rainjoyswriting (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rainjoyswriting) wrote2019-07-07 07:30 am
rainjoyswriting) wrote2019-07-07 07:30 am
Good Omens Fic: Auguries of Innocence
Auguries of Innocence, a Good Omens short, Crowley/Aziraphale bless them. Working on a long fic I don't want to be working on, little snippet in the meantime -_-
Disclaimer: Consider it very disclaimed, I don't own them.
Rating: Pff PG-13
Warnings and spoilers: Set post-series, light on the warnings.
Summary: We are led to Believe a Lie/When we see not Thro the Eye (Rainjoy stop it with the Blake)
Note: This was inspired by some frankly bizarre pieces of meta I've seen about some respectively terrible things the boys have done, on the matters of 1) Aziraphale manipulated Crowley into cleaning his coat for him and 2) Aziraphale tried to shoot Adam, to which I say 1) You call that that manipulation? and 2) Now *that's* what I call manipulation. Like, I'm English, so Aziraphale *asks* Crowley to clean his coat for him, that is open, over here, perhaps we are a subtle people but that does not register as deception, that's just how we communicate with each other. Grant it for contrast with the second point, which is the one where Crowley manipulates Aziraphale into killing a kid for him because he'd rather not do it himself and he's really, *really* good at it. Look, when it comes to the worst things they both do, Aziraphale really *can* be a bastard, and Crowley can be good, but the contrast between them is that when Aziraphale does terrible things it's usually a crime of omission, what he doesn't do - complicity is his worst action - and when Crowley does terrible things he knows *exactly* what he's doing. Even though Aziraphale is basically me (food-obsessed socially-anxious queer bookseller hello!) it's really Crowley I find myself identifying with more because he's a much more obviously flawed character and he's really *good* at being bad, he just doesn't *want* to be, he's been put into a position where for a long time he didn't dare to be anything else which . . . gives you a little trip into my psyche, anyway.
When Aziraphale takes his coat from its hook, his thumb lingers, just there, where he still knows it is.
That's the thing about miracling a stain away, you always do know; well, humans don't, but angels and demons can sense these things, they can feel when something is merely miracled, not natural. He's always preferred to take care of his things by non-miraculous means when he could; besides, Heaven actually reads the paperwork, and he got in too much trouble for 'frivolous' miracles as it was. He's had some of his things for centuries, cared for better than museum pieces have been. The books in particular, though he's never known a bookseller not particular about these things. Not that you would even think of miracling a book back into pristine, fresh-off-the-press condition. Every softening of the corners, every weakness in the spine speaks of the love that someone put into the object before it came to your hands, a tangible, cosy sort of care, the touch of a reader. You just keep it from getting any more signs of wear, and love it yourself only very gently, so as not to leave more scars.
(Scars aren't ugly things, just permanent things, the angel knows that; love always does leave at least some soft scars, and Aziraphale doesn't think of them as in any way shameful.)
So Aziraphale knew as soon as he realised what some damn fool had done that he would never be able to get that coat looking the same, he would have to miracle it away, and then he'd know, he'd always know, every time he picked it up he would sense it and feel sullen. But then -
But then Crowley was there.
It didn't take much, Crowley is a very dear creature underneath it all, and it might have been a teensy bit disingenuous but Aziraphale does know that it isn't really like Crowley was fooled for a moment, and it did save Aziraphale from another telling off about a waste of a miracle (Hell cares a great deal less than Heaven about these things, it seems). And it was worth it, regardless, because Crowley made it better than the stain never having been there at all. Crowley made it so that instead of Aziraphale forever knowing that he had removed a stain, he forever knows that Crowley removed the stain, and the smile comes soft as he runs his thumb over the worst of it, where it isn't, where Crowley made it disappear, for him.
Really, he knows, it's hardly the worst thing he's ever done. He's told an awful lot of little lies but a lot of that comes down to being amongst the English for a long time, lies are just - easier, sometimes, they smooth situations over, allow the patina of politeness to remain, and make the Lord look the other way when that flaming sword you were given is now completely unaccounted for. And even all of that hardly matters, compared to -
Well, on a related note, he did spend a great many years lying to Heaven while he was quite literally doing the work of Hell on the side, depending on how Crowley's coin toss had come down that time, though he was terrible at temptings, Crowley must have known it, he just must have not cared very much. The best Aziraphale could usually manage was along the lines of, "Gosh, your neighbour's wife, she looks - looks like a jolly nice - woman. Oh dear is that the time." He doubts Crowley's blessings were much better, though he was always intrigued by wondering what they did look like. Under different circumstances, blessings were what Crowley was originally made for, of course, just the same as Aziraphale. So he's just curious. Though he does imagine that a blessing from Crowley contained rather more menace than was strictly necessary.
