Happy Boxing Day, Vulgarweed!
Dec. 26th, 2019 10:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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go_exchangeTitle: What Happens to the Heart
Recipient: vulgarweed
Characters: Aziraphale & Crowley; mentions of Leonard Cohen & Freddie Mercury
Pairings: Aziraphale/Crowley (starts pre-relationship; ends post-getting-together)
Rating: M (to be on the safe side)
Word Count: 3,070
Notes: My recipient’s third prompt (Something Aziraphale/Crowley inspired by the lyrics of Leonard Cohen, any song but “Hallelujah”) is the one I knew I’d be filling no matter what—especially given Cohen’s posthumous album release on 22 November 2019. Cohen’s son, Adam, says of the first track on Thanks for the Dance, “[My father] was hell-bent—or heaven-bent—on completing it, and we just were unable to get a musical accompaniment that he was satisfied with. I think it’s one in a long line of songs that have his essential thesis in life, which is the broken hallelujah. Everything cracks, and this is what happens to the heart.”
Summary: From the moment Aziraphale met Crowley on the curb out front and noticed Crowley surreptitiously shoving a tape into the Blaupunkt, he was sure he’d been on this sort of ride before. With Crowley, the latest musical releases were always cause for debate.
Stranger Song
December 1967
From the moment Aziraphale met Crowley on the curb out front and noticed Crowley surreptitiously shoving a tape into the Blaupunkt, he was sure he’d been on this sort of ride before. With Crowley, the latest musical releases were always cause for debate.
More specifically, they were cause for Crowley to try, yet again, to convince Aziraphale that the latest mystifying trends in rock were worth a listen. Aziraphale persisted in calling such stylistic abominations be-bop primarily to needle Crowley’s delicate sensibilities.
The sudden, rapid Spanish-style guitar spoke to a level of deft strumming Aziraphale wasn’t accustomed to hearing in Crowley’s usual fare. Once he’d settled in the passenger-seat, he tilted his head at the dashboard, questioning.
“You’ll like this,” Crowley said, breaking into a wide, conspiratorial smile. “This musician started out as a poet. Touch of classical training, even. You can hear it in the guitar.”
“Yes, I’m aware of that last bit,” Aziraphale agreed, listening as the singing began, folding his arms across his chest as Crowley tore into the street. “Not a very cheerful fellow, is he?”
“Well, poets generally aren’t your regular rays of sunshine, are they?” Crowley countered.
It’s hard to hold the hand of anyone, the singer admonished, who’s reaching for the sky just to surrender.
“What’s his name?” Aziraphale prompted, entirely too curious to feign disinterest. “The singer.”
“The singer’s the guitarist,” Crowley said, pretending he hadn’t been chewing his lip. “Cohen.”
“Just Cohen?” Aziraphale asked wryly. “I think the priestly class has first names these days.”
“Leonard,” Crowley replied, seemingly lost as he considered the ominous narrative. “Canadian.”
“Not the usual corner of the Diaspora for such a talent, is it?” Aziraphale went on, making light.
Crowley shot him a nasty look, which was satisfying given how often the nasty-look-shooting went the other way around. “Angel, where have you been? God’s—argh. The Chosen People aren’t exactly slouches when it comes to creative output.”
“Sorry, dear boy,” Aziraphale murmured, lost in the singer’s turn of phrase. Like any dealer, he was watching for the card that is so high and wild he’ll never need to deal another.
“I just sort of figured poetry set to music would be your thing,” Crowley admitted almost sulkily.
“This is…rather good,” conceded Aziraphale. “I favor it over that Mercury fellow you dragged me to hear in some vile dive—”
“Listen, that young man’s going to hit it big once he gets the band sorted out,” Crowley snapped.
Aziraphale side-eyed Crowley, pursing his lips. “Is that how we’re going to play this one, then?”
Crowley chuckled derisively, and then stopped short when he worked out Aziraphale’s meaning.
“Angel, no,” he said flatly. “Absolutely not. This isn’t like playing games with Saints.”
“I suppose not,” Aziraphale sighed. “I’d be asking you to damn some poor soul, wouldn’t I?”
He’ll say one day you caused his will to weaken with your warmth and love and shelter.
Crowley appeared to be adamantly ignoring the lyrics, but in vain. “Don’t. You know why.”
Aziraphale stared out the passenger-side window, resting his elbow there. “Fine. Then I shan’t.”
“I, ah…” Crowley was clearly attempting to offer an olive branch. “You like it, though?”
