Happy Holidays, Crowoxy!
Dec. 7th, 2022 05:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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Title: Why Body Swapping is a Stupid Idea that would Never Work
Rating: T
Characters: Crowley, Aziraphale, Gabriel
Summary: One day Gabriel gets the bright idea to swap bodies with Crowley. Except obviously that's a ridiculous idea that would never fool anyone. That's why Crowley is so calm about the whole thing.
Why Body Swapping is a Stupid Idea that would Never Work
Crowley wasn't exactly clear on how it had happened. He'd been in St. James Park, slowly walking around the pond and trying to decide if it would be worth it to wring just a bit more idiocy out of the whole crypto-currency situation. That debacle was just the sort of temptation that Crowley had really loved sinking his teeth into since the stock market became a thing, but post non-ageddon he was starting lose interest in global-scale chaos.
He was also waiting for an angel who really needed to show up with the damn frozen peas already so Crowley's brain could stop overheating. Sadly, the next time he glanced up and looked around, he instead found an angel he'd never wanted to see again. Gabriel was on the other side of the pond, watching him, his face cold and neutral. Crowley stiffened, then impulsively pulled off his sunglasses to glare at Gabriel properly. Crowley probably would have followed that up with flipping Gabriel off and running away. He didn't have a chance to, though. As soon as he and Gabriel locked eyes, Crowley blacked out.
Much later, Crowley would describe his process of waking up and realizing he was in Gabriel's body as being rational and quick. Obviously he didn't scream. Crowley never panicked. And he definitely only fell down once trying to get that meaty mountain of a body to walk for him. And then run. Run all the way to Soho.
“Ok. Ok, ok, ok,” Crowley said, not-panicking as he ran. “This will be fine.” Oh Someone, he sounded American. “I'm in Gabe's body, so that means he's in mine. He must be going after Aziraphale. Planning to trick him and attack him while wearing my face. Wait, does that mean Gabriel figured out our secret? Fuck!”
Crowley put in an extra burst of speed and was surprised to notice he wasn't even winded. Huh. So this was what it was like to be in shape. Weird. Maybe he should try some parkour to get to Aziraphale faster.
But wait, how was Crowley going to convince Aziraphale who he really was? This was even worse than that Cage/Travolta movie! Gabriel was going to swagger into the bookshop and give Aziraphale every reason to trust him. When Crowley arrived he'd just look like a menacing archangel with a flimsy lie as a cover story! Damnit! Crowley had always known they should have code phrases for this sort of situation!
He thought frantically of what he could say to convince Aziraphale quickly about what had happened. What was something that only Anthony J. Crowley would know to say? “Always happy to tempt you”? “Let's get lunch”? Something to do with aardvarks? Just what the Heaven could encapsulate his identity in a few seconds?
After slowing just a touch to round a corner, Crowley barely managed to avoid crashing into a stand outside a small grocery store. He blinked as he wobbled on his too-fit legs and tried to register the world around him again. He was close. Aziraphale's shop was only a few blocks away now. But he still desperately needed something to...
He blinked again at the stand in front of him. The fruit stand. Then he grinned more wildly than Gabriel's face ever had. Maybe Crowley was being cliché, but it would do the job. He quickly scooped up as many apples as he could and continued running, ignoring the outraged yells behind him.
With his brain freed up from that particular problem, Crowley seemed to have spare energy to throw into the rest of his sprint. He didn't slow down in the slightest as he approached the bookstore and, as these weren't his shoulders anyway, he crashed through the front door. Then he huffed for two breaths and looked around. No one in the store proper. Fine. Backroom.
He crashed through another door and finally, finally, there was Aziraphale. He looked extremely alarmed, which was hardly surprising, but Crowley would have to get back to that. He quickly spotted the shock of red hair he would know anywhere. There was Gabriel, in Crowley's body, sitting down in Aziraphale's backroom like he was a friend, like he was welcome here!
Crowley didn't hesitate. He immediately began chucking apples at his own stupid face. “He! Is not! Yours! Anymore! Wanker!”
The apples mostly hit their target, with one smashing Gabriel square on the nose. That was satisfying, even if Crowley couldn't help wincing when blood started to run out one nostril. Crowley had generally spent millennia trying to not mar his body's face. It was was unsettling to hurt it on purpose.
In that moment of hesitation, Aziraphale pulled himself together and grappled Crowley from behind, pinning Gabriel's stupidly over-muscled arms to his sides. Crowley immediately panicked. “Wait! Angel, stop! You don't understand! It's me! He switched us and—”
“Shut up, Crowley! I know!”