No, the things that linger with Aziraphale - he did try to shoot Adam once, didn't know he had it in him, but he was trying to stop the apocalypse and the boy is very forgiving and understanding and so that's all alright, jolly good thing Madame Tracy took things in hand. He's allowed a few people to die over the years, never actually killed anybody, just . . . allowed matters to take their course, where the human concerned was clearly an outright rotter. He is supposed to allow humans to face the consequences of their own actions, after all, that is rather the point of it all. The thing that lingers, the big thing that still weighs on him whenever it rises in his thoughts, is the forty days and forty nights Aziraphale spent in the form of a depressed-looking unicorn in the hold of that ark, trying to keep Shem out of some trouble at least until after the Flood. He didn't hear much in the way of screaming, flooding being a rather drawn-out way of killing hundreds of thousands of people, but that hardly made it better. Every raindrop on the hollow wooden walls sounded like guilt hitting an empty stomach.
Of course he didn't like it, and he couldn't bring himself to exactly defend it, but he did just - he didn't question it. Not for more than a fraction of a second in the quiet of his own mind, even there felt dangerous, She knows everything, after all. He didn't know how, he thinks now, looking back at the relatively young angel he was then. He didn't know how to question the Lord's plan. The Fall was traumatic for both those who Fell and those who didn't; whatever free will angels had been given in the beginning, it was numbed out of Aziraphale in the horrible sickening shock of it all, the unspoken threat that was always there afterwards, what would happen if they were in any way bad angels. Questioning couldn't be allowed. Questioning couldn't be countenanced. They all knew where that led.
But She was drowning entire civilisations . . .
That really does linger with him, the sick dissonance that that was, not even being allowed to think 'this isn't right'. Even afterwards, not knowing how not to, he wanted to believe. He always wanted to believe. He wanted to believe right up until he was granted an audience with the Metatron, and finally he knew what a - what a -
Crowley was right. It genuinely did hurt when he'd called him stupid, but it hurt much more to know that he was right to do it. Even the Nazis called him gullible and still he hadn't learned.
He no longer believes in Heaven. God . . . baby steps, he's barely been free for five minutes. Sometimes he allows himself the terrifying, dizzying thought that maybe She's not doing the right thing, and feels queasy afterwards, his head spins. He only ever does it when he's alone, he couldn't bear to face it around anyone else yet, not even Crowley. After the thought, every time, he tells himself that he doesn't need to and he won't but he still surreptitiously checks his wings; not even a feather has greyed.
On the ark, head hanging, he had spent his days feeling guilty and praying, the way humans probably don't imagine angels need to pray, for enough faith, for enough strength to abide by faith, and in a whisper to himself for his faith in this to be worth it. He also spent his time trying to count the number of snakes evident in all those coils in their hanging cage, one, and that must be - two, so isn't that - or is that the first one again - ?
He's still certain that there were three, one watching him with very yellow eyes.
So he doesn't think that looking beseechingly at Crowley to get a miracle or two out of him now and then is the worst thing he's ever done, no. But he is glad that Crowley knows all the worst things he's ever done and likes him anyway, Crowley having a rather more sensitive stomach for evil than a demon really ought to. It helps him feel rather better about it. Crowley says he likes him because he can be a bit of a bastard but in truth, Aziraphale knows he means quite the opposite. Crowley likes him because they're good for each other, they inspire the best out of each other, and they're both, uniquely amongst the immortal, on the right side; on the side of the mortals, who Lord knows need someone looking out for them . . .
"Coming, dear," he says, as Crowley makes a drawn-out noise of impatience from near the door, that they should have left forever ago but Aziraphale was busy with sorting a box of books, and then got distracted by one of the books, and then lost track of time; but honestly, they do have eternity, and it's not like they've ever walked into a restaurant and not known a table free.
He tugs the coat on as he walks over to him, shakes his wrists and settles the cuffs right, then before reaching for the closed sign he leans across and kisses Crowley high on the cheek, just abrim with the happiness of it, he's always loved this coat but oh how he loves it now. Crowley just stands there, silent behind his sunglasses, then says guardedly, "What was that for?"
