![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
goe_mod) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
go_exchange2023-12-17 08:05 pm
Happy Holidays, Kanna!
Recipient: Kanna
Rating: G
Pairing and Characters: Aziraphale/Crowley, brief quasi-appearance by Adam
Summary: With the Apocalypse averted, the Arrangement is obsolete. After a moment’s panic that their friendship might be as well, Aziraphale and Crowley realise they’re in love with each other. Now if only they knew what to do about it...
Warnings: None
Word Count: 4,490
Author’s Note: Thanks to MelodyzofzRain for the beta.
The trouble with going back to normal after you’ve saved the world, or, to be nicer and more accurate, stood together alternately terrified and bewildered whilst unknowing allies rescued you from your own incompetence, was that you couldn’t. Normal, such as it was, had been taken off the table. The table itself had been upturned, bicycle-kicked through a hapless windowpane into a waiting wood chipper and reduced unceremoniously to playground filling, then reassembled in more or less the same shape, but now painted apple-red, because the power puppeteering the strings of fate knew better than to mess around too much but still took the opportunity to wink at you, when it could do so harmlessly.
As the first day of the rest of their lives faded into the first night, euphoric hours passing in an idle haze, Crowley and Aziraphale ordered a final bottle of champagne. Their hands brushed lightly as they clinked their glasses, under the disapproving eye of an old-fashioned maître d’ and the wistful one of a pianist whose fingers stumbled over the intrusive thought that if only he could be so brave, etc. None of the patrons noticed, because the only one who knew the piece well enough to have done so had been busy basking, through uncounted glasses, in the glow of Crowley’s carefree smile. Devil-may-care was one thing, carefree was another, and Aziraphale drank in the revelation. Had Crowley himself known the piece, which he might have done if not for the vagaries of cassettes left in cars, he would have missed the error too, equally lost in Aziraphale’s contented gaze.
The significance of this flew over the heads of both, as it had done without fail for six thousand years and counting, but the wind beneath its wings, a steady gust from the first nice days of creation right up until three minutes to eight on Sunday evening, died down abruptly as Crowley parked the resurrected Bentley in front of the resurrected bookshop, and the fact of the counting sank in at last.
‘See you—’ Crowley began, and stopped. The fact was, they didn’t need to see each other again. He hadn’t always known when he would see Aziraphale next—perhaps the following week, or perhaps not for decades at a stretch—but that he would see him was a rock-solid certainty, an anchor through such treacherous seas as inconvenient discorporation, infernal bureaucracy and the fourteenth century.
But now, that anchor had gone. The future had arrived, guaranteeing the safety of everything he’d wanted to save, except for what was, based on the giant pit opening in his stomach, the most important by far. No more messing about, no more need for no-score wins. The Arrangement was Then; this was Now.
Much the same horror was simultaneously dawning on Aziraphale, or, to switch metaphors, drenching him in a Biblical downpour of fast-decaying fish. The realisation that this most pleasant possible iteration of the future did not, by definition, continue the previous six thousand years’ inexorable pattern of washing him and Crowley up on the shores of one another’s lives made him wonder, madly, if he owed Elgar an apology.
‘See you when I see you,’ Crowley finished, and he and Aziraphale stared into their respective laps, crashing harder than a ne’er-do-well scion of obscene wealth who has just discovered that someone is expecting him to work for a living, and that that someone has the power to enforce that expectation.
‘Right. Yes,’ said Aziraphale. He ought to just invite Crowley inside, as he’d done so many times over the centuries. Offer a bottle of wine—well, another bottle of wine, and then another and another—and then, when he could be sure that the demon was once again three sheets to the wind, clear up the little matter of their association continuing in perpetuity, which they obviously both wanted, because they must do. Any other possibility scarcely bore thinking about.