“Believe it or not,” Aziraphale said, finally returning Crowley’s smile of earlier, “I actually do.”
Who by Fire
August 1974
Crowley wasn’t ready for Aziraphale to hear Cohen’s latest album—especially not when he hadn’t finished sitting with it privately for a week. There was nothing for it when he came in the room to find Aziraphale fiddling with the record player. Scratchily, the vinyl began to play.
“Thanks for asking,” Crowley retorted, plonking the empty wine glasses down on his coffee table.
“I wish you’d kept me apprised of the release,” Aziraphale replied. “I’d have got my own copy.”
“No, no,” Crowley said, falsely obliging as he poured their drinks. “You were bound to ask—”
His train of thought stopped short when he realized Aziraphale hadn’t started it on the first track.
“I hope you’ll forgive the skipping around,” Aziraphale said in delight, coming over to sit beside him on the white leather sofa. “The title of this one already smacks of the Un’taneh Tokef.”
“Then you’d best be ready for the whole song to smack you right upside the head,” Crowley sighed. He took a long swallow of merlot as the transformed prayer’s litany began.
And who by fire, who by water? Who in the sunshine, who in the night-time? Who by high ordeal, who by common trial? Who in your merry, merry month of May? Who by very slow decay? And who shall I say is calling?
“Ooh,” Aziraphale said, taking a prim sip as he listened. “Gives one the shivers, doesn’t it?”
“Not really,” Crowley said morosely, committing to downing the whole glass. “Your one, maybe, but not mine. It’s a sobering reminder of everything your people botched, funnily enough, so I—” he threw back the dregs “—intend to get sloshed.”
And who in her lonely slip, who by barbiturate? Who in these realms of love, who by something blunt? Who by avalanche, who by powder? Who for his greed, who for his hunger? And who shall I say is calling?
“There it is again,” Aziraphale said excitedly, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand after a prodigious swig. “This whole question of who’s calling, it’s a stroke of artistic brilliance.”
“Not going to rise to take the bait, eh?” Crowley deadpanned. “That’s a new low even for you.”
“I don’t see how you can make such an assertion,” Aziraphale said, suddenly irked enough to match Crowley glass for glass. “It’s as if you’re implying Heaven has caused every human death in history, which is patently false. Humans are their own worst enemies.”
“Yeah, angel, but that’s—that’s lazy, isn’t it?” Crowley protested, his head already beginning to swim as he poured a third glass. “Your lot linked death to a binary set of outcomes, and a pettily arbitrary one, too. You could’ve taken them all no matter their perceived wrongs, sorted ’em out when they got there—you know? Why would you wish on humans what you wished—”
And who by brave assent, who by accident? Who in solitude, who in this mirror? Who by his lady's command, who by his own hand? Who in mortal chains, who in power? And who shall I say is calling?
Aziraphale drank his third glass in record time and slammed down the glass. “I’m leaving—”
“On us,” said Crowley, to his empty living room, as the door slammed in Aziraphale’s wake.
If It Be Your Will
December 1984
Aziraphale hadn’t listened to any of Cohen’s work since that unfortunate incident of a decade ago. Fitting, then, that popping around the shops in search of Crowley’s holiday gift should put him smack in front of a display touting the virtues of Cohen’s latest release.
Purchasing a copy for his growing personal LP collection, Aziraphale found, was easily done.
Asking Crowley to come around for a drink forty-eight hours later, on the other hand, was not.
Cohen’s opening, in both words and instrumentation, was deceptively gentle. If it be your will that I speak no more, and my voice be still as it was before, I will speak no more. I shall abide until I am spoken for, if it be your will.
“Not very subtle, angel,” Crowley said, letting the bookshop door’s bell jangle gaily behind him.
“Who said anything about subtlety?” Aziraphale asked, beckoning from the doorway into the back room. “Come along, my dear. I’ve just popped this on. You’ve missed a song or two.”
“I’ve missed a song or eight, you mean,” said Crowley, dryly, helping himself to one of the glasses of cognac Aziraphale had set on the table. “This here’s the final track, at least according to the cover.”
“Oh,” Aziraphale replied sheepishly, making for the record player. “I thought it was the first.”
“Just let it play,” said Crowley, wearily, into his glass. “I’d only got halfway through anyhow.”
Damn, then he did have it. Aziraphale’s intention to give him the record was now moot.
“This is my first listen,” Aziraphale admitted. “His style doesn’t change much with the times, does it?”
