Happy Holidays, lunasong365!

[goe_mod]

Title: The Great Fayre and Fowl Weekly Trivia Night
Recipient name: Lunasong365
Rating: G
Pairing: A/C
Warnings: None

Notes: With massive thanks to my beta who fixed the Hell out of this. :D I hope you enjoy!



The Fayre and Fowl was halfway between Soho and Mayfair, down a little side street that never seemed to get all that much foot traffic. It was an odd little place; in some ways ahead of its time, for it'd had a trivia night long before the start of the boom in the 1970s, but in other ways dreadfully archaic. Crowley smirked a little at the businessman getting irate at the lack of a damned card reader behind the bar. He vaguely waved a hand; the man reached into his pocket to search for change and found a couple of fifty-pound notes, which would be discovered missing from the office petty cash tomorrow. The aura of slight annoyance from customers and staff pervaded the atmosphere, and Crowley basked in it.

He was sitting at a dark little table in the chimney corner, the green-glass lampshade of the overhead light doing its damndest to remove the entire point of the bulb. There was a pair of carved geese on the mantelpiece, and they certainly hadn't been sculpted by a master; the expressions were a delightful representation of evil stupidity, and Crowley had taken to calling them Hastur and Ligur in his head.

Aziraphale argued against it, of course, because it didn't do well to speak ill of the conveniently discorporated, but then Aziraphale had taken to calling one of them Gabriel one night and had left it upside down in a rejected glass of wine, so Aziraphale was not exactly judging from the moral high ground.

Geese were a continuing theme, though. They popped up occasionally in the carved bits of panelling, they cavorted on the pub sign, they glared threateningly from the etched border on the mirror behind the bar. Possibly it'd originally been one of the draws of the place; Crowley had always liked geese, plump, bloody-minded, terrifying sods that they were.

Aziraphale and Crowley had taken to meeting at the Fayre and Fowl sometime in the late 1800s. Back then it was only once every couple of years, of course, just to check in and make sure everything was nicely balanced. Couldn't be having with the Great Forces being out of whack. Sometime in the '20s and '30s it'd picked up a little, commiseration over the bastard nature of the race with which they'd both fallen a little in love.

In the 1950s they'd realised that inadvertently, it'd become a monthly meeting that both showed up to without having to plan. They'd fallen out over rock'n'roll in 1956, and the monthly silences had become just about unbearable by the time 1959 rolled around, so Crowley had indulged in a moment of Inspiration for the landlord of the pub. Shortly thereafter, the Great Fayre & Fowl Weekly Trivia Night was born.

And once a month from that point on, Aziraphale and Crowley were kings.

They'd been No Eye Dear. Agatha Quiztie. Geniuses 3:24. Doctor Know. We Are Very Good at Quizzes - Crowley hadn't let Aziraphale have the pencil again, after that one. They'd won month after month, year after year, and by the end of the '60s Crowley would've called them practically friends.

Would've called them that if he ever spoke to anyone who wasn't Aziraphale, that is.

The routine was generally that they'd arrive at about 5pm, after they'd wrapped up their business for the day. They'd have a meal - the fayre at the Fayre had always been surprisingly good on quiz nights, perhaps most surprisingly of all to the chef - and a decent bottle of wine or four, and be pleasantly sozzled at 8pm when the quiz was ready to start.

And the fact that it was now 7:45, and there was still no sign of the bloody angel, really wasn't worrying Crowley at all.

The kitchen porter appeared with a microphone and stool and sat himself down by the bar, shuffling his papers nervously and clearing his throat. Some of his discomfort might've been explained by the glare Crowley was sending his way, admittedly, but he was at least three fifths into his third excellent bottle, and he was losing a little control over his sulking.

"Erm," the porter said, and the microphone spat sparks and fizzled miserably out.

"Really, my dear," Aziraphale said, sliding into the seat across the table from Crowley and clicking his fingers absently. The microphone squealed back to life, the mild burns on the kitchen porter's hands healed up, and the table suddenly held a pair of wine glasses rather than the dolefully solitary glass that had been there before.