Crowley froze as he tried to process that. It also gave him a chance to notice a few things he hadn't taken in before:
Gabriel-in-Crowley's-body was not simply sitting in the backroom, he was in fact tied to his chair.
He was also surrounded by a binding circle.
Gabriel, even with his Crowley-face, was making a very Gabriel-like expression of huffy indignation. (It made Crowley feel a bit sick to see it.)
Making a careful effort not to struggle, Crowley slowly turned his head toward Aziraphale. Aziraphale had circled him enough that they could make eye-contact and, from the rather intense look Aziraphale was giving him, Crowley felt like there was some significant, silent message he really should be getting right now.
Unfortunately, his brain wasn't really up for solving riddles. (Maybe because it was Gabriel's brain with Crowley's mind? That was worth pondering at some point.) So instead he just gaped for a moment before spluttering, “What do you mean, you know? I just ran half-way across London to warn you this prick was impersonating me! How the Hell did you...”
He shut up when Aziraphale's Significant Look transformed into a regular old exasperated glare. It also helped that Aziraphale had just given him a sharp pinch on the arm.
“My dear,” Aziraphale said with deliberate calm, “I know having your body stolen must have been quite the shock, but if you'd taken just a moment to use your occult senses, you'd see that the difference is obvious.”
Curious, Crowley tried to reach out with said occult senses, but Aziraphale pinched him again.
“At the moment, Gabriel's powers are inhibited by the binding circle I've placed him in. But Crowley, I know you can easily sense his angelic essence leaking from your body. No angel or demon could ever be fooled by a mere difference in corporation.”
Ah. Crowley understood now. He, in fact, couldn't sense Gabriel's angelic presence at the moment. Angels and demons had the easy ability to cloak themselves when it suited them. But....it wouldn't exactly be a good idea to have Gabriel thinking about the possibilities of demon-angel body swapping any more than he already had. In fact, Crowley and Aziraphale's lives kind of depended on it.
Right. Time to act smooth. Crowley relaxed and gave Aziraphale a smirk. “Ah, you're right. I see it now. Really, I feel silly for hurrying over.” He waved. “Hi there, Gabey.”
“Hello, foul creature of the pits,” Gabriel replied with cold fury and notably more dignity than Crowley would have expected.
Crowley chuckled. “Well, I'm not sure what you were hoping to accomplish with this little charade, but I'm impressed you were willing to sully yourself in the body of a demon for it. Seriously though, it doesn't even look like there was a fight here. How stupid were you to wind up in a binding circle?”
A worrying thought occurred to him and he glanced again at the details of the circle. It looked like Aziraphale had interwoven sigils for both demons and angels. It was pretty impressive actually. And smart. They also didn't want Gabriel to know if he was trapped by virtue of his body or his essence.
It looked like Gabriel was too busy snarling to consider it either way. “I admit, I had not realized this traitorous angel,” he glared at Aziraphale, “had learned so much already from your deceitful and seductive demonic teachings. I'd hoped that he might still be brought back to the light once he saw how truly evil you really are! I—”
But Crowley had already whirled back around to Aziraphale, wide-eyed and mouthing the word, “SEDUCTIVE?!”
Aziraphale hastily cleared his throat and said. “It seems that Gabriel intended to make a show of being wicked while in your form in front of me. Seems to miss the point a bit if the 'evil' doesn't actually come from you, but no matter. I saw through him right away and was able to lure him into the circle I already had ready to activate. I had a feeling we would have visitors at some point, you see.”
It was an obvious diversion, but Crowley went with it. No reason to have a domestic in front of the archangel fucking Gabriel. “....Right. Sure. Good call. Anyway I guess now we need to decide what to do with him.”
“I'm not afraid of your worst tortures!” Gabriel yelled. “And you know that Heaven will come for me soon!”
Crowley quirked an eyebrow and began to swagger around the circle. It was tricky in a body this solid. “They'll come for you eventually. It still gives me plenty of time to cause trouble with your face.”
For the first time since the switch had happened, Crowley had a calm moment to consider the possibilities. It made his eyes widen with wicked glee. The pranks he could pull in Heaven! The memos he could write! The....wait, the orders he could give...
Aziraphale was shaking his head frantically now and Gabriel was jerking around to try and keep Crowley in his line of sight. “Just try it, demon! God will not stand for you sullying our halls! Every angel in Heaven will immediately know what you are! Obviously if someone as pathetic as Aziraphale can sense an angel and demon in switched forms, it would be even easier for anyone else!”
