Happy Holidays, wanderingalice!
Dec. 30th, 2020 06:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
goe_mod posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
go_exchangeRecipient: wanderingalice
Rating: Teen & Up Audiences (themes of grief and mortality)
Pairing: Aziraphale & Crowley; Aziraphale/Crowley (technically pre-getting together)
Notes: My recipient’s prompt involves Aziraphale noticing an increase in Crowley’s tendency to cover his eyes, with the implication that Crowley increasingly feels the need to hide his emotions, especially his feelings toward Aziraphale. This is a historical piece, a small snapshot framing the greater trend of Crowley hiding behind his glasses. Apologies for this gift’s lateness within the scope of GOHE, but I ended up (very gladly) doing it as a pinch hit. I wish you a very Happy New Year, wanderingalice, even if this fic is wistful!
Summary/Teaser:
Crowley didn’t seem to appreciate Aziraphale tossing rocks at his shutters before nine o’clock.
Crowley squinted at Aziraphale, leaning on the windowsill. “What the devil’s got you up so early? This isn’t one of Will’s rom coms.”
“Will,” Aziraphale said dourly, but resisted the urge to add the devil, too, given I’m standing here talking to you. “He’s fallen ill.”
Crowley blinked down at him sadly. “He’s been ill, angel. It was a matter of time.”
“Yes, but one of our colleagues thinks he’s taken a turn for the worse,” Aziraphale said, shifting uneasily. “He signed his will a few weeks ago.”
It was after the 1609 golem affair in Prague that Aziraphale noticed Crowley’s demeanor began to change. When he’d come home from Florence with his first pair of tinted glasses in 1500, it had been obvious whose ingenious handiwork was to blame. However, his motivations for acquiring them seemed bizarre. He had never complained of his body’s vision being faulty.
Prior to the invention of spectacles, Crowley had never been able to hide the truth about his eyes. Aziraphale had never known him to try terribly hard, either, although the Plague of 1348 and the Inquisition’s aftermath in 1488 had both dealt blows to his proclivity for keeping a straight face under duress. Crowley’s hair-trigger emotional upheavals were no longer avoidable.
Crowley had come home from a visit to Florence in 1515 with the devilishly clever contraption more tightly fitted to the bridge of his nose than ever. Alienated by the lack of clear access to Crowley’s gaze, Aziraphale had been hard-pressed to admit his motivations for avoiding Crowley until they’d run into each other in Prague six years shy of a century later.
Aziraphale was also ashamed to acknowledge his avoidance of Crowley after their attendance at the Maharal’s deathbed. In the seven years since then, they’d both grown increasingly involved in London’s burgeoning theatrical scene. Crowley had already been following the milieu of players with which Aziraphale’s favorite writer at that point in time would get involved.
The premiere of Hamlet, also in 1609, had been a difficult chaser to the events in Prague, what with Crowley still bitter about Marlowe’s death in Deptford. After that, they began running into each other, hovering about the edges of rehearsals. The Tempest’s premiere in 1611 saw them both involved so fully as production crew that they’d inevitably learned most of the lines.
News of Shakespeare’s decline arrived on 25 April 1616. When Aziraphale’s informant mentioned that the playwright had signed his will scarcely four weeks prior, Aziraphale finally understood Crowley’s bitter, heartsick demeanor over Marlowe.
Crowley didn’t seem to appreciate Aziraphale tossing rocks at his shutters before nine o’clock.
Crowley squinted at Aziraphale, leaning on the windowsill. “What the devil’s got you up so early? This isn’t one of Will’s rom coms.”
“Will,” Aziraphale said dourly, but resisted the urge to add the devil, too, given I’m standing here talking to you. “He’s fallen ill.”
Crowley blinked down at him sadly. “He’s been ill, angel. It was a matter of time.”
“Yes, but one of our colleagues thinks he’s taken a turn for the worse,” Aziraphale said, shifting uneasily. “He signed his will a few weeks ago.”
Crowley was silent for several breathless, interminable seconds, his eyes going wide and round. He stepped back from the window without warning, no longer visible, and didn’t reappear until after what felt like an eternity of knocking about his quarters, hissing and cursing.