"The Hell've you been?" Crowley asked, a little belligerent, and Aziraphale fished the pencil out from under the demon’s fingers and carefully labelled their answer sheet. Apparently, this month they were going to be 'The Great Quizzish Bake Off,' which really wasn't that bad. "I'm glad you're here," he said, in an unguarded moment, and the faintly offended expression Aziraphale had been wearing melted into a tired smile.

"Well I am sorry I'm late," Aziraphale said, and poured himself a glass of a wine this pub most certainly couldn't afford to stock. "I've been rather busy the last few weeks."

The kitchen porter - whose name was Marius, and who really didn't deserve this sort of thing - noted with a sense of familiarity that his quiz questions had re-written themselves a little. Whereas before he'd had questions about The Egyptian Plagues, The Top Ten Political Bastards, and Lager, now the rounds appeared to be more usual - Hits of the 1860s, Name That Author, and Cheeses, Priced.

They won, naturally - and they donated the prize to the team in second place, which had always been a part of the routine. Crowley found himself outside the door of the pub, standing on a cold uneven pavement that was gently sparkling as raindrops disrupted the puddled reflections of orange streetlights, before he was even remotely ready for it.

"Gonna invite me back for a cuppa?" he asked, rubbing his hands together against the chill.

"Ah," said Aziraphale, and he looked inexplicably shifty for a moment. "Not this time. I don't think it's the best idea."

*

The next month, Crowley was concerned. Aziraphale had arrived a little closer to the usual time, but he'd waved away the offer of desserts with one plump hand, and he looked - well, if angels deigned to do something so human as sleep, Crowley would have expected him to drop off any minute.

Aziraphale pinched the bridge of his nose. "I really am sorry, my dear. Work issues, you know how it is."

"Things really picking up in the second-hand book trade, are they?" Crowley asked, and Aziraphale sighed.

"I'd almost prefer it," he said, which was a warning bell with a particularly enthusiastic clapper - Aziraphale hated to sell books.

"What's going on with you?" Crowley asked, tipping the last of their current bottle into Aziraphale's glass. "You arrive late, you look exhausted, you've not even mentioned the missing apostrophe on the Specials board - and what in Heaven's name are those?"

Aziraphale had reached into the inside pocket of his Harris tweed jacket and extracted a bundle of papers, closely printed and densely packed on both sides. Aziraphale pulled out a pair of pince nez and perched them on his nose.

"Paper work," Aziraphale said curtly, and Crowley - who had never been even near to polite and wouldn't recognise it if he saw it - craned to read over his shoulder.

'In 500 words precisely,' one of the questions read, 'explain how the moment of Divine Inspiration you intend meets the mission goals as outlined in our Vision Statement.'

'Justify,' another said, 'using scholars from the approved list, any modifications made to Miracles performed over the last three millennia.'

Crowley whistled, not a little admiringly. "Wow," he said. "That's torture."

"That's bureaucracy," Aziraphale corrected, but Crowley had always found the two to be nigh on indistinguishable. He signalled for another bottle, and one of those melt-in-the-middle chocolate puddings that Aziraphale couldn't resist.

"Tell me all about it," he said.

Heaven got these... fads, on occasion. Usually they were reliable, unchanging as - well, th'inconstant moon, frankly. They certainly believed themselves to be unalterable, but Crowley had been enjoying listening to their ridiculous memos for far too many years now to buy into that image.

The latest craze was apparently for oversight.

"The angel’s going to be following me around for the next hundred years or so," Aziraphale said miserably. "Making sure I'm following the protocols I should. Standard Operating Procedures, you know. So, no more temptations, I'm afraid." He looked up to meet Crowley's eyes, his round face unusually solemn. "We're probably best off suspending the Arrangement until further notice, when it comes down to it."

"Now," Crowley said, startled, "I'm sure we don't need to take it that far."

"Our first round today," Marius began, the papers he held fluttering faintly, "is Sport."

"...what?" Aziraphale blinked towards the bar, then looked down at the answer sheet in front of them in increasing bemusement.

Crowley swore under his breath. "Sorry. I wasn't paying attention."

"No," Aziraphale patted his hand. "No, I'm sure we'll do fine. Football's the one where they have to get the ball from one village to the other, right?"

They came in last place.