But Crowley’s non-committal tone had done worryingly little to underscore that point, and so, his nerves already fraying in a way that he’d rather hoped the preservation of the world would preclude, Aziraphale sat in the passenger seat, dithering. ‘Er—’ he began, just as Crowley, his face as hot as if he had once again been driving a blazing fireball, muttered, ‘Unless—’
They both paused, looking at each other. ‘Would you like to come in?’ Aziraphale asked, when Crowley didn’t speak, just as Crowley managed, ‘You’d like to invite me in?’ in answer to Aziraphale’s silence. The urgency with which the question had rushed forth from his lips undermined his attempt at a devil-may-care slouch. Even R.P. Tyler could only have taken a page and a half’s worth of exception to it.
‘Sure,’ said Crowley, just as Aziraphale said, ‘Of course,’ and both of them hastily busied themselves with unbuckling safety belts that hadn’t been general issue in 1926, only existed on the passenger side when Aziraphale occupied it, and had never existed on the driver’s side until now. Crowley stepped out of the car and aimed his customary glare at the no parking lines, willing them out of existence. They resisted him at first, because his racing heart was making it difficult to muster up proper malevolence.
Then he heard a clink in the vicinity of his shoe. Aziraphale had dropped his keys on the pavement. Crowley knelt down just as the angel did, and when their hands brushed this time, the penny did not so much drop as smash into Earth like a meteor.
This is how Crowley and Aziraphale looked at that moment: if the sky had reflected the colour of their faces, sailors and shepherds alike might have gathered for an all-night jamboree.
Crowley pressed Aziraphale’s keys into his hand, then jerked his own hand away as though it might explode, and stood up. He looked down at Aziraphale, carefully placing the keys into his breast pocket, and he reflexively extended his hand back out to him before his brain could object. Aziraphale took it, sending both of their heartbeats into a rapid-fire staccato, stood up, and let go either five seconds too late or an eternity too early.
Aziraphale opened the door, nearly dropping the key a second time. ‘After you,’ he said, as he had always done, but in a newly nervous tone.
Crowley nodded. ‘Right. Thanks.’ He stepped into the bookshop and headed straight for the back room, hyper-aware of Aziraphale at his heels. Then the angel disappeared to fetch a bottle, and in the relief and agony of his absence, Crowley replayed the sequence of events in his mind, sinking heavily onto the sofa.
- 1. Armageddon was off the table, or at least indefinitely delayed for what Crowley hoped would be a comfortably long while.
2. He and Aziraphale had spent the first day of this indefinitely continued Earth together, as had seemed only natural, and it had been the happiest day of his life, right up until he had thought to wonder whether it was, indeed, still only natural in a world where neither of them had a job to do and with it a reason to be in the other’s orbit. Then it had threatened to become the unhappiest.
3. Aziraphale had seemed equally anxious at this prospect, which meant he probably had nothing to worry about, except that he obviously had everything to worry about, because he was nervous. He had never been nervous around Aziraphale, not even before the Arrangement, when they’d been…not actual enemies, not really, but legitimate if cordial obstacles in one another’s way.
4. With no logical reason for his nerves, he just needed to drink more wine, until he’d calmed down some. Aziraphale was probably going through the same thing, if he was being this picky about his selection when they could both miracle any bottom-shelf vinegar into a legendary vintage. They’d just had a shock, that was all.
5. Except these nerves felt painfully distinct from garden-variety ‘just had a shock’ nerves. This wasn’t how he’d felt after getting a look at the Spanish Inquisition. This was more on the lines of wanting to be as close to Aziraphale as possible but also not wanting to scare him off, coupled with his face roasting and his stomach tying itself up in knots. There wasn’t a word for it, unless there was, and it was the one Aziraphale had been struggling to define to him in Tadfield.
All of which redoubled his need for another drink, and luckily Aziraphale chose that moment to reappear, armed with their umpteenth bottle of the evening. Crowley’s eyes popped at the label.
