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go_exchange2017-12-24 05:31 am
Happy Holidays, macdicilla!
Summary: Aziraphale and Crowley had been through a lot throughout the ages, but the ups and downs were both needed for them to finally fully accept each others' company. And some occult / ethereal mysteries thrown into the mix don't hurt too much either. Or maybe they do - if they are mysteries great enough to make one of them completely forget that an incredibly important anniversary is coming up...
Word Count: 17332
Tone: mixed (everything from sad to comical as far as I can tell)
Content Warnings: (occasional) profanity*, drinking, mentions of war** and bombs, wounds, blood, major character death***, implied A/C, on-screen kissing, **** Crowley changing shapes, Aziraphale and Crowley as women (in the past).
(* Crowley and his continued "blessing"; plus as far as I remember, one instance of the victory of ~Let Aziraphale Say F*ck 2k17~.)
(**specifically WW2 and cold war bomb tests. [yay history.])
(***which is suicide, and which is major character death of the non-permanent variety, but that would probably count as a spoiler)
(**** twist ending / twist on the prompt - which, again, would kind of ruin the surprise at the end)
Suggested rating: PG / PG13
Characters: Aziraphale, Crowley, Anathema, Newt, the Them, Raziel (OC), Rahab (OC), Ba'al-Zebul (pre-Fall Beelzebub) (OC), Cathetel (OC), Solomon (OC), Eireen (OC), Lyfing (mentioned) (OC), Aethelnoth (mentioned) (OC)
Important references: Indiana Jones movies, Casino Royale & James Bond in general, Queen songs
Mod Note: This fic is five posts long.
12. December 2020 (N.S.), Ma-no Umi (Sea of the Devil)
“Quiet. Just be quiet. Just keep everything quiet. Just. Don’t. Wake. Him. Up.”
The reminder was completely unnecessary, yet Crowley’s mind helpfully kept replaying it with every awkward and painfully slow tiptoeing step he took. The human body was decidedly not made for stealthy movement – not underwater, at least. He would have much preferred to still be a smaller and far less noticeable serpent… but changing forms was currently somewhere beyond the further edge of impossible.
A deep rumbling noise reminded him what exactly he was trying to leave behind, and he quickened his steps on the slippery cover of algae over the ground. A moment later, he could have screamed-
(“Shut up, shut up, shut up, don’t make a sound!”)
- when a distant shipwreck began a blood-freezingly loud, creaking descent from its unsteady resting place. The rumbling started up again, the beast sounding less sleepy and much angrier this time around. Subtlety be blessed, Crowley kicked himself off the rocks of the seabed, and swam towards the cavern as fast as he could.
Although he hadn’t used his wings underwater in centuries, they still carried him with more speed than he had hoped for: he overshot the entrance to the cave entirely, and got caught up in a current that definitely should not have been there. It carried him along spiky, serpentine corridors, throwing him against hard walls and pushing him up and down impossibly long shafts, all of it with the swiftness of a misaligned comet falling into the Sun…
… only to spit him out into a large, dry chamber underneath a dome of water.
At first, he did not dare to move.
“Is he awake? Is he… does he know?”
Apparently though, no one knew that he had found the place he had been looking for. (Or that the place had found him. Semantics.)
The desert-dry and void-quiet chamber was still enough to keep him unnerved.
“Best get this over with.”
He stood up on the eerily lifeless ground, took care of his bruises with a few miracles, and hid his wings – there wouldn’t have been much use for them down wherever on Earth this was. Aside from the water-dome on top, the chamber possessed only one exit: a hole barely tall enough for a man (or man-shaped creature in this case) to go through without constantly bumping their head into the artificially smooth ceiling. Crowley could barely wait to reach the end of the claustrophobic corridor. To him, such a structure was very suspect: why would this a simple (albeit uncomfortable) path lead to such unspeakable treasure? With every step he expected to find himself in the jaws of a trap.
However, the tunnel simply opened into a much wider corridor, which, again, led straight ahead into impenetrable darkness. And steeply down. Not that a demon would not be used to that. After the stormy entry, this part was almost enjoyable.
“Just like Indiana Jones,” Crowley thought to himself proudly. Only, this artefact would be beyond the wildest dreams of any human professor of archaeology, fictional or otherwise.
