Happy Holidays, astudyinfic!
Jan. 2nd, 2020 05:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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go_exchangeRecipient: astudyinfic
Rating: G
Pairing: Aziraphale/Crowley
Warnings: None
Summary:
Crowley invented the e-reader, and Aziraphale wants to know why. When he finds out it's because his lover cannot read due to the serpentine nature of his eyes, he offers to read to him instead. Extremely soft fluff ensues. For the prompt " Aziraphale reading to Crowley because while Crowley likes stories, written words are hard for him to focus on with his snake eyes. Soft and happy husbands."
Author's notes: This is probably the softest thing I have written in my entire life. It was such a joy to work on. Astudyinfic, thank you so very much for this fantastic prompt. I hope you enjoy the result!
It started, as many things do between them these days, with a round of good-natured bickering.
“Really, my dear,” Aziraphale had said, frowning at yet another journal article decrying the growing use of e-books among the general population. “E-readers? Did you have to?”
“Mm?” Crowley looked up at him from where he lay, sprawled and boneless across their couch like a starfish, glasses forgotten on a table halfway across the room. It hadn’t taken long at all for Aziraphale to get used to seeing him like that, now that the end of the world was over - draped across his couch, and his bookshop, and his life. It had taken far longer for him to learn to stop counting those sweet, secret smiles - so rare before, doled out like precious grain in a starving land to be guarded and hoarded jealously. Now, though, a day no longer passed where he didn’t make it a point to draw out at least one.
“E-readers,” he repeated, watching his lover from over the top of the journal. “Did you have to invent them?”
“Well… I didn’t actually think they’d take off like that,” Crowley said slowly, considering. “I made them for me, didn’t I? Was just luck the humans like ‘em. And,” he grinned, “even luckier that other humans get so annoyed by them. I’ve started a good half-dozen arguments between friends over the user of e-readers in the past year alone.” He laughed then at the scandalized expression on Aziraphale’s face.
“You didn’t! You said you were giving up doing temptations and the like,” the angel accused him.
Crowley’s lazy grin widened. “Oh, a little thing like starting fights? That’s not temptation, angel. That’s just fun.”
“Fun!” Aziraphale humphed. “Well, if that’s all it is, I suppose it’s alright then,” he said, voice thick with sarcasm.
“Glad you agree!” Crowley’s eyes were dancing with mischief. “I’ve got some really good ideas for causing chaos once it starts to snow.”
“Don’t you dare,” he told the demon, fixing him with a stern glare. “We’re retired now, Crowley. No need to go causing trouble.”
The demon rolled his eyes. “Oh, like you don’t go out and do good all the time. Don’t deny it,” he added, when Aziraphale opened his mouth to speak. “I know for a fact you went and miracled the baker down the street a few high-end clients so he wouldn’t go under.”
Aziraphale shrugged. “If I hadn’t, we wouldn’t be able to get any more of those pretzel mice you like so much.” The little things really were adorable and delicious, even if Crowley insisted on biting the heads off first every time.
“Or those chocolate pecan things you brought home yesterday. Don’t pretend you did it just for me, my dear. I know what you were really thinking.” Crowley grinned to take the bite out of his words.
“Yes, well. I suppose you have a point, dear. Still, I’d feel better if you didn’t do anything to draw attention to yourself.” The angel looked down at the journal in his hands. “I would be rather put out if I had to come rescue you from Hell just because you wanted to be a nuisance.”
“Ah,” Crowley said, with a playful smirk. “But I’m your nuisance, angel. You don’t get rid of me that easily.”
Aziraphale couldn’t help the smile that took over his face at that, fond and loving and still just a little surprised that this was real. “Yes,” he said quietly, reaching out to gently caress Crowley’s face. “That you are, dear one. As I am yours.”
The demon, his demon, still so unused to such an open show of affection, promptly turned bright red and lost all ability to speak.
Aziraphale went back to his journal. Or rather, he tried to. But a little niggling thought kept intruding. Something Crowley had said… there was something there he didn’t quite understand. He put the journal down.