Crowley patted the space beside him on the settee. “This is no tune for your blessed gavotte. Sit.”
Aziraphale sighed, snatched the remaining glass of cognac, and did as he was told. His actions already had the whiff of a belated apology, not that they did any other kind. They had gone a century or two on the regular, so making amends after a decade was downright timely.
If it be your will that a voice be true, from this broken hill I will sing to you, Cohen continued, the sentiment unexpectedly and unequivocally uplifting. From this broken hill, all your praises they shall ring—if it be your will to let me sing.
“There’s a sad joy in it, isn’t there,” Crowley said, appearing to relax. He sipped his drink slowly, comfortable enough to push his sunglasses up into his hair. “Sort of…adoringly resigned.”
The last two words tripped from Crowley’s tongue in the sense of actual tripping, rather than in the usual sense of blithe ease. Aziraphale sensed that Crowley regretted speaking without thought, but that was often the cruelty of Cohen’s work. It tripped listeners up.
Cohen’s snare caught them without mercy or warning. If it be your will, if there is a choice—let the rivers fill, let the hills rejoice. Let your mercy spill on all these burning hearts in hell—if it be your will to make us well.
“One might very well say so,” Aziraphale agreed awkwardly. “One might very well indeed.”
Crowley stared at the record player with the glazed-over look of having only just noticed what the most recent stanza was saying. He abruptly gulped the remainder of his glass, his lips twisting in a bitter, familiar expression.
“I hadn’t heard this,” Crowley said. “I truly hadn’t. I’d only got halfway through, and…”
“Halfway through the album, or through the song?” Aziraphale blurted, unable to stand it.
“Album,” Crowley muttered, bending to set his glass on the floor. “Bottomed out on Hallelujah.”
Aziraphale felt utterly out of his depth, and like a failure to boot. He hadn’t thought screening the album before playing it for Crowley would be necessary. Songs with that for a title were a dime a dozen.
“Do yourself a favor,” Crowley said, getting to his feet, “and don’t listen to it while I’m here.”
“Crowley, stay,” Aziraphale said, chasing him the whole way to the front door. “Please.”
And draw us near, and bind us tight—all your children here, in their rags of light, Cohen sang, still infuriatingly calm. In our rags of light, all dressed to kill—and end this night, if it be your will.
Putting his glasses back on, listening, Crowley stared straight past Aziraphale and into the back.
“No,” he said quietly, and strode out into the cold December dusk without a moment’s hesitation.
Anthem
November 1992
Crowley drummed the steering wheel, forcing the windscreen wipers to work double-time against the insidiously pattering rain. He’d been waiting for over fifteen minutes, during which time he’d seen neither hide, nor hair of Aziraphale.
It was difficult not to wonder if Aziraphale was flat-out planning to stand him up. They hadn’t had time to offend each other with Cohen’s on-point balladry of late, not when the most recent decade or so of their association had been spent on more pressing matters.
Had it only been two years since they’d averted the End of Days? Crowley shuddered to think.
The birds, they sang at the break of day, Cohen’s voice oozed smoothly from the Blaupunkt, eternally unconcerned with whatever fresh chaos it might cause. Start again, I heard them say. Don't dwell on what has passed away, or what is yet to be. Yeah, the wars, they will be fought again. The holy dove, she will be caught again, bought and sold—and bought again. The dove is never free.
Anthem was a deceptively mellow song for such a poignant, pressing level of anxiety.
“There you go again!” Crowley shouted, thumping the steering wheel. Ring the bells that still can ring, forget your perfect offering—there is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in. “On about—about bloody imperfections, the virtues thereof, and—”
Aziraphale opened the passenger-side door without warning, shivering unhappily as he got in. Just like him, not to have bothered with an umbrella even for a dash of five to six feet. Crowley’s upholstery protested to the deluge with a squeak.
“Oh, I rather fancy this latest from your friend and mine!” he said cheerfully, pointing at the Bentley’s speakers. “That mention of the holy dove and such at the start, I think you’ll find the mention here makes amends for the last time he…”
Crowley glowered until the angel trailed off, and then shifted into gear. He screeched into the road.
“Nothing forgives Hallelujah’s mention of the dove, or having shoved one up your sleeve, angel. Shut it.”
The Letters
October 2004
Aziraphale listened to the brand-new compact disc on repeat for days, alone in his back room under the pretense of cataloguing some stock. He’d fended off Crowley’s persistent calls with a sense of rising guilt. Something about the third track, an uncharacteristic duet between Cohen and someone named Sharon Robinson, haunted him.