Crowley managed to get Aziraphale laughing though, once or twice, and the way his face lit up with it only underlined how terrible he looked the rest of the time.

"I'm guessing the inspector's why you don't want me coming back to yours," Crowley said, and Aziraphale let out a cloud of a sigh.

"They’re cluttering up the back room of my shop something dreadful," he said. "And just last week they tried to alphabetise my books!"

"The fiend," Crowley gasped, and smirked at the exasperated look Aziraphale sent his way. "Look," he said, after a moment of them shifting their weight, clearing their throats, refusing to make the decisive movement that meant saying goodbye. "I know it's not a patch on - but you could always come back to mine?"

Aziraphale's bookshop - or rather, the back room, where they spent most of their time - was cluttered and comfortable, dust-ridden and delightfully warm. Crowley's flat was, by contrast, a little like a magazine spread. Perfectly laid out, dust-free, and rather two-dimensional.

He bypassed the sofa with its ruler-straight edges, the state-of-the-art coffeemaker, the fridge that had never been plugged in, and pulled out an old battered electric kettle that had somehow always needed electricity to work and made the most Divine cups of tea that Crowley had ever tasted - outside of Aziraphale's shop.

"Go sit on the bed," he said, mucking about with mugs and the tea-bags that his cupboards hadn't previously realised he had. "It's the most comfortable place, and I forgot to put lights in anywhere else." Aziraphale had always complained about the quality of Infernal Light - Divine too, actually - and much preferred a sensible table lamp, when he had the choice.

By the time he walked into the bedroom, two steaming cups in hand, Aziraphale had made himself at home. His sensible wingtip shoes were placed neatly together at the end of the bed, and the angel himself was lying on his back with his hands laced over his ample stomach, his head neatly propped on a pillow.

"Make yourself at home," Crowley said, popping his tea on one bedside table, and leaning over Aziraphale to place the other mug on the angel's side of the bed.

"I'm tired," Aziraphale said, a little plaintively. "I wasn't entirely sure I knew how to be."

"So, sleep," Crowley said, and vanished the steaming cups, dimming the lights with a wave of his hand.

"Oh yes, because it's that simple." Aziraphale scowled up at the ceiling, and Crowley slithered down the bed until he was lying beside him, nudging him lightly with his shoulder.

"Sleeping's a bit like..." he thought carefully, trying to think up a fitting analogy. "It's about halfway between reading a boring book and falling into a deep, dark well."

"Sounds awful," Aziraphale said.

"Sometimes it is," Crowley told him frankly. "Got to wonder what all those poets were on about when they made dreaming sound like something good. Other times it's like..." the instant, immediate comparison was - it's like your shop. He had a feeling, though, that that would be entirely too revealing, especially since he wasn't altogether clear on what was there to be revealed. "It's like listening to Stephen Fry read audiobooks," he said finally, "but quietly, and in another room."

"Well," Aziraphale said drowsily, "I suppose that doesn't sound too bad."

"Mr and Mrs Dursley," Crowley said, making his voice as low and soothing as he possibly could, "of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were very normal -"

He cut himself off, startled, as Aziraphale reached out to squeeze his hand.

"Thank you very much," the angel said, although whether that was genuine sentiment or a hint to continue, Crowley really couldn't say. He had barely made it to the avalanche of letters, though, before Aziraphale had drifted into tiny, contented snores.

(It was something to hold onto, when on the next trivia night Aziraphale didn't even turn up.)

*

When the next trivia night rolled its way around, Crowley had had about enough. He was making unprecedented progress in his day job, sure - he'd even earned himself an infernal condemnation - but it honestly wasn't the same without Aziraphale’s disapproving looks as he related his triumphs. He shoved his chair back, screeching it across the floor and barely even enjoying the winces, and was almost at the door when an angel walked through.

"Ah," he said. "You made it, then."

"The human habit of stating the obvious," they replied, "is really one of their most annoying traits."

"Nice to meet you too," Crowley said, and gestured back towards the table where he'd been sat. (Not in the chimney corner, not at their table. This one was right under a particularly aggressive lamp, and the heat of it always provoked a dreadful thirst.)

"Sit, sit," he said, and the angel gave him a suspicious look before gingerly taking the chair. Crowley sat across from them - diametric opposites, in a way he hadn't felt for over a thousand years - and poured them a glass from the innocent-looking bottle on the table.