‘Nineteen twenty-one?’ he said. ‘I remember you saying—er, you mentioned that you were saving that. One of the best years, or something.’ He winced at how he’d sounded, wishing his skin would rediscover room temperature.
‘Well, you know,’ said Aziraphale, speaking uncharacteristically fast, ‘the ultimate reprieve, not so much a special occasion as the special occasion. And you and I both here, safe and sound…’ He trailed off, his face crimson, waved a hand to un-cork the priceless bottle, and poured out two glasses. ‘Well, Adam did say we needn’t worry.’
He also said he knew all about us, thought Crowley, and then his stomach did a somersault. What if Adam had changed them, too?
‘Right,’ he said, when he realised Aziraphale was expecting a verbalised answer. ‘Yeah. Fair enough.’ Aziraphale offered him a glass with a trembling hand, and Crowley took it, his pulse rocketing as their fingers grazed each other’s. ‘Thanks.’
‘To the Earth,’ said Aziraphale, not for the first time that day, but then he added, ‘and to enjoying it. I was thinking, er, would you like to meet for lunch tomorrow? And afterwards, perhaps a concert or a show? Get a proper start on enjoying it, as it were?’
‘Love to,’ said Crowley without thinking, and then he heard what he’d said. ‘I mean, er—’
‘Excellent,’ Aziraphale interrupted. ‘That’s settled, then. Shall we return to the Ritz, or is there somewhere else you’d prefer?’
‘Whatever you like,’ said Crowley absently, his mind reeling. Aziraphale was talking, thinking out loud, and he stared at him and heard none of it. He sipped his wine and tried to savour it, but the word ‘love’ echoed in his mind on a loop. Love to. Love. He was in love with Aziraphale. He needed to either stay where he was forever or get the Heaven out of there.
He drank deeply, finishing up his glass, and waited in vain for Aziraphale to pause for a breath he didn’t need. Instead, he only talked faster. ‘Of course, sushi is always a treat, but I’ve found that the best spots tend to be closed on Mondays. I suppose we could always—’
‘Let’s stick with the Ritz,’ said Crowley, setting aside his empty glass. ‘I’ll pick you up at…let’s say noon? We can save sushi for Tuesday,’ he added hopefully, his heart pounding like a bass drum.
‘Very well,’ said Aziraphale, beaming madly at him. ‘I mean, yes, an excellent idea. Jolly good. I’ll see you at noon, then, shall I?’
‘Yes,’ said Crowley. ‘I suppose I’d, er, better get some sleep. See you tomorrow.’
‘Ah,’ said Aziraphale. His expression took on a twinge of disappointment. ‘Sleep. Yes. I can’t say I see the appeal, but if you enjoy it—’
‘I may yet tempt you into it,’ said Crowley, again without thinking. His face burned as he heard it, and positively scorched at Aziraphale’s widening eyes. ‘I mean, er, don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it. See you tomorrow,’ he said quickly, and hurried out the door. Sleep now felt impossible, even more so than in the lead-up to the end of the world.
Aziraphale closed and locked the shop door, likewise reeling from the revelation that he was, in fact, very much in love with Crowley, to the point where the idea of sleep alongside him had indeed sounded tempting, if that had been what he’d meant by that strange remark, and Aziraphale dearly hoped it was. He paced about the room, the 1921 Chateau Lafite forgotten.
He and Crowley would, at least, see each other twice more, and with any luck, many times after that. Their friendship would survive and thrive, and that should have been a comfort, after his terror outside the shop. But it was cold comfort on his scalding face, because now he knew that the devastation he had felt at the thought of a future apart from Crowley could only be rooted in the hope of one with him, together in the way that humans meant.