“My dear,” he asked, “What did you mean, when you said you invented e-readers for yourself?”
Crowley looked up at him from where his head was hanging, upside down, over the arm of the couch. “Mm? Ah, that’s…” he slid back down to a proper sprawl across the cushions, suddenly appearing very interested in his own fingers. “Yeah. I guess… you’d been going on and on about that book, what was it… the one with Mr. Darcy and the girl with the idiot sisters?”
“Pride and Prejudice?” Aziraphale asked, surprised. He hadn’t realized Crowley had been paying attention when he’d been waxing poetical about the novel.
“That’s the one! Right. Well, you were so enthusiastic about it, and a bunch of other books too. And I thought, well, ‘he really likes to read, there must be something to it.’ And I wanted to see what it was all about, you know? But you know I don’t read, and you kept saying the shows and movies and shit don’t do it justice, so I tempted someone into making something I could use.”
“You did?” He’d always wondered why Crowley had invented e-books, but he hadn’t thought it was because the demon actually wanted to use them. He supposed he’d always just assumed he’d done it because he knew it would annoy him.
He nodded. “Yeah. I tried in the 40’s first. With a Spanish woman, Angela Ruiz Robles. Brilliant mind. She was a school teacher, it was easy to get her thinking about something easier for her students to lug around than all those heavy textbooks. Of course, this was really before modern computers, so it didn’t go anywhere. 1949 was just a bit too early for humans to get that sort of thing right. Then the first real e-book was invented by some kid in 1971, which showed people you could use computers for reading. But I didn’t really get anywhere with e-readers until, oh… 1997? That was when I got a couple guys to decide to launch one commercially. After that it was mostly just humans doing their thing. Improving on whatever came before.”
“You did all that?” Aziraphale was impressed despite himself. Then he frowned. “But I don’t think I’ve ever seen you use one.”
Crowley shook his head, slouching further down into the couch. “Nah. Doesn’t help as much as I’d hoped it would.”
The angel watched him, brow furrowed. “What do you mean, ‘it doesn’t help’?”
Crowley looked up at him, his uncovered eyes glowing a bright golden-yellow in the evening sun. “I told you angel, I don’t read. I can’t.”
“What do you mean, can’t? I’ve seen you read things before.” But nothing for long, he realized. He’d pick up a book out of his hands and read a sentence or two, then set it down. He never even used his phone for more than a few minutes at a time.
“It’s not that I don’t know how,” Crowley told him, sounding defensive. “It’s just… My eyes are different, right? They’re not like yours.”
“Yes, but they’re quite beautiful. The color of them is so vibrant.” Aziraphale would spend forever reassuring Crowley he didn’t care about any of his demonic traits if he had to. He loved him wholly and completely, even the parts of him that marked him as a demon - like his serpentine eyes, or the scales that sometimes crept up his spine when he slept.
The demon gave him a small smile, blushing again. “Mmm, yeah, but… ‘S not just cosmetic,” he said, tapping one long finger against the corner of an eye. “I’ve got a different set of… what was it? Rods and cones? The things that let you see, right? Means my night vision is fantastic, but it’s a little fuzzy. Makes it hard to see things up close.”
Azriaphale blinked. “That means… what, exactly?”
Crowley shrugged. “Can’t read. It starts to hurt, if I try to focus on the words for too long. Larger print helps, but not much. At least on e-readers I can use contrasting colors, but even that doesn’t work for more than a couple minutes.”
“Oh, but…” the angel tried to think of anything to suggest, but if it was truly focusing on the words that was the problem, there wasn’t much that would help.
“’S a shame, really. Audio books are good and all, but not everything gets recorded.” He sighed. “Still, if I want a story bad enough, I can always tempt some Hollywood director into making a film.”
Aziraphale watched him as he shifted on the couch, settling in like he was about to fall asleep. Suddenly, an idea occurred to him. “What if… what if I read to you?”
Crowley opened his eyes, surprise showing on his face before he schooled it into a more neutral expression. “Nah, don’t trouble yourself, angel. I’m good.”