"That's not alcoholic, is it?" the angel asked, and Crowley scoffed.

"Oh, barely," he said. "Barely at all."

"So, tell me about your work with Aziraphale," they said, pulling out a notebook, and absentmindedly took a sip.

Four incredibly eventful hours - and seven bottles - later, Crowley stopped the video on his phone, the gentle rustle of fabric as he put it back into his pocket the only sound.

The angel was looking paler than normal. Deflated. A little afraid.

"The traffic cone," Crowley said, "was a particularly nice touch."

"And - and you’ll delete the video, if I -” Crowley nodded, smiling faintly, and the angel twitched its shoulders, the way all angels did when they couldn’t get used to not wearing their wings. “What do you want me to do?" they asked, and overall Crowley didn't want to hear defeat in angels' voices - that wasn't in any way his goal - but he couldn't help but admit that this time it was more than a little satisfying.

"Well..." he said.

*

The Fayre and Fowl was a little more crowded this evening. Crowley had had to do something rather unfortunate with his face to encourage the couple to move from the table tucked into the chimney corner, and now his jaw clicked every time he smiled.

Loud enough to have him wincing, when the angel walked through the door.

"Evening, Mr. Fell," the landlord called from behind the bar, and Aziraphale smiled at the welcome, unravelling himself from his overly-long scarf as he wove between tables to where Crowley had made himself at home.

The pub was finally starting to get festive, with holly draped on the shelves behind the bar, pine boughs across the mantlepiece, plastic mistletoe hung just outside the toilet doors. In the corner, a scrolling digital sign wished them a Mer y Christmas! repeatedly, and Crowley couldn't wait for the angel to start twitching.

"Good evening, my dear," Aziraphale said, pink-cheeked and swaddled in winter wool, sliding easily into the chair opposite Crowley like it was exactly where he belonged.

"Ready to kick arse and take names?"

Aziraphale rolled his eyes and nabbed the pencil, and Crowley let him have it, just this once. Occupied himself pouring them both a glass of mulled wine that somehow came out of the bottle steaming.

This month they were Very Good at Quizzes again. Ah well. He supposed it would do.

The team in second place gratefully accepted the round of drinks, toasting Crowley and presenting the flushed Aziraphale with a ridiculous Santa hat. He pulled it on over his abundant curls and Crowley told him he looked like a blinkin' garden gnome, but he couldn't prevent his treacherous jaw from clicking.

"What happened with the inspector then?" Crowley asked, and Aziraphale gave him a knowing look that Crowley avoided through occupying himself with the wine bottle. Funny how there was always just enough left for one last glass.

"Apparently he resigned," Aziraphale said, pointedly. Crowley fixed his attention on the sign behind the bar, adding ‘And a Ha py new YEAR’ and making it blink, for good measure.

"Huh," Crowley said.

"Yes, apparently the stress of the job got to him. They're not sure they'll manage to get another one hired before the end of the millennium."

"Hmm," Crowley said, draining his glass and pulling on his terribly expensive black coat and the unfashionably bright red gloves that Aziraphale had bought.

"Yes, I thought it was rather odd," Aziraphale said, and nudged gently against his shoulder as they ambled out through the door.

"So back to yours for tea then, angel?" Crowley asked, rubbing his hands together briskly as the snow gently started to fall.

"I'm not sure if that's the best idea," Aziraphale said, his chin tucked in close to his chest as he wrapped his scarf up around his cheekbones.

"Oh."

"I rather thought," the angel said, the back of his hand brushing warm against Crowley's, "I might come to yours and take a nap."

Crowley's jaw clicked.

Comments

[curiouslissa]

Aww, I got such a cozy, warm feeling from this fic <3
Your sense of humour, dear Secret Author, is absolutely brilliant :))
And I love caring Crowley, who is ready to support his angel with anything starting from making tea to fighting off hostile inspectors with style :D
There are so many great lines I don't know what to choose, but that last detail about the clicking jaw completely enchanted me, omg :D <3

[nny]

Aaw, thanks so much! That was my favourite detail, too. I'm very glad you enjoyed it!