go_exchange | Happy Holidays, Kanna! (Reply)

Title: The Scare-Crow in Wisdom’s Garden
Rating: M
Recipient: @kanna_ophelia
Pairing: Aziraphale/Crowley
Summary: The reshuffling and restoring of reality after the Apocalypse That Wasn’t gives Aziraphale some bonus books - and a revelation about Priorities.
Warnings: none
Tags: Rare Books, First Kiss, First Time, Idiots in Love Wise Up,

Three Days After the End of the World (Averted)

Aziraphale inhaled deeply once again the fresh, calming, invigorating scent of three hundred years' worth of book dust. He resolved to never take the term "miracle" quite so lightly again. Adam's recreation was nearly perfect - as far as he could tell, nothing was missing and there were several new additions to his editions. The old, the ancient, and the forbidden and rare still had their memories, unfurling to his touch.

"Are you thinking about outwitting Ashmole again, angel? I've never seen someone go so mad for old papers from Liz One's day except the Shakespeare nerds, and you already had the Folios."

"There was incriminating information in those papers, Crowley. About us, as you are well aware. Dr. Dee knew entirely too much."

"But you let the occultniks have the Enochian grocery lists."

"I'm not a hoarder, Crowley." Crowley's eyebrow raised well above the frames of his sunglasses said everything that Crowley really no longer needed to say. "Oh hush," Aziraphale said fondly, because he had clearly heard what Crowley meant.

"That was a most enjoyable little heist," Crowley finally said by way of mollification. "You get very....focused on your goals. And, dare I say it, kind of charmingly amoral. But all's fair in love and dusty old parchment. Wouldn't do to have someone like that knowing about the Arrangement after all. Splendid way to get yourself denounced."

"Well, I had to have your help," Aziraphale said. "Burglary is far more your side's purview, isn't it my dear?"

"That depends entirely on who is being burgled and why. You know as well as I do that commandments are really more like guidelines."

"Of course but I'd prefer that it be for our eyes only and not a matter of public record."

For immortal beings, time has a different value than it does for moth-life mortals. The Glorious Revolution, the separation of King Charles's head from his body, the time that Aziraphale and Crowley absconded with incriminating gossip about themselves - these were centuries in the past. But occult and ethereal memories are long, interwoven, and overlapping. Sometimes when Aziraphale thought he caught the upsetting scent of burning paper in his shop, it was not from the recent fire started by Shadwell, but of a terrible night long ago when all of Old London fell to the flames.

*** Four Days After the End of the World (Averted)

It was wedged in between several original mint prints of the Famous Five books and The Water-Babies when Aziraphale found it. It was too good to be true and he hesitated to touch it again after his first tentative poke lest it dissolve into vapor. But when he looked again, there it was. Trying not to breathe too hard, he withdrew the volume carefully from its hiding place.

It was indeed what he could not bring himself to believe. Orbis Sensualium Pictus, by Johann Amos Comenius. First published, 1658. And this copy was pristine. His heart was pounding with force that would send a human to hospital, and his hands trembled with desire - desire for what he scarcely dared to believe that he already had.

The Orbis Sensualism Pictus - The World of Things Obvious to the Senses, In Pictures - was widely believed to be the first picture book for children, to teach images and letters. Crude and cute illustrations showing all the things in heaven and earth.

He was in such a frenzy of delight that when Crowley burst into the bookshop, he found the angel with his collar loosened and a thin patina of sweat on his face. The double-take the demon made went virtually unnoticed, at least until Aziraphale waved him over to show off his treasure.

Carefully he turned the pages and read out the captions, in Latin and English:

"Cornix cornacatur - the crow crieth

Agnus balat - the lamb blaiteth..."

"Bullock starteth, buck he farteth, merry sing cucu," Crowley sang off-key.

Aziraphale shook his head. "Don't be such a Philistine, my dear."

"That's not what that really means and you know it. You were there. Also I know you remember that song."

"How do you manage to be such a snickering schoolboy when you were never a schoolboy at all?"

"Natural talent."

Aziraphale gave him a long gaze before turning his attention back to the book.

"Infans ejulat - the Infant crieth

Ventus flat - the Wind bloweth."

Crowley tried and failed to suppress a hissy snort.

"Anser gingrit - the Goose gagleth."

"The goose does what now?"

"Crowley, it's a children's book."

"Produced a couple hundred years’ worth of very weird kids, I say. Before it fell out of favour. Why is it so rare, though?"

"Because children loved it and read it over and over, Crowley. Most of the copies fell apart."

"May I?"

Aziraphale's heart fluttered, but he let Crowley take the book. And for all his wisecracking, Crowley handled the book with a sort of respectful tenderness that made something warm erupt and bloom in Aziraphale's chest like a bead of blood in water. "A Flea appeareth in the magnifying glass like a little hog," Crowley read softly. "Oh, he does have a way with words. Here's one for you, angel: 'The Bookseller selleth Books in a Bookseller's Shop.' Oh does he now?" Crowley flipped through the leaves carefully. "Ah, here we go. The Heavenly Spheres. Astrology and whatnot. And of course, we have to get to moral lessons eventually. Pity, I was enjoying it before."