“Are you sure?” he asked, not quite convinced by the careful look of disinterest on the demon’s face. “I wouldn’t mind.” In fact, now that the idea had presented itself, the angel found it was something he very much wanted to experience. He could imagine the two of them together on the couch, curled up with a book, maybe with mugs of cocoa… the image was very appealing.
“Yeah, angel,” Crowley told him. “Go back to your book. I think I’m gonna take a nap.” He closed his eyes, for all intents looking like he really was about to go to sleep. But Aziraphale had seen the hunger in his eyes, for just a second. He had six thousand years of practicing at reading his demon, and while anyone else might take his words at face value, Aziraphale could tell when he was lying. So instead of picking up the journal of scholarly articles he’d been studying, he frowned at the stack of books next to his chair, looking for one in particular. Then, book in hand, he went to their small kitchen and fixed them both a mug of cocoa.
“Sit up for a moment, please, dear one,” he said when he returned, making for the couch instead of his usual seat. Crowley blinked up at him then shifted, sitting to make room for the angel. Aziraphale handed him a mug and settled in, pulling his lover back down to lean against him. Crowley sighed contentedly, holding his cocoa with both hands and draping himself against his side.
This close, Aziraphale couldn’t help but feel the love that rolled off of him, warm and comforting, so strong it was almost overwhelming. How did I miss this? He thought to himself. All those years, and never once did he let me see it. Well. He could see it now, and allow his own love to flow around the demon, a mirror of that same warm comfort wrapping around them both like the softest of woolen blankets. Crowley’s head came to rest on his shoulder, and he allowed himself a moment just to feel him there, the reality of him, yawning sleepily and burrowing closer to the angel’s warmth, solid and safe and real.
He put down his cocoa and wrapped an arm around his love, letting his hand come to rest in his soft red hair, and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. Then he opened the book in his other hand, and began to read.
“Chapter One. It is a truth universally acknowledged-”
“Angel, what-?” Crowley asked, turning his head just enough that he could look up at the angel with one bright eye.
“I’m reading to you, Crowley,” he explained. “I should have thought that was obvious.”
“Yeah, but I said you didn’t have to.”
He smiled fondly at his lover. “But I want to. And you did say you wanted to read Pride and Prejudice. This is it.”
“Oh.” Crowley looked down at the book, then relaxed his head back against the angel’s shoulder. “Alright then,” he said, with an air of practiced indifference. “If you must.”
Aziraphale wasn’t fooled. He could, after all, see the pleased little smile the demon tried but couldn’t quite succeed in hiding.
“Right then.” He turned back to the book, his free hand slowly carding through the ember-red hair he could feel tickling his cheek. “Chapter One. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. However little known the feeling-”
“Hang on,” Crowley interrupted, not moving in case doing so would make Aziraphale remove his hand from his hair. “How is it universally acknowledged? I don’t remember ever knowing that. In fact, I remember several rich young single men that were very much not in want of a wife.”
Aziraphale chuckled. “My dear, it’s literature. It’s a good opening sentence, meant to catch the reader and draw them in to the rest of the book. It has to be interesting, not necessarily true.”
“But seriously,” the demon protested, “why must it be that he wants a wife? Can’t he just want to be young and rich and go to parties and have fun?”
The angel sighed. “I’m sure he could. But the neighborhood gossip would promptly spin out rumors about him and any eligible young lady he happened to spend time with. You remember what it was like back then, don’t you?”
“Hah, yeah.” Crowley grinned into his shoulder. “I remember those parties we’d go to, where all those mothers would try and push their daughters on you. Never once occurred to them you might not want any of ‘em.”
“And to them,” Aziraphale told him, “we were single men in possession of a good fortune. And I seem to remember just as many young women surrounding you at those parties. In fact, I distinctly recall one where I had to rescue you from one of very overzealous mother, demanding to know why you wouldn’t dance with her daughter. May I continue, my dear?”
Crowley shrugged. “Yeah, go ahead.”
“Alright then,” he picked up the book, and opened his mouth to start again.