Barely had Crowley reached that conclusion, he tripped over something, and fell flat on his face. As the ground and the walls of the tunnel both started shaking violently, he forgot all about the sound of a wire snapping that his ears had only just been able to catch, and scrambled to his feet. Looking for the source of the vibrations, he whirled around just in time to see a section of the ceiling open up and slide entirely out of view, letting a giant boulder fall into the now very understandably inclined corridor.
“Just like Indiana Jones,” he thought bitterly, as he turned away from the ominous spectacle, and started to run.
26 October 4004 BC (O. S.), somewhere on Earth
One day of Creation was a very long time. Presently, though, nobody could imagine how impossibly long they would once seem. All that the solemn, eternally busy inhabitants of the Heavenly Kingdom knew was that one such day was enough for an entire flock of freshly made angels to grow into their roles. (It should have been, at any rate.)
And the Fifth Day had just come to its end.
A still smallish angel with bright golden eyes and emerald feathers forgot all about the phoenix-nest they were going to make, and turned their eyes to the sky in wonder. Louder than the burrowing of worms, deeper than the whistles of whales, and more adorned with decoration than the melodies chirped by every single bird created, a new song had caught their attention. A new part in the harmony reverberating through the entire Cosmos, a new start to the revolutions of the planets, a new hum for a new era of the expanding Universe: the Sixth Day was starting.
The song was warm as it had ever been – as the Word had ever been – and they could listen to it forever.
“Cathetel!”
Someone was calling their name, faintly, as though it had been spoken underwater. But why would anyone speak to them from underwater?
“I know,” the emerald-winged angel thought, “I will listen for the answer.”
Because the melody knew. The cosmic song knew all.
Interspersed between the echoes of an igniting chain of supernovae, coded into thrills of Venus, the music brought them the answer.
A look of absolute elation passed through their face, before it morphed into an expression of sudden horror. The mighty Ba’al-zebul was towering above the small angel, irritated in the extreme, having called their name three times already.
“Cathetel, you are to report to Eden immediately!”
“Y-yes, Sir!” the young angel whimpered, their golden eyes still wide with fear.
“And stop getting distracted by the Music of the Spheres. You will have all the time in the worlds to listen to it later,” the other added more mildly. “Right now, you have new animals to get to know. Our Father is Creating again.”
“Yes,” the smaller angel agreed swiftly, the crown of their green feathers trembling in excitement. “I hear one of them is really long and sleek and-”
“Cathetel, what did I just tell you about the Music?”
“Sorry, Sir.”
“Run along now, or you won’t even have time to meet the snakes you appear so very enthused by.”
“Yes, Sir!” Cathetel laughed, their eyes shining with curiosity as they flew to the old-new Garden.
12. December 1020 (O. S.), near Canterbury
Crowley never would have thought that one day, he might feel even the tiniest bit beholden to a man of the church. Let alone two of those.
Although currently, donned the clothes of a nobleman, he hoped to blame it on being drunk as a fiddler.
In the company of his mortal enemy.
Well. Of his former mortal enemy.
He’d been trying to get the blessed angel to just stop for a moment and talk… he’d been trying, with slowly growing success, for decades. And now? They had talked. A lot. And drunk even more. Which was just as well. Archbishops or no archbishops, they would probably not have reached any sort of arrangement otherwise.
“Lyf’ was a – such a – a brigheigh f’low,” Aziraphale said, startling his unlikely companion. He had been enjoying the lengthy silence, just lying in the grass, beneath the crown of trees, safe from prying eyes. His newfound headache had been enjoying it, too.
“He wassa what?” he asked back sloppily.
“Bri’.”
“Wha’?”
“Bright.”
“Oh, yes, yes, bright,” Crowley quickly agreed. It won him enough time to wade through the pleasant haze over his mind, and remember that the reason the angel had left the monastery, and stuck around long enough was that he'd agreed to drink to Lyfing’s memory. Smart move, not insulting that same memory a few hours later.
But still. Feeling beholden to men of the church. Not even drunkenness could excuse that. Sighing, Crowley decided to get rid of the remaining alcohol in his body (although the current one had been handling it remarkably well so far). Aziraphale soon followed sort, his nose and cheeks losing their comically strong red tint in a matter of seconds.
“What were we talking about?” the angel asked.
“Lyfing,” Crowley supplied.
“Oh, yes. Such a bright fellow. And a good man, truly.”