He had feared, as he’d combed his cellar for the most tempting wine he could offer, that it might be, by definition, the vainest of hopes. Crowley was a demon, after all, and hadn’t even understood what he’d meant by love on their ill-fated visit to Tadfield, but he’d nonetheless shown every sign of being as disturbed at the thought of separation as Aziraphale had been. And if Aziraphale’s newfound inability to speak at a normal pace, and in sentences unsullied by involuntary and insidious ers and ahs, had nearly discorporated him with embarrassment, then—well, Crowley had let slip his own share of such ers and ahs, and his face had looked faintly flushed. Surely he’d felt the same longing, and the same shock of that longing, that Aziraphale had done. Aziraphale would just have to ease him into the idea.
Aziraphale thought about this, and he realised that he had no idea how to do so, other than by making himself as presentable as possible when Crowley arrived, but he would do that anyway. He had standards, after all. He would have to do something more, something unmistakable but, at the same time, not too much. He thought about humans, and what they were known to do when in love.
Well, humans went on dates, of course. He and Crowley had that covered, apart from the little snag of neither having explicitly defined them as such. Humans danced, which might be part and parcel of a future, properly defined date, provided Crowley could be persuaded to learn the gavotte. And humans gave each other gifts. That might do as a starting point. He thought about what sort of gift he might give Crowley, and he suddenly wished he hadn’t already offered him the precious Chateau Lafite. He could refill it, of course, but that lacked a certain sentiment.
He thought, and paced, and dithered into the wee hours. He knew that humans considered chocolates a romantic gift, but while Crowley liked finer things in general, his interest in sweets in particular had never extended beyond the ordinary. Aziraphale racked his brain.
Presently, it occurred to him that flowers were also a human romantic gift. A bouquet of a dozen roses felt so rote as to be impersonal, and like something he feared the demon might laugh at, but Crowley did like plants. A possibility, but what sort of plant?
He thought of Crowley asleep, blissfully unaware of Aziraphale’s hand-wringing. He must make the perfect picture of slothful indulgence, tempting and thrilling even when out like a light. He was lucky he was thrilling, and charming, and clever, and kinder than any angel in Heaven, which he would either deny fiercely or possibly consider to be damning with faint praise.
The actual picture Crowley made at that moment, tossing and turning and unwillingly wide awake, diverged about as wildly from Aziraphale’s mental one as it could do. When he did manage to wish himself into sleep, a voice in his dreams promptly dashed any hope that it might cut the various knots he’d tied himself up in. The voice, like its owner, was young and mischievous and, when it was in the mood, breezily and determinedly incorrigible, but it was also, in its own way, absolutely honourable. In other words, a human incarnate.
‘Don’t see why you have to drag me into this,’ it said, in a way that implied it was shaking its head at him. ‘Why would I want to mess you around like that? But if you ask me, it’s kind of like getting new glasses when you didn’t know you needed ’em. Wensley said that when he got new ones, they gave him a headache at first, ’cause he was so used to things bein’ a bit blurry he’d stopped noticing. You’ll adjust soon enough.’
Crowley turned this over in his mind, and turned himself over in his bed, unwillingly lucid. Are you sure you didn’t do anything? he thought. It can’t just happen like this, suddenly realising you’re…you’re in love with someone you’ve known since the beginning of time. We ought to have had some idea—
‘Who’s sayin’ you didn’t?’ the voice asked, reasonably, or what passed for reasonably when its owner was involved, or in this case, was denying involvement. ‘It’s like I said. I know all about you two. Now you do, too, ’cause there’s nothin’ in your way anymore.’
There was a sensation that felt like a wink, and then a cheerful wave. Crowley blinked and sat up. Adam’s voice had departed his head, and his feelings for Aziraphale rushed to fill the void.
Right, then. The Antichrist’s hands were clean, and he was in love with Aziraphale, which meant he had to figure out a way to tell him. Make a gesture. Do what humans did, whatever that was. They went on dates, he knew, something he and Aziraphale had apparently been doing for centuries, and would do again tomorrow, which was officially today, and the day after, which was officially tomorrow, with no problems at all except for a mutual ignorance strong enough to endure for six millennia. He would need a more robust plan.
