, as Crowley seemed to fall into his element, listing off plants at the table. He pointed to one Aziraphale at least knew was a succulent, apparently burro’s tail. Another, white stripes marking its spines, zebra haworthia. Next was poison primrose, friendly peach flowers and large, soft foliage seemingly unassuming. The weeping fig was quite a plain little sapling, but Crowley seemed pleased with it nonetheless. Crowley straightened proudly as he reached the last plant, the selfsame one that had pricked Aziraphale earlier.
“And this, the silver vase plant.” Crowley beamed and swept a hand over its fluorescent pink bloom and wide, marbled leaves.
“Mhm, very nice, but this poison primrose…” Began the third judge, Kamala, who had the sort of gaze that didn’t so much go through you as seem to rest several distracted inches in front of your face. “Four petals?”
“Yes? Yes.” Crowley frowned. “What’s wrong with four petals?”
“And your weeping fig, the collars on the branches are quite pronounced,” Evan took out a measuring tape and held it against the plant. “Two-point-four millimeters too pronounced.”
Crowley didn’t reply.
“Who’s keeping track of two-point-four millimeters, really?” Aziraphale said.
Arnold turned to another sheet on his clipboard, covered in swatches of color. He held it against the two succulents, studying the plants for several seconds. Aziraphale clasped Crowley’s arm, dread filling him.
“I’m afraid these are just a few shades off… The burro’s tail should really be more spring green than lime green, and you see how the haworthia here has a mild ombre from emerald to jade? The proper coloration is jade to emerald.”
“We should be off to the next contestant now.” Kamala said and meaningfully raised her eyebrows at the other judges.
“Well! Thank you for competing today, Mr. Crowley. Your entries were very… nice.” Evan offered.
“Someone will have your score back to you by the end of the show. Good day.” Arnold said with disheartening finality. And they were gone.
“…What an unbearable lot,” Aziraphale sniffed, and then looked to Crowley, his forearm still in hand. “Are you…?”
“I didn’t think the judging criteria would be so specific.” Crowley sunk down into his chair. “S’pose there’s no point now, may as well go home while we can still do something with the day.”
“Come now, Crowley,” Aziraphale knelt beside Crowley and put a comforting hand on his knee. “Don’t be like that… You may not get the gold for perfect specimen, but they have to see how hard you’ve worked on your plants! Maybe-“
“Oh, hello, just thought I’d pop back for a moment to let you know our criteria also applies for silver. Bye!” Kamala popped back around the huge display of orchids flanking Crowley’s table just as quickly as she had appeared. Aziraphale scowled after her for a moment before looking back to Crowley.
“Bronze would still be… nice?” Aziraphale cringed at his own word choice. Crowley slouched further down in his seat and crossed his arms. Aziraphale rubbed his knee fretfully. “Suppose… I turned my eye from a little cheating.”
“I’d always know my plants didn’t really win anything and what’s the point of that,” Crowley sniffed and Aziraphale felt his heart twist.
“You really are disappointed, aren’t you?” Crowley stared ahead and didn’t respond, but his cheeks seemed to go the slightest red. Aziraphale stood. “Alright. Let’s say you wait here just a moment while I finish up in the library collection, and then I treat you to that snazzy, new Korean place with the pithy name that you like. How’s that sound?”
“Alright.” Crowley remained slouched in his chair. He unfolded his arms, took out his phone (3), and began unenthusiastically scrolling over it.
“Right then,” Aziraphale said. He walked off among the aisles of tables and stalls, back towards the library.
And then, when he was quite sure he had put enough foliage between himself and Crowley, he doubled back and in the direction the judges had gone.
[2. Crowley had bought him a modern phone a few years back. Aziraphale didn’t much care about actually calling people with it, but he had to admit that the utility of having a calendar, notepad, alarm clock, and more within one small device was convenient. He had suddenly found himself late to many fewer of his dinners with Crowley, especially when Crowley had taken to magicking the phone unlocked and oh, so helpfully setting the alarms himself. Without telling Aziraphale. The insistent vibrating and squawking had shocked Aziraphale out of many a reading stupor, and had dirtied almost as many of his shirts with spilled cocoa.]