You never liked to get the letters that I sent. But now you’ve got the gist of what my letters meant. You’re reading them again, the ones you didn't burn. You press them to your lips, my pages of concern. I said there’d been a flood. I said there’s nothing left.
Hitting pause, Aziraphale stared at the flashing digital display and scribbled on his notepad.
I hoped that you would come, he wrote, finishing the phrase. I gave you my address.
There had been times down the centuries when Crowley had favored written correspondence over appearing unannounced on Aziraphale’s doorstep. As access, ease, and speed of human communication evolved, so did Crowley’s penchant for making a nuisance of himself.
The button popped back into operational position without warning, letting the song continue.
Your story was so long, the plot was so intense. It took you years to cross the lines of self-defense. The wounded forms appear: the loss, the full extent. And simple kindness here, the solitude of strength.
Aziraphale didn’t bother stopping the song again, spinning the point of his pencil against the blank page until it snapped. Sharing music had become correspondence in its own right, and it wasn’t lost on him that these lines described Crowley in mockingly accurate detail.
Setting aside the notepad, Aziraphale wondered why he couldn’t just out and say what needed saying. Crowley had been reaching for something since that day in 1967 when he’d played Cohen’s first album in the Bentley, painfully expectant.
When someone rapped at the shop’s back-alley entrance, Aziraphale adamantly ignored it.
“We’re closed!” he shouted, which was absurd even on the best of days, and considered how to open a letter that might well get him the cold shoulder. “Come back on—well, no, don’t!”
You walk into my room, you stand there at my desk. Begin your letter to the one who’s coming—
Crowley forced the door so hard that he stumbled past the table and into the wall. Even once he’d recovered, he looked miserably dazed, glancing from Aziraphale to the CD player and back again.
Aziraphale got to his feet, but it wasn’t as if Crowley still needed help. He was always too late.
Crowley killed music with a wave of his hand. “Angel, what’re you playing at?” he demanded, practically seething, but his uncovered eyes betrayed his worry. “I’ve been trying to reach you for days!”
Kissing Crowley on the spot, without context or explanation, was the riskiest decision Aziraphale had ever made. He pressed closer when Crowley didn’t pull away, tasting salt on Crowley’s lips.
“My dear, I know,” Aziraphale murmured, brushing his thumbs across Crowley’s cheekbones.
Either oblivious to his tears or not caring that Aziraphale had caught them, Crowley said, “Oh.”
Crazy to Love You
January 2012
Yawning, Crowley prepared to snipe at Aziraphale for having set an alarm. He bit his tongue when he realized that it was a song rather than one of the mobile’s pre-set tones.
“What’s this?” Crowley blurted, tucking his head beneath Aziraphale’s chin as the guitar lilted.
“Your favorite and mine,” said Aziraphale, much too pleased with himself. “His latest, even.”
Cohen’s voice was rougher than Crowley had last heard it, but gentler. Had to go crazy to love you, had to go down to the pit. Had to do time in the tower, begging my crazy to quit.
“You never set foot there, and I certainly didn’t,” Crowley said irritably, listening all the same.
“No,” Aziraphale agreed, tousling Crowley’s hair until Crowley nuzzled closer, “but it’s lovely.”
Crowley ignored the next verse, something about never being the one and a blouse all undone, concentrating on the way Aziraphale was scratching his scalp. Beneath the covers, Crowley’s skin felt feverish everywhere their bodies touched.
They were going on eight years together, which beggared belief. They’d left London. They’d made a place for themselves in serene, sea-bird-serenaded nowhere. They’d even made human friends.
Sometimes, I’d head for the highway. I’m old, and the mirrors don’t lie. But crazy has places to hide in that are deeper than any goodbye.
“I’ll tell you what’s lovely,” Crowley groused halfheartedly, slipping from beneath Aziraphale’s arm. He got out of bed and retrieved his robe from the floor. “Tea, angel. Want any?”
Aziraphale didn’t say a word as Crowley made his way around the foot of the bed and went to the door. His eyes never left Crowley for an instant, not even when Crowley froze on the threshold and gave him a look that most certainly was not concerned.
Had to go crazy to love you, had to let everything fall. Had to be people I hated, had to be no-one at all.
“Reflecting on our ill-advised decision to shack up with the Enemy, are we?” Crowley asked.
“You were never no-one, dear boy,” Aziraphale admitted with wistful gratitude. “Not to me.”