At the word “pathetic” Crowley was tempted to just punch the git, regardless of his current handsome face. Instead he suppressed a groan. Tragically, Gabriel had just made it clear why Aziraphale was suddenly looking so worried. Crowley couldn't go act like he was in charge in Heaven. Not without ruining their previous lies. Damn.
Luckily, Crowley was great at improvising. “Never said I was going to Heaven, Gabe. I'm just going to ruin you in front of all of humanity!”
“What?!” Aziraphale and Gabriel cried at once.
“Aziraphale, give me that smartphone I gave you last month.” He stood in front of Gabriel again and grinned as devilishly as he could. “I'm going to put you all over the internet! You'll be the first result on every Google search! Your Instagram will be humiliating! I'll make you say the most disgusting things I can think of and make sure they're on the home page of YouTube! Gabriel...” Crowley bent down to stare the archangel dead in the eye. “You're going to be a meme.”
For a moment Gabriel looked torn between being horrified and just being confused, probably because he had no idea what the internet was. Thankfully Aziraphale knew when to play along and tipped the scales with, “Crowley, no! You couldn't! It would...um...It would be too much!”
Crowley grinned and cackled, getting into the drama a bit. “This fool decided to steal my body, Aziraphale! He must be punished!” He strode to Aziraphale's desk and found the phone there. (Unsurprisingly already covered in a fine layer of dust with how little Aziraphale used the thing.) He took a quick selfie with the most ridiculous face he could manage and texted it to himself. However, this resolved, Crowley wanted at least one archangel-humiliating souvenir.
“You monster!” Gabriel bellowed. “You won't get away with this!”
“Huh. You know, it is really weird to see my face look that self-righteous.” Crowley paused. He was starting to worry again. Sure, he could easily keep goading Gabriel, but he did want to get his body back. And preferably not do anything extreme enough to make Heaven feel justified in making a full-on attack.
Bugger. They had a fine needle to thread if they wanted to still be intimidating enough to be left alone, but not outright dangerous. Definitely didn't want anyone to try calling any bluffs. Crowley glanced to Aziraphale, doing his best to convey Alright, now it's your turn to come up with something!
Aziraphale huffed in exasperation, but none-the-less squared his shoulders. “Listen. Gabriel. There isn't much I can do to restrain my, er, associate. You've clearly violated our request to be left alone. But I think, if you move quickly, you might be able to limit the amount of damage he can cause.”
He made a show of moving his foot to one very specific symbol on the binding circle. “If I erase this one part, you'll be able to leave the binding in essence, but not in body. I suggest that you should then immediately leave Crowley's body and return to Heaven. In return, we will leave your body out behind the bookshop for you to collect. However, the longer you take...”
Aziraphale gestured to Crowley, who immediately took the hint and started recording a video. “Hi, world! I'm Gabriel and here's a top ten list of the gross matter I like to put in my face! Be sure to like and subscribe!”
The look of disgust and horror on Gabriel's face was one of the most beautiful things Crowley had ever seen. The archangel snapped his head toward Aziraphale. “I agree! Do it!”
The instant Aziraphale's foot erased the sigil, Crowley saw his body slump forward, only held up by the ropes keeping it in place. He waited an extra moment to make sure his beautiful, lanky form was empty, then ran over to help depower the rest of the circle.
“Thank Someone! I did not want to stay stuck in this pretentious arse's body!”
“Yes,” Aziraphale agreed. “It certainly would have been very unsettling to have you around with that face. We'll need to find a way to make sure it won't happen again.”
Once the circle and ropes were gone, Crowley took his body's hands and pushed his spirit inside. It was such a relief, like settling into a comfy bed after a long day. That is, until he felt the pain in his poor, abused nose.
“Fuck!” Probably the best word he could say to affirm he was back in the right body, but still it hurt. “Starting to wish I hadn't thrown those apples so well!”
Aziraphale tutted and quickly healed Crowley's nose. “Why were you throwing apples in the first place?”
“So you'd know who I was!”
Somehow that didn't make Aziraphale look any less confused. “My dear, are you under the impression that you're the only person to ever throw fruit?”
Crowley spluttered. “Nrgh! It's the whole apple, temptation, Eden thing! I needed a quick way to convince you that I was the real Crowley!”
“And you thought merely having some apples would do the trick? My, Crowley, I never realized how many times you've been watching me in disguise when I go to the grocer's.”