An hour or so later, after enough tossing and turning to make his stomach turn in turn, Crowley remembered that another thing humans did was to give each other gifts, which ought to be easy enough. Books, classical music, fine wine, silver snuffboxes…the possibilities were endless. The trouble was that Aziraphale, a self-styled connoisseur, typically already had the best of all the things that he coveted most. It was maddening, and Crowley hoped it would continue to be maddening for, well, ever.
But perhaps it wasn’t the ‘best’ part that mattered. Crowley was never going to find a rare first edition of any classic book of poetry, but perhaps he could find a book that contained even just one poem that got across the idea of ‘it seems the future is here after all and I’d like to spend it with you, every minute, forever’, and bookmark the page. It seemed like the sort of thing a human might do, so much so that he wondered vaguely if he’d seen it in a film. Now if only he had any idea what book that might be, and anyone to ask other than Aziraphale.
Noon on Monday arrived, and Crowley and Aziraphale, each bearing a painstakingly selected burden, immediately realised they had overdone things.
‘A plant, angel?’ said Crowley, vainly attempting to conceal a box wrapped with the pointed precision of a shopkeeper whose patience had been tried for forty-nine minutes by a demon who had never managed to be half as trying when he was actually trying, at least in person. ‘Didn’t know you went in for them.’
‘Ah,’ said Aziraphale, feeling as though a bonfire had been lit upon his face, ‘it’s, ah, it’s for you. I just thought, well, I knew you liked plants, so I paid a visit to Mr Townsend’s shop up the road, and he recommended this one. Do you, er, do you know what it is?’
‘Not as such,’ Crowley admitted. ‘Mine mostly aren’t the flowering kind. It’s very pretty, though.’ Layers upon layers of bright red petals crowded the discs of its flowers, giving them an almost star-like appearance. He would never be able to chasten or threaten this plant. He didn’t want to. ‘What is it, then?’
‘It’s an aster,’ said Aziraphale, his nerves all over the place. It had been a terrible idea, clearly; he should have just refilled the wine. ‘It, er. It symbolises many things, depending on its colour, but the red ones, er, they mean love. And, ah, not just any love. It doesn’t bloom until August at the earliest, you see; it requires patience and devotion. So you give it to, ah, a lifelong love.’
Aziraphale wrenched his eyes from the floor. He hardly dared to look at Crowley, but when he did, the expression on the demon’s face was unfamiliar. He looked stunned, and moved, and Aziraphale found the courage to continue. ‘Well, that’s what Mr Townsend said. He was rather wistful, the poor chap, said something about how it had been on his mind a great deal already, but the point is, Crowley, the point is that I love you.’
‘Well,’ said Crowley, his heart racing, ‘I’ve, ah, I’ve got some good news, then.’ He held the box out to Aziraphale, not an easy move while lovingly cradling the aster. ‘That’s for you. Um. I hope you like it.’
Despite Aziraphale’s confession, Crowley was overcome by doubt. The aster was wholly ill-suited to the purpose for which he usually kept plants, but it was beautiful and meaningful—even if he’d never have known the meaning on his own—and with every inch imbued with Aziraphale’s love, he meant to treasure it. Aziraphale had listened carefully to this Mr Townsend’s excellent advice, while he had argued with Mrs Peters’ every sensible suggestion.
Crowley should have listened to her. Aziraphale had old-fashioned taste; that was Aziraphale 101. He would have eaten up any of the standards she’d put forth, with all their florid descriptions of the beloved’s beauty and thous and thees that even he had banished from his vocabulary around 1850 or so. Crowley had dismissed all of them, even presuming to argue with the Bard, on the grounds that he’d never say that. He wanted something that said exactly what he didn’t know he meant, something that Aziraphale would recognise him in when he read it. Mrs Peters had countered that overwrought flattery was the point of love poetry, and if Crowley wanted something that sounded like him, he should go home and write his own love letter.