[3. Bought barely more than a month after Crowley’s last. Apparently he just had to have the latest, even when he had such an awful time learning all the new ins and outs. Aziraphale didn’t know how any company sustained such a release schedule. Crowley thought it was brilliant they got away with it, of course. Aziraphale tactfully didn’t voice that Crowley seemed just as victim to it.]
Imagine a young man. A fairly average-looking young man, but perhaps with some self-pitying doubts about it himself. The young man’s head is filled with delusions of academic grandeur about his own intelligence, and a well of disregard for lab safety codes and public wellbeing. The usual suspect when things are about to go very wrong.
Today, the young man has brought a single plant with him to the show. At the moment, the “plant” is not much more than a simple, unassuming twig laying in an airtight acrylic box covered in thick cloth.
Aziraphale accidentally knocks shoulders with the young man as he storms past. Aziraphale murmurs an apology. The young man glares after him. In the collision, the cloth has slipped off just enough to let a sliver of light fall upon the twig. The young man does not notice. Perhaps it would have been wiser to secure the plant within a light-proof bag or box not so easily jostled, but neither could be pulled off with quite the same flourish, could they? Too late now, in any case.
The twig grows.
“Excuse me! Excuse me.”
Aziraphale had finally caught up with the judges. They stood over another contestant’s table, with whom they seemed considerably more pleased with than they had been with Crowley. The contestant wore a securely smug expression. They hadn’t noticed Aziraphale.
“My! That coloring!”
“What form!”
“The petalage!”
“I don’t believe that’s a word…”
Aziraphale purposefully tapped Arnold on the shoulder. That is to say, politely and appropriately apologetically for interrupting. More flies with honey, Aziraphale reminded himself.
“Oh, hello, you were from the last-“
“Yes, with a Mr. Crowley, who I think you were rather quick to judge. Which, I suppose, I can’t say I’m not guilty of myself, but we’ve let bygones be bygones, of course... At any rate, went about it without so much as a how-do-you-do, and I know you must be busy, but if you just took a moment to admire them I’m sure you’d see that his plants really are something. Passing over them simply because they don’t meet some exacting, predetermined rules is- is just-“ Aziraphale grasped for a phrasing that wouldn’t be insulting to the judges, their occupation, and their institution all in one. He was also feeling a bit more self-aware than he tended to consider within a comfortable range. He decided to stop. “Well?”
The judges gave each other embarrassed looks.
Did that work? Aziraphale thought hopefully. He gave them a bright smile for good measure. At this point most people were so intimidated by Aziraphale’s kindly unrelenting surety that he would have his way, that they let him have it regardless. Unfortunately, the judges were already inoculated to exactly this kind of thing from years of experience.
“Look… Every year we get guests just like you, so very concerned that the entrant they’re rooting for is getting cheated. And that’s very admirable of you and I’m sure the specimens are very nice-“ If Aziraphale’s temper was an undisturbed pot of water, it suddenly gave a boiling pop at Arnold’s words.
“You did just see them, so I’d imagine you’d have to have quite the poor memory to not be sure." Aziraphale felt a twinge of guilt at his own tone.
“Y’know,” said the currently mid-judgment contestant, deciding to very helpfully state the obvious at exactly the wrong moment. “You really can’t make a fuss if your contestant didn’t read the rules. The majority of us followed them fine.”
“Y’know,” Aziraphale said, cold and flat as a sheet of ice. “I don’t think it’s any of your business.”
If the contestant had had a small, obnoxiously yappy dog – as we might imagine such a person to have – this would be the moment where even it was mercifully shocked into silence. Since no such dog was present, there was no merciful silence. There was only uncomfortable, human silence that someone would breach decorum so. And infuriated, angelic silence. For how often Aziraphale was at the other end of it, he did not take well to being know-it-alled.
“I mean… He’s not wrong, sir,” Kamala finally spoke up in a squeak. “The rules are so precise so that the judging is fair… So it’s standardized and unbiased, you see.”
Aziraphale deflated a bit at that. The rules really were meant with good intention.