“Shut it! I didn't have much time to plan, alright? Besides, you're the one who never wanted us to have codes for this sort of thing!”
“You wanted us to have codes in case of evil twins!”
Crowley rolled his eyes and bent to help lift the dead weight of Gabriel's body to drag it to the back door. The stupid, useless git was obnoxiously heavy. Crowley wondered if he should have waited until he'd walked this body outside before getting back in his own.
“How did you get this idiot in a binding circle, anyway?” he asked while he and Aziraphale slowly huffed under each of Gabriel's arms. “Or for that matter...Wait a minute! What was that about you being seductive?!”
He stared at Aziraphale accusingly. He couldn't be sure with the way Aziraphale was already exerting himself, but it looked like he was suddenly blushing.
“It...It was nothing. I just...Well, it was obvious something was off from the moment 'you' entered the shop. Gabriel is a horrendous actor and he clearly had no idea how you move or speak. But I needed him to think I believed his act long enough for me to get him inside the circle and seal it.”
“And just how did you convince him that you definitely thought he was me?”
The back door politely opened up for them. Without conferring, they both tossed Gabriel's body forward and let it land next to the rubbish bins. Crowley hoped it would be sore and stinking when Gabriel collected it.
Back inside, Aziraphale closed the door and started activating a number of wards. Even the fiddly ones he always complained about. Crowley crossed his arms and stared him down. “Well?”
Aziraphale pretended he hadn't heard while he spent a full minute double-checking each ward. Crowley refused to so much as blink. Finally Aziraphale sighed and faced him.
“It really isn't anything to make a fuss over,” Aziraphale insisted. “While he and I were talking he said something that...could be interpreted as flirtatious. I took a chance and played into it. I convinced him to follow me to the backroom and, um, persuaded him to sit in the chair where I had hidden the binding circle. Then it just took an instant to miracle up some ropes and activate the binding. It was all very straight-forward.”
Under different circumstances, Crowley might have been impressed at Aziraphale's cunning and deceit. At the moment though, he felt more nauseous than anything. “You were flirting with Gabriel? You did a sexy flirt to seduce Gabriel?”
“You are deliberately ignoring the larger context!” Now Aziraphale was undoubtedly blushing.
“Wait.” Crowley paled as an even worse thought occurred to him. “You didn't kiss him as part of it, did you?”
There was a long, painful silence as Aziraphale opened and closed his mouth a few times, only managing to get out a pitiable squeak before he gave up.
Crowley threw up his arms. “Unbelievable!”
“It's not that bad! I saved our lives!”
“Yes, great! I'm thrilled to be alive and able to think about this for the rest of eternity!” Crowley paced away, then spun around and paced right back, counting on his fingers the many ways he'd been wronged.
“First I got the fright of my existence thinking that Gabriel was going to hurt you or kill you or something and let you think I was the one who'd done it. Then I got to walk a tightrope trying to figure out how to get my body back without bringing down the wrath of Heaven. And now I find out that Heaven's going to have every reason to think we're shagging on the regular and you even went so far as to kiss my body while I wasn't even in it!”
Crowley scowled the scowliest scowl he could manage. Aziraphale was staring back at him looking a lot less ashamed than Crowley wanted and a lot more...astonished? What? Crowley ran through what he'd just said. Anger, fear, indignity....ah. Fuck.
“I mean...Nevermind! Good job, you saved our skins,” Crowley looked around desperately. “I need to go, though. I have things to, ah, torment. You know how it is.” He ran for the door.
“Crowley, would you like for me to kiss you? Properly?”
And now it was Crowley's turn to let out an embarrassing squeak. In a blink Aziraphale was next to him, one hand on his shoulder. Insufferably tender. “Because, if that were something you wanted, I'd quite like to as well.”
As Crowley was a very cool demon who never panicked, he took this confession well. He didn't wheeze in disbelief or nearly fall over. Instead he definitely said something suave before dipping the angel back dramatically for a passionate proper kiss accompanied by the swell of an orchestra playing their most powerful romantic music.
It was not a matter of a jerky little nod and a quiet “...'kay” that got Aziraphale to lean in and give him a soft, chaste peck on the lips.
In any case, the details didn't really matter. However they got started, a number of very pleasant things came after.
It probably didn't actually take Gabriel a full week to come and collect his body, but Crowley and Aziraphale stayed inside that long. Just to be safe, of course.
And when Crowley finally stepped out again, he smiled as he checked his phone. He never would have thought he'd have so many reasons to be happy to have a photo of the Archangel Fucking Gabriel as his lockscreen.