Recipient: vulgarweed
Characters: Aziraphale & Crowley; mentions of Leonard Cohen & Freddie Mercury
Pairings: Aziraphale/Crowley (starts pre-relationship; ends post-getting-together)
Rating: M (to be on the safe side)
Word Count: 3,070
Notes: My recipient’s third prompt (Something Aziraphale/Crowley inspired by the lyrics of Leonard Cohen, any song but “Hallelujah”) is the one I knew I’d be filling no matter what—especially given Cohen’s posthumous album release on 22 November 2019. Cohen’s son, Adam, says of the first track on Thanks for the Dance, “[My father] was hell-bent—or heaven-bent—on completing it, and we just were unable to get a musical accompaniment that he was satisfied with. I think it’s one in a long line of songs that have his essential thesis in life, which is the broken hallelujah. Everything cracks, and this is what happens to the heart.”
Summary: From the moment Aziraphale met Crowley on the curb out front and noticed Crowley surreptitiously shoving a tape into the Blaupunkt, he was sure he’d been on this sort of ride before. With Crowley, the latest musical releases were always cause for debate.
Stranger Song
December 1967
From the moment Aziraphale met Crowley on the curb out front and noticed Crowley surreptitiously shoving a tape into the Blaupunkt, he was sure he’d been on this sort of ride before. With Crowley, the latest musical releases were always cause for debate.
More specifically, they were cause for Crowley to try, yet again, to convince Aziraphale that the latest mystifying trends in rock were worth a listen. Aziraphale persisted in calling such stylistic abominations be-bop primarily to needle Crowley’s delicate sensibilities.
The sudden, rapid Spanish-style guitar spoke to a level of deft strumming Aziraphale wasn’t accustomed to hearing in Crowley’s usual fare. Once he’d settled in the passenger-seat, he tilted his head at the dashboard, questioning.
“You’ll like this,” Crowley said, breaking into a wide, conspiratorial smile. “This musician started out as a poet. Touch of classical training, even. You can hear it in the guitar.”
“Yes, I’m aware of that last bit,” Aziraphale agreed, listening as the singing began, folding his arms across his chest as Crowley tore into the street. “Not a very cheerful fellow, is he?”
“Well, poets generally aren’t your regular rays of sunshine, are they?” Crowley countered.
It’s hard to hold the hand of anyone, the singer admonished, who’s reaching for the sky just to surrender.
“What’s his name?” Aziraphale prompted, entirely too curious to feign disinterest. “The singer.”
“The singer’s the guitarist,” Crowley said, pretending he hadn’t been chewing his lip. “Cohen.”
“Just Cohen?” Aziraphale asked wryly. “I think the priestly class has first names these days.”
“Leonard,” Crowley replied, seemingly lost as he considered the ominous narrative. “Canadian.”
“Not the usual corner of the Diaspora for such a talent, is it?” Aziraphale went on, making light.
Crowley shot him a nasty look, which was satisfying given how often the nasty-look-shooting went the other way around. “Angel, where have you been? God’s—argh. The Chosen People aren’t exactly slouches when it comes to creative output.”
“Sorry, dear boy,” Aziraphale murmured, lost in the singer’s turn of phrase. Like any dealer, he was watching for the card that is so high and wild he’ll never need to deal another.
“I just sort of figured poetry set to music would be your thing,” Crowley admitted almost sulkily.
“This is…rather good,” conceded Aziraphale. “I favor it over that Mercury fellow you dragged me to hear in some vile dive—”
“Listen, that young man’s going to hit it big once he gets the band sorted out,” Crowley snapped.
Aziraphale side-eyed Crowley, pursing his lips. “Is that how we’re going to play this one, then?”
Crowley chuckled derisively, and then stopped short when he worked out Aziraphale’s meaning.
“Angel, no,” he said flatly. “Absolutely not. This isn’t like playing games with Saints.”
“I suppose not,” Aziraphale sighed. “I’d be asking you to damn some poor soul, wouldn’t I?”
He’ll say one day you caused his will to weaken with your warmth and love and shelter.
Crowley appeared to be adamantly ignoring the lyrics, but in vain. “Don’t. You know why.”
Aziraphale stared out the passenger-side window, resting his elbow there. “Fine. Then I shan’t.”
“I, ah…” Crowley was clearly attempting to offer an olive branch. “You like it, though?”
“Believe it or not,” Aziraphale said, finally returning Crowley’s smile of earlier, “I actually do.”