Oh, yes, it was all coming back to Crowley now. The long, – even for the peculiar sense of time immortal beings possessed – very long rant about how the former Archbishop of Canterbury had been a remarkable person. Deciding for rebuilding after captivity, not letting it break his spirits, that sort of thing. Crowley wouldn’t know – he had never spoken to the man. He was more in his element when it came to the everyman’s affairs.
Anyway, the angel had just realised he had lost a good friend in Lyfing about half a year after the Archbishop had died. Only a day after he had had his first meeting with Lyfing’s successor, Aethelnoth. Who, apparently, could not measure up to the previous Archbishop in any way.
To Crowley, one church official was usually just like any other – they were far past the times of truly holy men. But these two, he did appreciate, at least a little, even now that he was sober. They had – inadvertently, of course, but still, they had – gotten the angel thinking about the point of it all, just enough to actually pay attention to Crowley trying to tell him he had been doing the same. The two Archbishops might have been only the last pair of drops in a five-thousand-year-old ocean, but they were very peculiar little drops.
He ought to stick around and get to know at least the new fellow. Now that nobody was going to consider it his inevitable holy duty to vanquish the resident demon.
1. March 1954 (N. S.), Rongelap atoll
Pinned to a tree and inhaling death with every breath.
“I never should have come here,” Crowley thought.
It had all started a few years before. Back then, Crowley had thought things could not have possibly been worse. But there was always, always worse.
Back then, the problem had only been an argument. About a big pile of nothing. Just a misunderstanding, really. But he had wanted to play it safe. He had wanted to stay.
They had enough dead-eyed, stottin’ drunk conversations with Aziraphale after the newest great war to figure out that both sides considered it a failure. Some infuriating logical acrobatics were involved in their respective reasonings, but the point still stood. Both Heaven and Hell would pay more attention to their field agents and demand more from them. It was going to be very difficult to work around those wishes and keep to the spirit of their own little Arrangement. And to be seen together, not fighting? That, they could not allow. Not for a while.
It had been Crowley who suggested they go their separate ways. Only for a few years, of course, and they would talk everything over afterwards, compensate for any imbalances, and so on…
Crowley would never forget the haunted look on Aziraphale’s face – it had to be the mirror of the demon’s own expression. The angel’s current uncared-for, tall and gaunt corporation only served to drive that shared feeling home even more. The perfect picture of an upper-class young lady who had seen too much during the war. Only, no one would guess that this too much involved supernatural elements – stark reminders of the power certain warriors of each side possessed.
And since Aziraphale had asked Crowley to stay – well, not precisely with her, but near her – during the worst days of the war, they'd both ended up living through the Blitz. One of them roaming the streets with other volunteers, and the other “infiltrating the wartime government organisations and corrupting high-ranking military officers” in the unassuming role of a secretary. At least that was what Crowley’s reports had said.
On some nights, the bombs weren’t the worst of the dangers swooping down from the skies.
On those very same nights, elaborate traps were often set up by a nurse or a secretary whom no one seemed to remember after the fact. Silent, well-concealed traps that would never, ever fail. After all, the two of them had spent five thousand years practicing and perfecting the art of fighting occult or ethereal beings, before they'd moved on to do something more sensible in the past millennium.
Neither of them ever mentioned that bombs should not fly back up into the safety of the cloud cover. Or that bombs should not bleed. As long as nobody died, everything was fair game.
Now, though, that was over. The war had brought enough chaos with it to hide their activities, but the uneasy peace was too transparent. And so they said their goodbyes in quick, anxious words and hushed, regretful tones. Both of them were going to move away from the capital, only to have their reunion in the very same place after a decade of absence.
However, that long-awaited moment of relief never came. (It would never come now.) Crowley would have bet her entire record collection that after their final fallout, Aziraphale had to spend the rest of the day convincing the people of Chesterfield that they did not want to remember a certain furious badly dressed woman screaming at an Indian girl of roughly the same age.
If the blasted angel had only let her explain! But no, she had to go on monologuing, and pretending that the latest great war would be the last, that it had changed people – of course Crowley had lost her patience as well! There was only so much Hell on Earth she could take in less than a dozen years.
“Did you seriously get this job only to convince them to rebuild with unsuitable materials? After everything that’s happened you-know-when?!” Aziraphale was demanding at the end of her completely unnecessary lecturing.
“Not only to convince them,” Crowley replied flippantly. “They didn’t need much convincing anyway. Five more years in this economy, and they would have done it without me.”