Rating: T
Characters: Crowley, Aziraphale, Gabriel
Summary: One day Gabriel gets the bright idea to swap bodies with Crowley. Except obviously that's a ridiculous idea that would never fool anyone. That's why Crowley is so calm about the whole thing.
Why Body Swapping is a Stupid Idea that would Never Work
Crowley wasn't exactly clear on how it had happened. He'd been in St. James Park, slowly walking around the pond and trying to decide if it would be worth it to wring just a bit more idiocy out of the whole crypto-currency situation. That debacle was just the sort of temptation that Crowley had really loved sinking his teeth into since the stock market became a thing, but post non-ageddon he was starting lose interest in global-scale chaos.
He was also waiting for an angel who really needed to show up with the damn frozen peas already so Crowley's brain could stop overheating. Sadly, the next time he glanced up and looked around, he instead found an angel he'd never wanted to see again. Gabriel was on the other side of the pond, watching him, his face cold and neutral. Crowley stiffened, then impulsively pulled off his sunglasses to glare at Gabriel properly. Crowley probably would have followed that up with flipping Gabriel off and running away. He didn't have a chance to, though. As soon as he and Gabriel locked eyes, Crowley blacked out.
Much later, Crowley would describe his process of waking up and realizing he was in Gabriel's body as being rational and quick. Obviously he didn't scream. Crowley never panicked. And he definitely only fell down once trying to get that meaty mountain of a body to walk for him. And then run. Run all the way to Soho.
“Ok. Ok, ok, ok,” Crowley said, not-panicking as he ran. “This will be fine.” Oh Someone, he sounded American. “I'm in Gabe's body, so that means he's in mine. He must be going after Aziraphale. Planning to trick him and attack him while wearing my face. Wait, does that mean Gabriel figured out our secret? Fuck!”
Crowley put in an extra burst of speed and was surprised to notice he wasn't even winded. Huh. So this was what it was like to be in shape. Weird. Maybe he should try some parkour to get to Aziraphale faster.
But wait, how was Crowley going to convince Aziraphale who he really was? This was even worse than that Cage/Travolta movie! Gabriel was going to swagger into the bookshop and give Aziraphale every reason to trust him. When Crowley arrived he'd just look like a menacing archangel with a flimsy lie as a cover story! Damnit! Crowley had always known they should have code phrases for this sort of situation!
He thought frantically of what he could say to convince Aziraphale quickly about what had happened. What was something that only Anthony J. Crowley would know to say? “Always happy to tempt you”? “Let's get lunch”? Something to do with aardvarks? Just what the Heaven could encapsulate his identity in a few seconds?
After slowing just a touch to round a corner, Crowley barely managed to avoid crashing into a stand outside a small grocery store. He blinked as he wobbled on his too-fit legs and tried to register the world around him again. He was close. Aziraphale's shop was only a few blocks away now. But he still desperately needed something to...
He blinked again at the stand in front of him. The fruit stand. Then he grinned more wildly than Gabriel's face ever had. Maybe Crowley was being cliché, but it would do the job. He quickly scooped up as many apples as he could and continued running, ignoring the outraged yells behind him.
With his brain freed up from that particular problem, Crowley seemed to have spare energy to throw into the rest of his sprint. He didn't slow down in the slightest as he approached the bookstore and, as these weren't his shoulders anyway, he crashed through the front door. Then he huffed for two breaths and looked around. No one in the store proper. Fine. Backroom.
He crashed through another door and finally, finally, there was Aziraphale. He looked extremely alarmed, which was hardly surprising, but Crowley would have to get back to that. He quickly spotted the shock of red hair he would know anywhere. There was Gabriel, in Crowley's body, sitting down in Aziraphale's backroom like he was a friend, like he was welcome here!
Crowley didn't hesitate. He immediately began chucking apples at his own stupid face. “He! Is not! Yours! Anymore! Wanker!”
The apples mostly hit their target, with one smashing Gabriel square on the nose. That was satisfying, even if Crowley couldn't help wincing when blood started to run out one nostril. Crowley had generally spent millennia trying to not mar his body's face. It was was unsettling to hurt it on purpose.
In that moment of hesitation, Aziraphale pulled himself together and grappled Crowley from behind, pinning Gabriel's stupidly over-muscled arms to his sides. Crowley immediately panicked. “Wait! Angel, stop! You don't understand! It's me! He switched us and—”
“Shut up, Crowley! I know!”