“Yes, but… Isn’t there any leeway? Perhaps for particularly exceptional plants?” Aziraphale looked to each of the judges in turn.
The judges looked at each other uncertainly.
“I suppose, but…” Evan started. They looked to the other two for help.
“To be frank with you, that specimen would have to be absolutely show stopping,” Arnold finished. “And I’m afraid we did not see anything quite that caliber at Mr. Crowley’s table.”
Aziraphale considered this for a moment. He thought about how each of Crowley’s plants were in perfect condition and health. He thought about how Crowley spent an hour with his plants nearly every day, fawning over his plants one by one, even if what he showered them in might be at the extreme of “tough love”. He thought about Crowley’s easy pride this morning as he looked over his prized plants, the way he gently cradled them to the table like they were precious cargo. Aziraphale thought about how stupidly, inexplicably dedicated to his plants Crowley was.
“I think- I think you had better take a second look,” Aziraphale said with Meaning.
The judges dazedly turned to each other and murmured their agreement. The now abandoned contestant began to protest. Someone touched Aziraphale’s shoulder.
A
ziraphale readied a “Hello, I’m sorry, could it wait just a moment, please.” He would feel guiltier the longer he had the judges under his thrall- ahem, that is, the longer he kept them from their duties, so better to get this over with. As he thought this, the touch confusingly wrapped and constricted around his forearm. He turned, and looked up, and looked up.
“Huh.” Above him loomed a heavy gush of vines. He heard the other contestant run screaming away. He also heard the judges begin babbling about how they should really be getting on to reassess Mr. Crowley’s plants, that they hoped he wouldn’t mind if the vines delayed them a bit, the newbies should really know to be tidier. Aziraphale quickly snapped his fingers to release them. They exited much the same way as the contestant.
At his snap, several more of the tendrils jerked in his direction and streamed towards him. Aziraphale experimentally pulled away from the vine holding him. There was a bit of give, but it resolutely did not let go. The other vines reached him and began to circle up his calves.
“Oh, no, no, no, no thank you.” The vines went up in delicate pomfs of ash as Aziraphale incinerated them with a blink. Perhaps a bit overkill, but he had been panicked and a fair amount distracted by the tickling of the vines. He’d even accidentally scorched his own clothes, soot marks all along where the vines had wrapped themselves.
The brittle, cremated weeds at Aziraphale’s feet did not seem to have deterred the massive plant. More vines than before were steadily heading towards him.
At least he needn’t suspect Crowley. He usually had enough good sense to be more discreet than this. However, not knowing the cause was not an altogether comforting thought…
Next: Part 2!
(no subject)
Date: 2017-12-21 03:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-12-22 10:54 pm (UTC)I can't wait to read the next part to see what this ominous plant is about!
There were so many great parts in this one :D
Crowley buying Aziraphale a phone and setting alarms for him and poor Ziraph spilling cocoa on his shirts because of them.
"Aziraphale was exactly the same breed of unbearably polite and he recognized his kin in the judges faces immediately"
"And infuriated, angelic silence. For how often Aziraphale was at the other end of it, he did not take well to being know-it-alled."
And, my favourite: "“Oh, no, no, no, no thank you.”"
Aziraphale, still being polite when assaulted by weird killer-vines XD
I also love how he's going out of his way to help poor, devastated Crowley.
He loves his darling so much <3
Now on to the next part! :)
(this comment was presented to you by Staubengel)
(no subject)
Date: 2017-12-24 01:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-12-29 10:43 pm (UTC)I really like the way you phrase the first footnote, it sounds like something Crowley would say
"Aziraphale was exactly the same breed of unbearably polite and he recognized his kin in the judges faces immediately. He had a bad feeling about this." AMAZING
OH GOSH. A plant monster! It's so perfect for these two XD I can't wait to see what happens next!
(no subject)
Date: 2018-01-04 11:33 pm (UTC)"The absence of silly business was based on the assumption that you would be around to tell me off if it happened, and that you wouldn’t disappear for five hours –"
Ha! :D
“Oh, hello, just thought I’d pop back for a moment to let you know our criteria also applies for silver. Bye!” I laughed. Poor Crowley.
Aziraphale talking to the judges was so in character!