“You can’t know that. They are capable of so much good-“
“And of the opposite, too. They have to be. You said so.”
“Well, I wasn’t… Well, it doesn’t matter now. They have changed.”
“They will never change. Not after what they’ve done. You and I? Could never hope to match the scale of their wickedness.”
Perhaps it had not been the best thing to say. But to Crowley’s ears, it had rung true right then. (It would ring true now, too.)
“You and I…” Aziraphale echoed, staring at something above or behind Crowley’s head, “… there should not be a you and I.”
“What-… Aziraphale, what are you saying?” Crowley asked, a yet-unknown kind of panic gripping hold of her heart. And as a demon, it was in her job description to know all kinds of panic.
“I cannot be seen not interfering with a demon’s plans that… Dear girl, this just goes too far.”
“Seriously?! Angel. Angel! You know I wouldn’t have – the building would have collapsed before anyone moved in!”
“I can’t know that.”
“Of course you c-“
“I think you should leave.”
“What?!”
“This just might not be the right environment for you.”
“Well, certainly not with such a sanctimonious bas-… blesssssed angel!” Crowley hissed, and stormed
straight out of the city.
(She would, of course, go back for her car later. But the angel didn’t have to know that.)
1. March 1954, Rongelap atoll
“No, admiral. You want to ignore the woman pinned to the tree. Incomparably more important issues are at stake now. First and foremost, why no one must be allowed to leave this island.”
Crowley tried to protest: of course people had to leave, of course the whole world had to know! However, she found she could only hiss, and make no other sound. This time, it had nothing to do with fear or anger.
Only power.
The same power that would not let her leave, either.
This was a spy story all right, but one without a happy ending.
She knew what she had to do.
Reluctant as though she was to admit it, Crowley found there might have been some truth to Aziraphale’s words. England could only remind her of all the ways people had managed to bring a tiny piece of Hell to Earth. It wasn’t the locals’ fault. Wasn’t exactly their enemy’s fault, either. It was just a fact.
It may have been her best decision in a while to visit the States. (The Colonies, as Aziraphale would probably still sometimes slip into calling them.) They had oceans vast enough to keep the true face of the war at a safe distance from them, and it showed in so many ways.
It was truly a New World to Crowley, who hadn’t been here in centuries. New people, new ideas (and what marvellous ideas they had!), and new distractions. Except on a few days a year. Especially in December.
Four months before, when winter had just started, bringing the first snow with it, Crowley had found herself sitting in a depressingly empty bar. There were only so many things she could tempt the owner with, and she had no desire to venture outside in these freezing temperatures. In short: she was utterly, inexcusably bored.
Until Eireen wandered in, cursing the cold to the seventh circle of Hell and back, thus adding half a dozen entirely new words to Crowley’s already impressive vocabulary. In a matter of hours, they ended up in Eireen’s flat, slightly drunk, very tired, and very comfortable in the warm bed they were sharing. In a matter of days, they decided it would be practical to move in together. In a matter of weeks, Crowley even told her the current alias she was using (Alana). Now that she thought about it, that should probably have come before all the other stuff.
They spent New Year's Eve debating whether Eireen should go back to her relatives in Ireland. Crowley was, of course, against the idea; she had become a traitor to the old world with all the ease her reputation would have suggested.
That same night, after her tipsy yet eloquent girlfriend had fallen asleep, Crowley summoned one of the books Eireen’s European relatives had sent her – it would hopefully be a good enough read to keep her mind off quite a few things she was anything but ready to face. Although she had never heard of the author before – some guy called Fleming – any book with Casino in its title should be a satisfactory distraction for a demon.
The new year itself found both of them working: Eireen as an aspiring cook, and Crowley as the problematic customer who got the few meanest rivals she had, fired (effective immediately). And of course, in her free time, she was happily abusing supernatural means of travel and camouflage, doing everything in her power to find her own spy story.
And now here she was, at the very end of it.
On a stupid beach.
Where everyone was dying.
Even her.
Next:Part 2! (things get better, i promise)
no subject
I especially liked this line: "They had – inadvertently, of course, but still, they had – gotten the angel thinking about the point of it all, just enough to actually pay attention to Crowley trying to tell him he had been doing the same."
no subject
(It's always fun to try to imagine what rare constellation of events might have contributed to Crowley managing to get his point across to his angel :) )