"Hm? Must there be a reason? Let's go, no time to stand about dilly-dallying -"
"'Dilly-dallying'," the demon says as Aziraphale opens the door and offers it to Crowley to go ahead first.
"Very like shilly-shallying," Aziraphale says. "If I'm honest I'm not sure what the difference is."
"I know what it means." Crowley snaps as Aziraphale locks up, and takes Crowley's arm for the walk through Soho. "Just - one of these days your slang needs to get further than the 1940s, angel."
"Oh I'm sure it will," Aziraphale assures him. "You'll teach me."
That makes Crowley swallow whatever he was about to say, staring at him before he starts walking stiffly on, and Aziraphale holds his arm happily, because Crowley doesn't blush - possibly it's a snake thing? - but Aziraphale does love putting that blank look into his eyes, now he's learned how to do it. It's only the teensiest bit disingenuous, and it is such a lovely look on him . . .
*
You would think, for a snake, that Crowley would have more of a spine, but it's not really that he doesn't dare to bring it up, to be honest about it and apologise for it. It's that he doesn't know if bringing it up is the right thing to do about it at all.
(That's a lie; he really doesn't dare to bring it up. What if that finally makes Aziraphale see right through him? Angels are obliged to forgive but Crowley's never wanted Aziraphale's forgiveness because he has to give it, he only wants what Aziraphale wants to give him . . .)
It's not that Crowley likes kids in any personal way - he's not a big fan of individual humans generally, he likes that humans exist, it doesn't mean he wants to hang out with any in particular. He just doesn't think that kids deserve to get caught up in any of it, they're not old enough to have made any big choices about good and evil yet, they wouldn't even understand the choices they were making. And that's the point of it, isn't it? All demons have to do is tempt and rouse and enrage, the human has to choose to sin, and kids don't know how to make choices. Let them grow up and then they're fair game, but you can't punish kids just for getting born into a Russian roulette game of a world.
And he doesn't want to kill kids. He's never got a kid killed, certainly never done it himself, and he doesn't want to, and he knew he didn't want to. Call it squeamishness but even a demon has to draw a line or two. But he, unlike Aziraphale, can plot an evil plot quite a few stages ahead, and he, unlike Aziraphale, never believed that the 'good guys' would inevitably triumph (Aziraphale thinking in his vague way at the time, Crowley thinks, that both himself and Crowley, and Heaven itself, counted under that loose banner), and so he, unlike Aziraphale, began thinking very early on about what they would have to do if the Antichrist turned out not to be amenable to the influences of the both of them, and needed to be wiped out before he could wipe everything else out.
Aziraphale is chewing, eyes closed, breathing slowly inwards, savouring; Crowley is running a finger around the rim of his wine glass, cheek propped on his knuckles, watching him. He eats now and then, he likes trying new things but he's not that into it, just like the angel doesn't sleep much but will indulge Crowley doing it on his chest. Compromise, meeting in the middle, feels good, better than getting his own way all the time, who knew? Not that there was much in the way of compromise when it came to the little matter of the killing of the Antichrist . . .
The thing was that Warlock was evidently a bit of a shit by seven years old, and Crowley thought that giving even a perfectly ordinary child all the power of his Dark Lord and Father was dangerous enough as it was, whether he displayed any particularly Hellish influences or not. A kid who was already kind of a dick and would one day soon manifest all the cataclysmic power of Hell itself didn't really bear thinking about. So odds were it was all going to go tits up, and the kid was going to have to be dispatched one way or another, and Crowley couldn't do it. Hell would know and Hell would do something, if Crowley killed the Antichrist. Plus he didn't much fancy killing a kid.
But then, he wasn't the only person on the planet who knew who the Antichrist was.
Crowley did nothing about it for years because getting to hang out with Aziraphale on the regular, almost every day after centuries of barely seeing each other - that wasn't something Crowley was about to throw away unless forced to. He tried to enjoy it and ignore the churning of his stomach. Well, he did enjoy it. They had, during those years, whatever the stakes were, fun. They had fun. They saw each other all the time, met up once a week or more to 'discuss their progress', a title they applied to much what they're doing now; using their days off as nanny and gardener, or as tutors, to hang out in restaurants to eat (Aziraphale) or drink (Crowley and Aziraphale). Crowley enjoyed it. The kid was increasingly a brat as he got older but given that that was Crowley's own doing (he knew he was influencing him more towards chaos than actual evil), he had no-one to blame but himself. And it was fun regardless of the kid. He got to be with Aziraphale, that was the best bit, the bit that really mattered.