Crowley froze as he tried to process that. It also gave him a chance to notice a few things he hadn't taken in before:
Gabriel-in-Crowley's-body was not simply sitting in the backroom, he was in fact tied to his chair.
He was also surrounded by a binding circle.
Gabriel, even with his Crowley-face, was making a very Gabriel-like expression of huffy indignation. (It made Crowley feel a bit sick to see it.)
Making a careful effort not to struggle, Crowley slowly turned his head toward Aziraphale. Aziraphale had circled him enough that they could make eye-contact and, from the rather intense look Aziraphale was giving him, Crowley felt like there was some significant, silent message he really should be getting right now.
Unfortunately, his brain wasn't really up for solving riddles. (Maybe because it was Gabriel's brain with Crowley's mind? That was worth pondering at some point.) So instead he just gaped for a moment before spluttering, “What do you mean, you know? I just ran half-way across London to warn you this prick was impersonating me! How the Hell did you...”
He shut up when Aziraphale's Significant Look transformed into a regular old exasperated glare. It also helped that Aziraphale had just given him a sharp pinch on the arm.
“My dear,” Aziraphale said with deliberate calm, “I know having your body stolen must have been quite the shock, but if you'd taken just a moment to use your occult senses, you'd see that the difference is obvious.”
Curious, Crowley tried to reach out with said occult senses, but Aziraphale pinched him again.
“At the moment, Gabriel's powers are inhibited by the binding circle I've placed him in. But Crowley, I know you can easily sense his angelic essence leaking from your body. No angel or demon could ever be fooled by a mere difference in corporation.”
Ah. Crowley understood now. He, in fact, couldn't sense Gabriel's angelic presence at the moment. Angels and demons had the easy ability to cloak themselves when it suited them. But....it wouldn't exactly be a good idea to have Gabriel thinking about the possibilities of demon-angel body swapping any more than he already had. In fact, Crowley and Aziraphale's lives kind of depended on it.
Right. Time to act smooth. Crowley relaxed and gave Aziraphale a smirk. “Ah, you're right. I see it now. Really, I feel silly for hurrying over.” He waved. “Hi there, Gabey.”
“Hello, foul creature of the pits,” Gabriel replied with cold fury and notably more dignity than Crowley would have expected.
Crowley chuckled. “Well, I'm not sure what you were hoping to accomplish with this little charade, but I'm impressed you were willing to sully yourself in the body of a demon for it. Seriously though, it doesn't even look like there was a fight here. How stupid were you to wind up in a binding circle?”
A worrying thought occurred to him and he glanced again at the details of the circle. It looked like Aziraphale had interwoven sigils for both demons and angels. It was pretty impressive actually. And smart. They also didn't want Gabriel to know if he was trapped by virtue of his body or his essence.
It looked like Gabriel was too busy snarling to consider it either way. “I admit, I had not realized this traitorous angel,” he glared at Aziraphale, “had learned so much already from your deceitful and seductive demonic teachings. I'd hoped that he might still be brought back to the light once he saw how truly evil you really are! I—”
But Crowley had already whirled back around to Aziraphale, wide-eyed and mouthing the word, “SEDUCTIVE?!”
Aziraphale hastily cleared his throat and said. “It seems that Gabriel intended to make a show of being wicked while in your form in front of me. Seems to miss the point a bit if the 'evil' doesn't actually come from you, but no matter. I saw through him right away and was able to lure him into the circle I already had ready to activate. I had a feeling we would have visitors at some point, you see.”
It was an obvious diversion, but Crowley went with it. No reason to have a domestic in front of the archangel fucking Gabriel. “....Right. Sure. Good call. Anyway I guess now we need to decide what to do with him.”
“I'm not afraid of your worst tortures!” Gabriel yelled. “And you know that Heaven will come for me soon!”
Crowley quirked an eyebrow and began to swagger around the circle. It was tricky in a body this solid. “They'll come for you eventually. It still gives me plenty of time to cause trouble with your face.”
For the first time since the switch had happened, Crowley had a calm moment to consider the possibilities. It made his eyes widen with wicked glee. The pranks he could pull in Heaven! The memos he could write! The....wait, the orders he could give...
Aziraphale was shaking his head frantically now and Gabriel was jerking around to try and keep Crowley in his line of sight. “Just try it, demon! God will not stand for you sullying our halls! Every angel in Heaven will immediately know what you are! Obviously if someone as pathetic as Aziraphale can sense an angel and demon in switched forms, it would be even easier for anyone else!”