It had taken one of the customers queueing behind him, a woman named Frankie with forest green hair, to resolve their dispute. Crowley had read the title of the poem she’d held out to him and started to protest that it was out of season, but she’d rolled her eyes and told him to ignore that bit. He’d sighed, read the rest, and thought it was perfect. Mrs Peters had hated it, as well as, Crowley suspected, Frankie’s name and hair, and Crowley was increasingly certain Aziraphale would agree with her. Aziraphale had given him something he would never in any universe have bought for himself but already loved fiercely, and he’d done this.
‘I Wouldn’t Have Missed It: The Selected Poetry of Ogden Nash?’ said Aziraphale, unwrapping the box with the same precision with which Mrs Peters had wrapped it, but as different a feeling behind that precision as it was possible for him to have. ‘A deservedly celebrated humourist, to be sure,’ he said, slowly, because it was true, but why Crowley would have got it for him, especially when he was certain that he had a copy somewhere—
‘There’s a bookmark,’ Crowley mumbled, addressing his shoes. His face, or what Aziraphale could see of it, was as red as the aster. His heart pounding, Aziraphale turned to the bookmarked page: ‘To My Valentine’.
‘More than a catbird hates a cat, or a criminal hates a clue,’ Aziraphale read, ‘or the Axis hates the United States, that’s how much I love you. I love you more than a duck can swim…’ he broke off, reading the rest in silence. A love poem loudly pretending it wasn’t, but still making its sincerity plain: it was Crowley all over, and Crowley loved him. ‘Thank you, my dear,’ he said, softly. ‘That is…very good news indeed.’
Crowley shook his head. ‘Thank you, angel.’ He stepped forwards, holding the aster close to his heart. ‘Would you, er, would you mind if I—’ He broke off, unsure, but Aziraphale thought he knew what the end of the question was.
‘If you’re asking permission to kiss me,’ he said, ‘the way, er, the way humans do, then please, my dear, allow me to insist that you do so, and at once.’ Then he looked down at his own shoes, panicked at his boldness. ‘Er, that is, if that was what you were asking. I certainly wouldn’t want to—’
He was cut off by Crowley’s answer to his plea, as the demon closed the distance between them in one fluid, thrilling movement and brought their lips together, one hand landing suavely on the back of Aziraphale’s neck while the other awkwardly held the aster to his side. Aziraphale wrapped one arm around Crowley’s back, but found his other arm sandwiched between the book and Crowley’s chest. As for the kiss itself, it was a good job they didn’t need to breathe. All teeth at first, and then an overcorrection of tongue, but then they pulled back just enough to find the gentle groove they craved, and to see why humans found this such an enjoyable way of expressing love.
Still, Crowley’s aster-laden arm eventually asserted its exhaustion, and he reluctantly pulled away to set the plant down on a nearby table. Aziraphale carefully placed the book next to it, and then he embraced Crowley, relishing the unencumbered contact as their lips met again, this time skipping straight to the pleasant part.
With so much lost time to make up for, it was inevitable that their lunch date became a dinner date instead, and perhaps miraculous that it happened at all. But while they were eating, and ordering more and more champagne just to brush hands over it, the pianist at the Ritz resolved that, in fact, he could and would be so brave, and played the best he had ever played. And as they drove back to the bookshop, holding hands in their private saloon out of time, the pianist dialled a number, and just up the road, Mr Townsend’s phone rang. The no parking lines danced away at a wave of Aziraphale’s hand, never to return, and they kissed on the doorstep, oblivious to the reams of interesting and interested Soho night people, all of whom unknowingly shared one thought as they passed: the future was here, and it was going to be a bright one.
Great Book Omens fic
Re: Great Book Omens fic
no subject
no subject
Comicgeekery
(Anonymous) 2023-12-18 09:47 pm (UTC)(link)Re: Comicgeekery
no subject
The pianist <3 and the 'carefree' revelation!