He still made sure with a week to go before the end of the world to tempt an angel into killing a child, though.
Crowley knew exactly what he was doing because he's a demon, and while Aziraphale might know how to do puppydog eyes, Crowley knows very well how to manipulate, thank you, it's - he dings his glass with a fingernail in irritation; it was - his literal job. So he put the idea into Aziraphale's head (which took forever, the angel does not absorb new ideas quickly, though once he has them he rather does get a good hold of them, put them on the shelf and dust them and arrange them into their best position and generally look after them), he knew Aziraphale would need the time to absorb it, and Crowley kept an eye on the idea, and when it eventually came to it he just screamed at Aziraphale to do it for fuck's sake.
And Crowley knows how this works, he's a demon, all he did was tempt, Aziraphale did it - tried to do it, thanks Madame Tracy - but Aziraphale never would have done it if Crowley hadn't quite purposefully shoved him in front of the idea and held his nose to it and made him recognise it for what it was. And that -
That genuinely might be the worst thing Crowley's ever done. He was really frightened of that. Maybe Hell wouldn't have thought it was a bad thing, if Crowley had stopped the apocalypse but he'd tempted an angel into murdering a child to do it. Maybe . . .
Maybe lots of things. Aziraphale dabs his mouth with a napkin, says, "That was scrummy. Do you want coffee?"
Crowley checks his watch. "Nah, cinema's already been holding the film for half an hour without knowing why." He drains his glass. "Let's go, angel."
He knows Aziraphale hasn't noticed it. Aziraphale is very easy to manipulate, even crap Nazis can confuse him, all of Aziraphale's cleverness is concentrated in very particular ways leaving a huge blind spot where people twisting his good nature to their less good ends is concerned, Crowley knows Heaven did it to him for centuries. He could get annoyed that Aziraphale never learns - he does, sometimes, but knows he's only doing it to avoid taking that long hard look at himself. Why doesn't he tell him? Aziraphale would forgive him. But would he forgive him because he's an angel and that's what he does, his job description, or because he honestly does understand and forgive?
He doesn't bring it up because he gets so angry, he never can really handle his stronger emotions, they all come out as rage. He knows, and hates, that forgiveness from Aziraphale would mean nothing to Crowley unless it came from the recognition that Crowley only did it, as he does many of the things he does, fuck it most of them, out of fear. And he can't face any of that himself, or face seeing that knowledge on Aziraphale's face, in his voice, he gets angry even thinking about it, he can't.
Maybe in the grand scheme of things it's not like it's the worst thing he's ever done, Crowley's done a lot of shitty things in his time - he is a demon - but he thinks it's the worst, because it's the worst thing he's ever done to him, and that matters more. He should never have plotted to make Aziraphale kill the kid so he didn't have to do it, out of sheer fear; he should never have decided that every single human on Earth could burn and that would be okay if he could just get Aziraphale, just him, finally all to himself, out of the sheer fear of losing him (how would Aziraphale survive a war?) - he should never have got so angry with the angel for refusing to come with him and let all of the Earth burn, even if the was going about trying to save the Earth in the most ridiculous way (and Crowley was angry with Aziraphale's refusal to run mostly out of fear, but, sitting in that pub after the burning bookshop thinking that Aziraphale had died because he refused to run away, he really did feel that he was partly angry out of shame). He hates Aziraphale's goodness sometimes. It's incredibly inconvenient.
His own goodness, when he allows himself to look askance at it from the corner of his eye, is worse than a mere inconvenience, and might have ended up deadly to him, once.
Stepping out into the Soho evening Aziraphale takes Crowley's arm and says, "Isn't it a lovely night," simultaneous to a drunk man throwing up against the wall at the opposite side of the street, and Crowley thinks that Aziraphale only sees and hears what he chooses to, really. Not that he can't see and hear the rest, he's just choosing, in his prim angel way, to ignore it until it goes away, like he ignores mice in the bookshop, and Starbucks. So maybe he knew all along. Maybe he knew, and just decided to think of Crowley as good regardless, and given that his wings never stopped being white, maybe he chooses not to worry about his own goodness one way or another, now.