“Just so you know, though,” Crowley interrupted him once more. “I would have danced with you.”
“What?”
“At those parties. If I could have without it raising a fuss, I would have danced with you.”
“Oh my dear,” Aziraphale felt a rush of fondness for the demon, and the uncertainty in his voice. He remembered the longing in Crowley’s eyes, when they would watch the dancers at a party, twirling and spinning together in the candle light. The way he had looked at Aziraphale, and then away, as a young woman asked him to dance. He thought of days in a discreet gentleman’s club, learning one dance - a dance it would have been acceptable to do with his man-shaped friend. Crowley had been asleep, then, taking his long nap. By the time the demon had woken the dance had gone out of style, and the opportunity to spend a night together at a grand ball had passed them by.
“Angels don’t dance, you know” he said quietly. “But for you, I do believe I would have made an exception.”
Crowley’s only reply was to shift closer, moving just enough that he could snake one arm behind the angel. Aziraphale took a sip of his cocoa and resumed his reading. This time, the demon did not interrupt. Instead, he snuggled close, turning his head to present more of his hair for Aziraphale to run his fingers through, the sound of his voice filling the room.
He didn’t stay silent for long, of course. That would have been too much to ask of the demon. He had quite a few comments, mostly scathing, about Mr. Collins. Words of caution for Elizabeth about Wickam, and growls of anger for Darcy’s attempt to separate Jane and Bingley. When George Wickam was revealed to be a crook, he actually sat up and shouted “I knew it!” before settling back down, curled against Aziraphale’s side.
Aziraphale continued reading well into the night, until, just as Elizabeth was preparing to leave for her trip with her cousins, he realized that Crowley had fallen silent. When he glanced at his love he found his eyes closed, his breathing the slow and steady rhythm of sleep. Smiling fondly, Aziraphale marked his place in the book, setting it aside until Crowley woke again. Then he carefully stood, moving slowly so as not to wake his lover, and picked the demon up. Crowley’s only reaction was to turn against his chest, snuggling close and wrapping an arm around his neck.
“Wha’ abou’ Darcy?” he mumbled into the angel’s shirt. “’N ‘lizabth?”
“Shh, sleep now, darling,” Aziraphale said softly, carrying him down the hall to their large bedroom. “I can read more tomorrow.” When he deposited the demon gently into the bed, Crowley’s hand reached out, searching, until Aziraphale pulled back the covers and crawled in beside him. When his hand gripped the angel’s arm, he sighed, not truly awake, and moved until the length of him was pressed against Aziraphale, seeking his warmth.
“Love you, angel,” he murmured, just loud enough for Aziraphale to hear.
The angel smiled and wrapped his arms around him, holding him close. “And I, you, my dearest love. Most ardently.”
(no subject)
Date: 2020-01-02 02:01 pm (UTC)THANK YOU
Date: 2020-01-02 04:00 pm (UTC)I have a soft spot for Pride and Prejudice so the fact that you chose that for Aziraphale to read is just the icing on the cake.
Thank you thank you thank you. I'll probably have another comment later. Right now, I want to go read it again. ❤❤❤
(no subject)
Date: 2020-01-02 06:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-01-03 05:04 am (UTC)Crowley and Aziraphale are just SO ADORABLE, and you've done a great job with the characterization. Crowley being very hesitant to explain why he invented e-books, not wanting to make Aziraphale feel obligated to read to him, etc. And it's nice to see something a bit further on after canon, when Crowley's really let himself relax and he and Aziraphale get to properly enjoy each other's company. :D
I must say, I love how Aziraphale thought about reading to Crowley on the sofa with cocoa, and then he got up, made cocoa, and did just that. Yeah! Live your dream!
The bit about the gavotte was beautiful and also heartbreaking and they 100% need to do some dancing as soon as they finish P&P. And the "most ardently" quote at the end was amazing! <3
(no subject)
Date: 2020-01-03 03:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-01-03 08:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-01-05 01:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-01-06 01:25 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-12-19 03:08 pm (UTC)