The fast-decaying fish made me laugh. Poor Aziraphale
They gave themselves seatbelts JUST to whittle away the time, I can't XD I have to say, I started reading this on my break at work, where I was in a very bad mood, and this has cheered me up greatly, thank you :)
The sleeping Crowley transition XD Adam is PERFECT!
Aster!!! The way Aziraphale just comes out and says it! So brave :')
'He would not say that' XD
That poem! It is SO Crowley.
The end! The pianist! Mr. Townsend! Parking always allowed! The shared bright future of everyone!!
This felt like a classic book fic and I really loved it. Your style is great! Thanks for sharing!
no subject
no subject
no subject
THANK YOU
Sorry for the late reply, and excuse me while I ramble. I LOVE IT. This was just so perfectly the dynamics I love best for book boys getting together, the perfect cusp between agonising embarrassment and romance, that makes me curl my toes and blush and this is the good stuff, I love it so much. THE AWKWARDNESS. And also the love. This stuff is like catnip to me and you did it so well!
THANK YOU. Not just because it is gorgeous, but because I can tell it's catered just to me, just what I like, and I am so lucky.
Pulling out some favourite bits to highlight -
I love the little background of the pianist finding love with Mr Townsend because of these two, so lovely.
The realisation that this most pleasant possible iteration of the future did not, by definition, continue the previous six thousand years’ inexorable pattern of washing him and Crowley up on the shores of one another’s lives made him wonder, madly, if he owed Elgar an apology.
Such a beautiful Pratchettian way of expression you have. Magic.
The urgency with which the question had rushed forth from his lips undermined his attempt at a devil-may-care slouch. Even R.P. Tyler could only have taken a page and a half’s worth of exception to it.
Gosh. Astounding.
Crowley's revelation to himself... oh. Perfect. And Aziraphale wanting to ease him into the idea... I love it. The poor darlings trying to figure out courtship, both coming up with gifts.
He was lucky he was thrilling, and charming, and clever, and kinder than any angel in Heaven, which he would either deny fiercely or possibly consider to be damning with faint praise.
Have to pull this one out because I recited it to my wife, who wasn't quite sure what to do with it, in the car. The soppiness and the sly slap at smiting angels, perfect.
I love the exchange with Adam <3
The delicious awkwardness of the exchange of presents is everything I hoped for from my own gift.
it requires patience and devotion. So you give it to, ah, a lifelong love."
I discorporated.
‘Well,’ said Crowley, his heart racing, ‘I’ve, ah, I’ve got some good news, then.’
That is such a terrible response to a declaration of love, and so fantastically Crowley.
As if Crowley buying poetry and arguing about everything even when he's not trying to annoy humans. I love it and that scene has been living in my mind rent-free while I try to come up with an adequate comment.
‘Thank you, my dear,’ he said, softly. ‘That is…very good news indeed.’
Crowley shook his head. ‘Thank you, angel.’
They are useless but they get there anyway and I adore them. And the awkward kissing!
This was absolutely wonderful, mystery author. Thank you so much, <3 <3
Re: THANK YOU
Re: the pianist: the first mention of him was just scene-setting, but as soon as I typed that line I knew that I was either going to have to delete it or give him a happy ending. I'm glad his and Mr Townsend's background story worked! Aziraphale and Crowley aren't really gay men, but they certainly appear so to the world around them, and their love will influence that world for the better whether they are remotely cognizant of it or not. <3
As for the joke about R.P. Tyler's ire, I must admit I've made a similar one at least once before and likely will again. His awfulness is just too hilarious not to mine in perpetuity. :)
I'm so glad you enjoyed the deeply awkward but heartfelt gift exchange! They are so useless, but they get there and they deserve it all. <3 Thank you so much for the wonderful prompt; it was a joy to write for you!
no subject
And the ending sentence is just beautiful <3
no subject