His arm is warm in his. Crowley says, "Yeah," and all the chaos of Soho at night - drunken revellers, shuffling shifty men in grubby macs, the large visible queer community of London that Aziraphale has explicitly chosen to live amongst for decades - all of it parts for them, just gently, moving out of their way on the narrow pavements like a soft-rippling sea so that they can continue to walk side by side. "Yeah," Crowley says. "It is."
Disclaimer: Consider it very disclaimed, I don't own them.
Rating: Pff PG-13
Warnings and spoilers: Set post-series, light on the warnings.
Summary: We are led to Believe a Lie/When we see not Thro the Eye (Rainjoy stop it with the Blake)
Note: This was inspired by some frankly bizarre pieces of meta I've seen about some respectively terrible things the boys have done, on the matters of 1) Aziraphale manipulated Crowley into cleaning his coat for him and 2) Aziraphale tried to shoot Adam, to which I say 1) You call that that manipulation? and 2) Now *that's* what I call manipulation. Like, I'm English, so Aziraphale *asks* Crowley to clean his coat for him, that is open, over here, perhaps we are a subtle people but that does not register as deception, that's just how we communicate with each other. Grant it for contrast with the second point, which is the one where Crowley manipulates Aziraphale into killing a kid for him because he'd rather not do it himself and he's really, *really* good at it. Look, when it comes to the worst things they both do, Aziraphale really *can* be a bastard, and Crowley can be good, but the contrast between them is that when Aziraphale does terrible things it's usually a crime of omission, what he doesn't do - complicity is his worst action - and when Crowley does terrible things he knows *exactly* what he's doing. Even though Aziraphale is basically me (food-obsessed socially-anxious queer bookseller hello!) it's really Crowley I find myself identifying with more because he's a much more obviously flawed character and he's really *good* at being bad, he just doesn't *want* to be, he's been put into a position where for a long time he didn't dare to be anything else which . . . gives you a little trip into my psyche, anyway.
When Aziraphale takes his coat from its hook, his thumb lingers, just there, where he still knows it is.
That's the thing about miracling a stain away, you always do know; well, humans don't, but angels and demons can sense these things, they can feel when something is merely miracled, not natural. He's always preferred to take care of his things by non-miraculous means when he could; besides, Heaven actually reads the paperwork, and he got in too much trouble for 'frivolous' miracles as it was. He's had some of his things for centuries, cared for better than museum pieces have been. The books in particular, though he's never known a bookseller not particular about these things. Not that you would even think of miracling a book back into pristine, fresh-off-the-press condition. Every softening of the corners, every weakness in the spine speaks of the love that someone put into the object before it came to your hands, a tangible, cosy sort of care, the touch of a reader. You just keep it from getting any more signs of wear, and love it yourself only very gently, so as not to leave more scars.
(Scars aren't ugly things, just permanent things, the angel knows that; love always does leave at least some soft scars, and Aziraphale doesn't think of them as in any way shameful.)
So Aziraphale knew as soon as he realised what some damn fool had done that he would never be able to get that coat looking the same, he would have to miracle it away, and then he'd know, he'd always know, every time he picked it up he would sense it and feel sullen. But then -
But then Crowley was there.
It didn't take much, Crowley is a very dear creature underneath it all, and it might have been a teensy bit disingenuous but Aziraphale does know that it isn't really like Crowley was fooled for a moment, and it did save Aziraphale from another telling off about a waste of a miracle (Hell cares a great deal less than Heaven about these things, it seems). And it was worth it, regardless, because Crowley made it better than the stain never having been there at all. Crowley made it so that instead of Aziraphale forever knowing that he had removed a stain, he forever knows that Crowley removed the stain, and the smile comes soft as he runs his thumb over the worst of it, where it isn't, where Crowley made it disappear, for him.
Really, he knows, it's hardly the worst thing he's ever done. He's told an awful lot of little lies but a lot of that comes down to being amongst the English for a long time, lies are just - easier, sometimes, they smooth situations over, allow the patina of politeness to remain, and make the Lord look the other way when that flaming sword you were given is now completely unaccounted for. And even all of that hardly matters, compared to -
Well, on a related note, he did spend a great many years lying to Heaven while he was quite literally doing the work of Hell on the side, depending on how Crowley's coin toss had come down that time, though he was terrible at temptings, Crowley must have known it, he just must have not cared very much. The best Aziraphale could usually manage was along the lines of, "Gosh, your neighbour's wife, she looks - looks like a jolly nice - woman. Oh dear is that the time." He doubts Crowley's blessings were much better, though he was always intrigued by wondering what they did look like. Under different circumstances, blessings were what Crowley was originally made for, of course, just the same as Aziraphale. So he's just curious. Though he does imagine that a blessing from Crowley contained rather more menace than was strictly necessary.