Who by Fire
August 1974
Crowley wasn’t ready for Aziraphale to hear Cohen’s latest album—especially not when he hadn’t finished sitting with it privately for a week. There was nothing for it when he came in the room to find Aziraphale fiddling with the record player. Scratchily, the vinyl began to play.
“Thanks for asking,” Crowley retorted, plonking the empty wine glasses down on his coffee table.
“I wish you’d kept me apprised of the release,” Aziraphale replied. “I’d have got my own copy.”
“No, no,” Crowley said, falsely obliging as he poured their drinks. “You were bound to ask—”
His train of thought stopped short when he realized Aziraphale hadn’t started it on the first track.
“I hope you’ll forgive the skipping around,” Aziraphale said in delight, coming over to sit beside him on the white leather sofa. “The title of this one already smacks of the Un’taneh Tokef.”
“Then you’d best be ready for the whole song to smack you right upside the head,” Crowley sighed. He took a long swallow of merlot as the transformed prayer’s litany began.
And who by fire, who by water? Who in the sunshine, who in the night-time? Who by high ordeal, who by common trial? Who in your merry, merry month of May? Who by very slow decay? And who shall I say is calling?
“Ooh,” Aziraphale said, taking a prim sip as he listened. “Gives one the shivers, doesn’t it?”
“Not really,” Crowley said morosely, committing to downing the whole glass. “Your one, maybe, but not mine. It’s a sobering reminder of everything your people botched, funnily enough, so I—” he threw back the dregs “—intend to get sloshed.”
And who in her lonely slip, who by barbiturate? Who in these realms of love, who by something blunt? Who by avalanche, who by powder? Who for his greed, who for his hunger? And who shall I say is calling?
“There it is again,” Aziraphale said excitedly, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand after a prodigious swig. “This whole question of who’s calling, it’s a stroke of artistic brilliance.”
“Not going to rise to take the bait, eh?” Crowley deadpanned. “That’s a new low even for you.”
“I don’t see how you can make such an assertion,” Aziraphale said, suddenly irked enough to match Crowley glass for glass. “It’s as if you’re implying Heaven has caused every human death in history, which is patently false. Humans are their own worst enemies.”
“Yeah, angel, but that’s—that’s lazy, isn’t it?” Crowley protested, his head already beginning to swim as he poured a third glass. “Your lot linked death to a binary set of outcomes, and a pettily arbitrary one, too. You could’ve taken them all no matter their perceived wrongs, sorted ’em out when they got there—you know? Why would you wish on humans what you wished—”
And who by brave assent, who by accident? Who in solitude, who in this mirror? Who by his lady's command, who by his own hand? Who in mortal chains, who in power? And who shall I say is calling?
Aziraphale drank his third glass in record time and slammed down the glass. “I’m leaving—”
“On us,” said Crowley, to his empty living room, as the door slammed in Aziraphale’s wake.
If It Be Your Will
December 1984
Aziraphale hadn’t listened to any of Cohen’s work since that unfortunate incident of a decade ago. Fitting, then, that popping around the shops in search of Crowley’s holiday gift should put him smack in front of a display touting the virtues of Cohen’s latest release.
Purchasing a copy for his growing personal LP collection, Aziraphale found, was easily done.
Asking Crowley to come around for a drink forty-eight hours later, on the other hand, was not.
Cohen’s opening, in both words and instrumentation, was deceptively gentle. If it be your will that I speak no more, and my voice be still as it was before, I will speak no more. I shall abide until I am spoken for, if it be your will.
“Not very subtle, angel,” Crowley said, letting the bookshop door’s bell jangle gaily behind him.
“Who said anything about subtlety?” Aziraphale asked, beckoning from the doorway into the back room. “Come along, my dear. I’ve just popped this on. You’ve missed a song or two.”
“I’ve missed a song or eight, you mean,” said Crowley, dryly, helping himself to one of the glasses of cognac Aziraphale had set on the table. “This here’s the final track, at least according to the cover.”
“Oh,” Aziraphale replied sheepishly, making for the record player. “I thought it was the first.”
“Just let it play,” said Crowley, wearily, into his glass. “I’d only got halfway through anyhow.”
Damn, then he did have it. Aziraphale’s intention to give him the record was now moot.
“This is my first listen,” Aziraphale admitted. “His style doesn’t change much with the times, does it?”
Crowley patted the space beside him on the settee. “This is no tune for your blessed gavotte. Sit.”