At the word “pathetic” Crowley was tempted to just punch the git, regardless of his current handsome face. Instead he suppressed a groan. Tragically, Gabriel had just made it clear why Aziraphale was suddenly looking so worried. Crowley couldn't go act like he was in charge in Heaven. Not without ruining their previous lies. Damn.
Luckily, Crowley was great at improvising. “Never said I was going to Heaven, Gabe. I'm just going to ruin you in front of all of humanity!”
“What?!” Aziraphale and Gabriel cried at once.
“Aziraphale, give me that smartphone I gave you last month.” He stood in front of Gabriel again and grinned as devilishly as he could. “I'm going to put you all over the internet! You'll be the first result on every Google search! Your Instagram will be humiliating! I'll make you say the most disgusting things I can think of and make sure they're on the home page of YouTube! Gabriel...” Crowley bent down to stare the archangel dead in the eye. “You're going to be a meme.”
For a moment Gabriel looked torn between being horrified and just being confused, probably because he had no idea what the internet was. Thankfully Aziraphale knew when to play along and tipped the scales with, “Crowley, no! You couldn't! It would...um...It would be too much!”
Crowley grinned and cackled, getting into the drama a bit. “This fool decided to steal my body, Aziraphale! He must be punished!” He strode to Aziraphale's desk and found the phone there. (Unsurprisingly already covered in a fine layer of dust with how little Aziraphale used the thing.) He took a quick selfie with the most ridiculous face he could manage and texted it to himself. However, this resolved, Crowley wanted at least one archangel-humiliating souvenir.
“You monster!” Gabriel bellowed. “You won't get away with this!”
“Huh. You know, it is really weird to see my face look that self-righteous.” Crowley paused. He was starting to worry again. Sure, he could easily keep goading Gabriel, but he did want to get his body back. And preferably not do anything extreme enough to make Heaven feel justified in making a full-on attack.
Bugger. They had a fine needle to thread if they wanted to still be intimidating enough to be left alone, but not outright dangerous. Definitely didn't want anyone to try calling any bluffs. Crowley glanced to Aziraphale, doing his best to convey Alright, now it's your turn to come up with something!
Aziraphale huffed in exasperation, but none-the-less squared his shoulders. “Listen. Gabriel. There isn't much I can do to restrain my, er, associate. You've clearly violated our request to be left alone. But I think, if you move quickly, you might be able to limit the amount of damage he can cause.”
He made a show of moving his foot to one very specific symbol on the binding circle. “If I erase this one part, you'll be able to leave the binding in essence, but not in body. I suggest that you should then immediately leave Crowley's body and return to Heaven. In return, we will leave your body out behind the bookshop for you to collect. However, the longer you take...”
Aziraphale gestured to Crowley, who immediately took the hint and started recording a video. “Hi, world! I'm Gabriel and here's a top ten list of the gross matter I like to put in my face! Be sure to like and subscribe!”
The look of disgust and horror on Gabriel's face was one of the most beautiful things Crowley had ever seen. The archangel snapped his head toward Aziraphale. “I agree! Do it!”
The instant Aziraphale's foot erased the sigil, Crowley saw his body slump forward, only held up by the ropes keeping it in place. He waited an extra moment to make sure his beautiful, lanky form was empty, then ran over to help depower the rest of the circle.
“Thank Someone! I did not want to stay stuck in this pretentious arse's body!”
“Yes,” Aziraphale agreed. “It certainly would have been very unsettling to have you around with that face. We'll need to find a way to make sure it won't happen again.”
Once the circle and ropes were gone, Crowley took his body's hands and pushed his spirit inside. It was such a relief, like settling into a comfy bed after a long day. That is, until he felt the pain in his poor, abused nose.
“Fuck!” Probably the best word he could say to affirm he was back in the right body, but still it hurt. “Starting to wish I hadn't thrown those apples so well!”
Aziraphale tutted and quickly healed Crowley's nose. “Why were you throwing apples in the first place?”
“So you'd know who I was!”
Somehow that didn't make Aziraphale look any less confused. “My dear, are you under the impression that you're the only person to ever throw fruit?”
Crowley spluttered. “Nrgh! It's the whole apple, temptation, Eden thing! I needed a quick way to convince you that I was the real Crowley!”
“And you thought merely having some apples would do the trick? My, Crowley, I never realized how many times you've been watching me in disguise when I go to the grocer's.”
“Shut it! I didn't have much time to plan, alright? Besides, you're the one who never wanted us to have codes for this sort of thing!”