“Sssorry,” Crowley said, fully dressed and bespectacled when he returned. “Let’s go at once.”
Aziraphale felt the tightness in his chest ease; he wasn’t even going to have to ask. “We ought.”
Crowley turned his head from side to side, the only sign he was attempting caution. “Come up.”
Aziraphale trusted Crowley’s assessment that nobody had been watching. He willed himself to vanish, re-materializing in Crowley’s bedroom a second later. Fleetingly, he thought of the last time he’d been anywhere near Crowley and a bed, which had been Barcelona a hundred and twenty years ago, give or take. He pushed the memory away, wracked with shame.
“Don’t tell me you’re having second thoughts,” Crowley said, shrugging into his cloak before pulling on gloves. “We’re going the same way?”
“Er,” Aziraphale said. His rush had as much to do with Crowley’s tense posture as it had to do with his looming grief. “Hold on, my dear.”
Before Crowley could pull away from Aziraphale’s sudden seizing of his upper arms, they were already at their destination. He stared at the misty, deserted high street, flinching at the sound of Holy Trinity’s bells not far off. Briefly, his grip on Aziraphale’s elbows tightened.
“No one’s out,” Crowley said. “It’s a Monday morning, there’s trade to be conducted, and—”
“Hurry,” Aziraphale said, maintaining his hold on Crowley whether the demon liked it or not, dragging him in the direction of the bells’ clamor.
By the time they reached the churchyard, the bell had fallen silent. Half the town was filing out of the church, their conversation a low murmur.
Crowley tried to pull away again, but Aziraphale held him fast, beneath a willow’s low-hanging branches, until most of the crowd had abated. Troubling, to realize Crowley had avoided looking at him ever since their abrupt arrival in Stratford several minutes before.
“Pretend we’re latecomers,” Crowley said through gritted teeth, hauling Aziraphale toward the door. “Best we wait. Who says Mass on a Monday?”
“Clergy do, if it’s for the soul of some lately departed…” Aziraphale halted them on the threshold, staring at the chancel in horror. “Oh.”
“Come from London, have you?” sighed the priest, clearing the altar before bustling behind the rood screen. “Pay your respects and begone.”
Crowley sniffed, which Aziraphale took for disdain until glimpsing his eyes, in profile, behind the dark lenses. They glittered with tears.
“Since brevity is the soul of wit, and tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,” he said, approaching the newly laid slab, “I will be brief.”
Aziraphale joined Crowley before the tomb, setting his hand on the inscription. He glanced at Crowley.
“Dear boy, please,” Aziraphale murmured, his own eyes beginning to sting. “Take…”
Crowley set his left hand over Aziraphale’s, pinning it against the stone. He removed the glasses with his right hand, tucking them in his doublet.
Crowley’s eyes burned dull gold with more than just grief. “Was it worth the trouble this time?”
“What?” Aziraphale asked, curling his hand around Crowley’s. “Getting too close to humans?”
“No,” Crowley said wretchedly, staring at the inscription once more. “Getting too close to me.”
(no subject)
Date: 2020-12-31 06:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-01-01 05:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-01-01 12:45 am (UTC)I love all the little mentions of their relationship over the years, and how aware of Crowley's body language Aziraphale is. And how Crowley seems to know what Aziraphale wants without even being asked.
Thank you again for writing this for me! Happy new year!!
(no subject)
Date: 2021-01-01 05:22 pm (UTC)Happy New Year. May 2021 bring you only good things!
(no subject)
Date: 2021-01-01 02:24 am (UTC)And Crowley quoting Shakespeare as he talks to his body, too :’(
“Crowley’s eyes burned dull gold with more than just grief. “Was it worth the trouble this time?”
“What?” Aziraphale asked, curling his hand around Crowley’s. “Getting too close to humans?”
“No,” Crowley said wretchedly, staring at the inscription once more. “Getting too close to me.””
I was going to quote each individual part of this and then the sentences just kept coming and I had MANY EMOTIONS from all of this!!
This was so good! Wistful, but totally worth it :')
(no subject)
Date: 2021-01-01 05:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-01-01 10:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-01-02 04:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-01-02 06:46 pm (UTC)