Aziraphale sighed, snatched the remaining glass of cognac, and did as he was told. His actions already had the whiff of a belated apology, not that they did any other kind. They had gone a century or two on the regular, so making amends after a decade was downright timely.
If it be your will that a voice be true, from this broken hill I will sing to you, Cohen continued, the sentiment unexpectedly and unequivocally uplifting. From this broken hill, all your praises they shall ring—if it be your will to let me sing.
“There’s a sad joy in it, isn’t there,” Crowley said, appearing to relax. He sipped his drink slowly, comfortable enough to push his sunglasses up into his hair. “Sort of…adoringly resigned.”
The last two words tripped from Crowley’s tongue in the sense of actual tripping, rather than in the usual sense of blithe ease. Aziraphale sensed that Crowley regretted speaking without thought, but that was often the cruelty of Cohen’s work. It tripped listeners up.
Cohen’s snare caught them without mercy or warning. If it be your will, if there is a choice—let the rivers fill, let the hills rejoice. Let your mercy spill on all these burning hearts in hell—if it be your will to make us well.
“One might very well say so,” Aziraphale agreed awkwardly. “One might very well indeed.”
Crowley stared at the record player with the glazed-over look of having only just noticed what the most recent stanza was saying. He abruptly gulped the remainder of his glass, his lips twisting in a bitter, familiar expression.
“I hadn’t heard this,” Crowley said. “I truly hadn’t. I’d only got halfway through, and…”
“Halfway through the album, or through the song?” Aziraphale blurted, unable to stand it.
“Album,” Crowley muttered, bending to set his glass on the floor. “Bottomed out on Hallelujah.”
Aziraphale felt utterly out of his depth, and like a failure to boot. He hadn’t thought screening the album before playing it for Crowley would be necessary. Songs with that for a title were a dime a dozen.
“Do yourself a favor,” Crowley said, getting to his feet, “and don’t listen to it while I’m here.”
“Crowley, stay,” Aziraphale said, chasing him the whole way to the front door. “Please.”
And draw us near, and bind us tight—all your children here, in their rags of light, Cohen sang, still infuriatingly calm. In our rags of light, all dressed to kill—and end this night, if it be your will.
Putting his glasses back on, listening, Crowley stared straight past Aziraphale and into the back.
“No,” he said quietly, and strode out into the cold December dusk without a moment’s hesitation.
Anthem
November 1992
Crowley drummed the steering wheel, forcing the windscreen wipers to work double-time against the insidiously pattering rain. He’d been waiting for over fifteen minutes, during which time he’d seen neither hide, nor hair of Aziraphale.
It was difficult not to wonder if Aziraphale was flat-out planning to stand him up. They hadn’t had time to offend each other with Cohen’s on-point balladry of late, not when the most recent decade or so of their association had been spent on more pressing matters.
Had it only been two years since they’d averted the End of Days? Crowley shuddered to think.
The birds, they sang at the break of day, Cohen’s voice oozed smoothly from the Blaupunkt, eternally unconcerned with whatever fresh chaos it might cause. Start again, I heard them say. Don't dwell on what has passed away, or what is yet to be. Yeah, the wars, they will be fought again. The holy dove, she will be caught again, bought and sold—and bought again. The dove is never free.
Anthem was a deceptively mellow song for such a poignant, pressing level of anxiety.
“There you go again!” Crowley shouted, thumping the steering wheel. Ring the bells that still can ring, forget your perfect offering—there is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in. “On about—about bloody imperfections, the virtues thereof, and—”
Aziraphale opened the passenger-side door without warning, shivering unhappily as he got in. Just like him, not to have bothered with an umbrella even for a dash of five to six feet. Crowley’s upholstery protested to the deluge with a squeak.
“Oh, I rather fancy this latest from your friend and mine!” he said cheerfully, pointing at the Bentley’s speakers. “That mention of the holy dove and such at the start, I think you’ll find the mention here makes amends for the last time he…”
Crowley glowered until the angel trailed off, and then shifted into gear. He screeched into the road.
“Nothing forgives Hallelujah’s mention of the dove, or having shoved one up your sleeve, angel. Shut it.”
The Letters
October 2004
Aziraphale listened to the brand-new compact disc on repeat for days, alone in his back room under the pretense of cataloguing some stock. He’d fended off Crowley’s persistent calls with a sense of rising guilt. Something about the third track, an uncharacteristic duet between Cohen and someone named Sharon Robinson, haunted him.