Aziraphale rose from his seat and moved around behind Crowley, to peer over his shoulder, nearly cheek to cheek. "Bridle in, the wild Horse of Affection, lest thou fall down headlong."

Aziraphale could see Crowley's eyes behind the dark glasses, sliding towards him. It was trite advice, wasn't it? Stuffy and fusty. And it occurred to Aziraphale that he had been following it for far too long.

Crowley read on: "Prudence looketh upon all things as a Serpent, and doeth, speaketh, or thinketh nothing in vain."

"And is that how a Serpent thinks, my dear?"

"Could have sworn I've thinkethed a few things in vain. Over the years. Once or twice. Bound to happen, I suppose."

Once or twice. Could he mean what Aziraphale hoped he meant, or was the wishful thinking just all a bit too much? But even the stiffest of angels had to wonder, once in a while, where the wild Horse of Affection might run if one let it go free.

He did naturally read faster than Crowley - at an ethereal angelic speed of course - and knew what was coming as the demon continued in a more conversational manner. "She watcheth Opportunity (which having a bushy fore-head and being bald-pated, and moreover having wings, doth quickly slip away,) and catcheth it."

"Both having a bushy fore-head and being bald-pated? That's hard to visualize, isn't it?"

"Well, good job there's a picture then," said Crowley, pointing at a rough sketch of something vaguely angel-like.

"That is...well." Deep breath, old boy. Try not to notice so much that Crowley's hands are trembling too. "And what will the Prudent Serpent do then?"

"Something...prudent, I suppose," Crowley said, forked tongue flickering across his dry lips. "After all, Opportunity, even if it has a silly hair-style...can just fly away anytime."

"Has done before, I think."

"Yes," Crowley said. "Not this time."

And he struck like a slightly twitterpated, nerve-drunk snake. After all, Aziraphale's mouth was right, right there, inviting and hopeful, and they'd spent too long, too long entirely not taking the opportunity, and they had come so close to losing them all.

Aziraphale had seen films, after all. He knew how you were supposed to melt into a kiss when it happened. How one ought to preen oneself like a cat at the silky whisper of fingers in his hair - how to cup a sharp jaw in one's hand, turn one's partner's face upwards and to and fro as the kiss deepens and tongues begin a slow flirting dance, how to come up for air and then plunge down again like big-brained dolphins that thankfully aren't boiling, no, the water is lovely: warm and getting warmer. But not too warm, no, everything is sweet immersion and nothing hurts.

"Too long," he couldn't help but burst out, gasping. Crowley hadn't taken his glasses off and the frames bumped Aziraphale's eyes, on the verge of tears. He removed them and set them gently on the desk beside the book, and saw Crowley's yellow eyes spread wide open, happy and hungry.

"Takes a long time to grow in us," Crowley said, for once in all seriousness. "I think we didn't know we were supposed to be able to feel these things, did we?"

"Crowley my dear," Aziraphale said, his voice slightly cracking. "No matter what I might have said...in my heart I never doubted for a second...that you can feel..."

"Love? You can say the word, it's alright. Now it's alright. Maybe it wasn't, before."

"But love...there's so much in it. I'm an angel, I'm supposed to love...everything. In a sort of abstract way of course. This...is so sharp. So specific."

"Specific to?"

"You, my love," he said, speaking those words for the first time, to Crowley, in that specific way. They felt strange on his lips at first, and then fine, and good, and right and correct, and Crowley kissed him again as if to drink the words from his mouth. As if they were the finest wine and he had gone sober for a hundred years.

This time the bloom igniting in the body burst higher and hotter, and Crowley bent his spine in a way he should have not been able to, to find more contact with Aziraphale everywhere, in their awkward position. Now Aziraphale understood the impulse: the grasping, the soft low sounds, the endless, endless unbuttoning.

"Shop closed?"

"Always."

"Couch safe?"

"As safe as it gets."

Crowley exerted his Will, and they were both upon the couch, negotiating with a newfound enthusiasm the organization of body parts into hands, the entangling of legs, the pulling of hips to hips, the brief sensation of pain when someone's wing popped out, uncontrolled, and brought a heavy stack of out-of-date encyclopaedias down upon them.

And what they did on that couch was base and animalistic and fierce, and it was also sublime and rather far beyond words like "divine" which tend to imply a certain place on the spectrum of love and desire that Aziraphale and Crowley had become too free to fit into. For the act of physical love-making had become another way to play out their Arrangement, which had always been exactly Love hidden beneath a veil of convenience.

So love,
and so shalt thou be loved;
and there will be
a mutual Friendship, 5.
as that of Turtle-doves, 6.
hearty, gentle,
and wishing well on both parts.

~end

Note: The Orbis is a real book, and I took the title from it as well. You can read and download it free at Project Gutenberg here.