“You wanted us to have codes in case of evil twins!”
Crowley rolled his eyes and bent to help lift the dead weight of Gabriel's body to drag it to the back door. The stupid, useless git was obnoxiously heavy. Crowley wondered if he should have waited until he'd walked this body outside before getting back in his own.
“How did you get this idiot in a binding circle, anyway?” he asked while he and Aziraphale slowly huffed under each of Gabriel's arms. “Or for that matter...Wait a minute! What was that about you being seductive?!”
He stared at Aziraphale accusingly. He couldn't be sure with the way Aziraphale was already exerting himself, but it looked like he was suddenly blushing.
“It...It was nothing. I just...Well, it was obvious something was off from the moment 'you' entered the shop. Gabriel is a horrendous actor and he clearly had no idea how you move or speak. But I needed him to think I believed his act long enough for me to get him inside the circle and seal it.”
“And just how did you convince him that you definitely thought he was me?”
The back door politely opened up for them. Without conferring, they both tossed Gabriel's body forward and let it land next to the rubbish bins. Crowley hoped it would be sore and stinking when Gabriel collected it.
Back inside, Aziraphale closed the door and started activating a number of wards. Even the fiddly ones he always complained about. Crowley crossed his arms and stared him down. “Well?”
Aziraphale pretended he hadn't heard while he spent a full minute double-checking each ward. Crowley refused to so much as blink. Finally Aziraphale sighed and faced him.
“It really isn't anything to make a fuss over,” Aziraphale insisted. “While he and I were talking he said something that...could be interpreted as flirtatious. I took a chance and played into it. I convinced him to follow me to the backroom and, um, persuaded him to sit in the chair where I had hidden the binding circle. Then it just took an instant to miracle up some ropes and activate the binding. It was all very straight-forward.”
Under different circumstances, Crowley might have been impressed at Aziraphale's cunning and deceit. At the moment though, he felt more nauseous than anything. “You were flirting with Gabriel? You did a sexy flirt to seduce Gabriel?”
“You are deliberately ignoring the larger context!” Now Aziraphale was undoubtedly blushing.
“Wait.” Crowley paled as an even worse thought occurred to him. “You didn't kiss him as part of it, did you?”
There was a long, painful silence as Aziraphale opened and closed his mouth a few times, only managing to get out a pitiable squeak before he gave up.
Crowley threw up his arms. “Unbelievable!”
“It's not that bad! I saved our lives!”
“Yes, great! I'm thrilled to be alive and able to think about this for the rest of eternity!” Crowley paced away, then spun around and paced right back, counting on his fingers the many ways he'd been wronged.
“First I got the fright of my existence thinking that Gabriel was going to hurt you or kill you or something and let you think I was the one who'd done it. Then I got to walk a tightrope trying to figure out how to get my body back without bringing down the wrath of Heaven. And now I find out that Heaven's going to have every reason to think we're shagging on the regular and you even went so far as to kiss my body while I wasn't even in it!”
Crowley scowled the scowliest scowl he could manage. Aziraphale was staring back at him looking a lot less ashamed than Crowley wanted and a lot more...astonished? What? Crowley ran through what he'd just said. Anger, fear, indignity....ah. Fuck.
“I mean...Nevermind! Good job, you saved our skins,” Crowley looked around desperately. “I need to go, though. I have things to, ah, torment. You know how it is.” He ran for the door.
“Crowley, would you like for me to kiss you? Properly?”
And now it was Crowley's turn to let out an embarrassing squeak. In a blink Aziraphale was next to him, one hand on his shoulder. Insufferably tender. “Because, if that were something you wanted, I'd quite like to as well.”
As Crowley was a very cool demon who never panicked, he took this confession well. He didn't wheeze in disbelief or nearly fall over. Instead he definitely said something suave before dipping the angel back dramatically for a passionate proper kiss accompanied by the swell of an orchestra playing their most powerful romantic music.
It was not a matter of a jerky little nod and a quiet “...'kay” that got Aziraphale to lean in and give him a soft, chaste peck on the lips.
In any case, the details didn't really matter. However they got started, a number of very pleasant things came after.
It probably didn't actually take Gabriel a full week to come and collect his body, but Crowley and Aziraphale stayed inside that long. Just to be safe, of course.
And when Crowley finally stepped out again, he smiled as he checked his phone. He never would have thought he'd have so many reasons to be happy to have a photo of the Archangel Fucking Gabriel as his lockscreen.