You never liked to get the letters that I sent. But now you’ve got the gist of what my letters meant. You’re reading them again, the ones you didn't burn. You press them to your lips, my pages of concern. I said there’d been a flood. I said there’s nothing left.
Hitting pause, Aziraphale stared at the flashing digital display and scribbled on his notepad.
I hoped that you would come, he wrote, finishing the phrase. I gave you my address.
There had been times down the centuries when Crowley had favored written correspondence over appearing unannounced on Aziraphale’s doorstep. As access, ease, and speed of human communication evolved, so did Crowley’s penchant for making a nuisance of himself.
The button popped back into operational position without warning, letting the song continue.
Your story was so long, the plot was so intense. It took you years to cross the lines of self-defense. The wounded forms appear: the loss, the full extent. And simple kindness here, the solitude of strength.
Aziraphale didn’t bother stopping the song again, spinning the point of his pencil against the blank page until it snapped. Sharing music had become correspondence in its own right, and it wasn’t lost on him that these lines described Crowley in mockingly accurate detail.
Setting aside the notepad, Aziraphale wondered why he couldn’t just out and say what needed saying. Crowley had been reaching for something since that day in 1967 when he’d played Cohen’s first album in the Bentley, painfully expectant.
When someone rapped at the shop’s back-alley entrance, Aziraphale adamantly ignored it.
“We’re closed!” he shouted, which was absurd even on the best of days, and considered how to open a letter that might well get him the cold shoulder. “Come back on—well, no, don’t!”
You walk into my room, you stand there at my desk. Begin your letter to the one who’s coming—
Crowley forced the door so hard that he stumbled past the table and into the wall. Even once he’d recovered, he looked miserably dazed, glancing from Aziraphale to the CD player and back again.
Aziraphale got to his feet, but it wasn’t as if Crowley still needed help. He was always too late.
Crowley killed music with a wave of his hand. “Angel, what’re you playing at?” he demanded, practically seething, but his uncovered eyes betrayed his worry. “I’ve been trying to reach you for days!”
Kissing Crowley on the spot, without context or explanation, was the riskiest decision Aziraphale had ever made. He pressed closer when Crowley didn’t pull away, tasting salt on Crowley’s lips.
“My dear, I know,” Aziraphale murmured, brushing his thumbs across Crowley’s cheekbones.
Either oblivious to his tears or not caring that Aziraphale had caught them, Crowley said, “Oh.”
Crazy to Love You
January 2012
Yawning, Crowley prepared to snipe at Aziraphale for having set an alarm. He bit his tongue when he realized that it was a song rather than one of the mobile’s pre-set tones.
“What’s this?” Crowley blurted, tucking his head beneath Aziraphale’s chin as the guitar lilted.
“Your favorite and mine,” said Aziraphale, much too pleased with himself. “His latest, even.”
Cohen’s voice was rougher than Crowley had last heard it, but gentler. Had to go crazy to love you, had to go down to the pit. Had to do time in the tower, begging my crazy to quit.
“You never set foot there, and I certainly didn’t,” Crowley said irritably, listening all the same.
“No,” Aziraphale agreed, tousling Crowley’s hair until Crowley nuzzled closer, “but it’s lovely.”
Crowley ignored the next verse, something about never being the one and a blouse all undone, concentrating on the way Aziraphale was scratching his scalp. Beneath the covers, Crowley’s skin felt feverish everywhere their bodies touched.
They were going on eight years together, which beggared belief. They’d left London. They’d made a place for themselves in serene, sea-bird-serenaded nowhere. They’d even made human friends.
Sometimes, I’d head for the highway. I’m old, and the mirrors don’t lie. But crazy has places to hide in that are deeper than any goodbye.
“I’ll tell you what’s lovely,” Crowley groused halfheartedly, slipping from beneath Aziraphale’s arm. He got out of bed and retrieved his robe from the floor. “Tea, angel. Want any?”
Aziraphale didn’t say a word as Crowley made his way around the foot of the bed and went to the door. His eyes never left Crowley for an instant, not even when Crowley froze on the threshold and gave him a look that most certainly was not concerned.
Had to go crazy to love you, had to let everything fall. Had to be people I hated, had to be no-one at all.
“Reflecting on our ill-advised decision to shack up with the Enemy, are we?” Crowley asked.
“You were never no-one, dear boy,” Aziraphale admitted with wistful gratitude. “Not to me.”
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Date: 2019-12-26 07:48 pm (UTC)Secret Writer Response
Date: 2019-12-27 07:40 am (UTC)Thank you for saying such nice things about my ending!