No, the things that linger with Aziraphale - he did try to shoot Adam once, didn't know he had it in him, but he was trying to stop the apocalypse and the boy is very forgiving and understanding and so that's all alright, jolly good thing Madame Tracy took things in hand. He's allowed a few people to die over the years, never actually killed anybody, just . . . allowed matters to take their course, where the human concerned was clearly an outright rotter. He is supposed to allow humans to face the consequences of their own actions, after all, that is rather the point of it all. The thing that lingers, the big thing that still weighs on him whenever it rises in his thoughts, is the forty days and forty nights Aziraphale spent in the form of a depressed-looking unicorn in the hold of that ark, trying to keep Shem out of some trouble at least until after the Flood. He didn't hear much in the way of screaming, flooding being a rather drawn-out way of killing hundreds of thousands of people, but that hardly made it better. Every raindrop on the hollow wooden walls sounded like guilt hitting an empty stomach.
Of course he didn't like it, and he couldn't bring himself to exactly defend it, but he did just - he didn't question it. Not for more than a fraction of a second in the quiet of his own mind, even there felt dangerous, She knows everything, after all. He didn't know how, he thinks now, looking back at the relatively young angel he was then. He didn't know how to question the Lord's plan. The Fall was traumatic for both those who Fell and those who didn't; whatever free will angels had been given in the beginning, it was numbed out of Aziraphale in the horrible sickening shock of it all, the unspoken threat that was always there afterwards, what would happen if they were in any way bad angels. Questioning couldn't be allowed. Questioning couldn't be countenanced. They all knew where that led.
But She was drowning entire civilisations . . .
That really does linger with him, the sick dissonance that that was, not even being allowed to think 'this isn't right'. Even afterwards, not knowing how not to, he wanted to believe. He always wanted to believe. He wanted to believe right up until he was granted an audience with the Metatron, and finally he knew what a - what a -
Crowley was right. It genuinely did hurt when he'd called him stupid, but it hurt much more to know that he was right to do it. Even the Nazis called him gullible and still he hadn't learned.
He no longer believes in Heaven. God . . . baby steps, he's barely been free for five minutes. Sometimes he allows himself the terrifying, dizzying thought that maybe She's not doing the right thing, and feels queasy afterwards, his head spins. He only ever does it when he's alone, he couldn't bear to face it around anyone else yet, not even Crowley. After the thought, every time, he tells himself that he doesn't need to and he won't but he still surreptitiously checks his wings; not even a feather has greyed.
On the ark, head hanging, he had spent his days feeling guilty and praying, the way humans probably don't imagine angels need to pray, for enough faith, for enough strength to abide by faith, and in a whisper to himself for his faith in this to be worth it. He also spent his time trying to count the number of snakes evident in all those coils in their hanging cage, one, and that must be - two, so isn't that - or is that the first one again - ?
He's still certain that there were three, one watching him with very yellow eyes.
So he doesn't think that looking beseechingly at Crowley to get a miracle or two out of him now and then is the worst thing he's ever done, no. But he is glad that Crowley knows all the worst things he's ever done and likes him anyway, Crowley having a rather more sensitive stomach for evil than a demon really ought to. It helps him feel rather better about it. Crowley says he likes him because he can be a bit of a bastard but in truth, Aziraphale knows he means quite the opposite. Crowley likes him because they're good for each other, they inspire the best out of each other, and they're both, uniquely amongst the immortal, on the right side; on the side of the mortals, who Lord knows need someone looking out for them . . .
"Coming, dear," he says, as Crowley makes a drawn-out noise of impatience from near the door, that they should have left forever ago but Aziraphale was busy with sorting a box of books, and then got distracted by one of the books, and then lost track of time; but honestly, they do have eternity, and it's not like they've ever walked into a restaurant and not known a table free.
He tugs the coat on as he walks over to him, shakes his wrists and settles the cuffs right, then before reaching for the closed sign he leans across and kisses Crowley high on the cheek, just abrim with the happiness of it, he's always loved this coat but oh how he loves it now. Crowley just stands there, silent behind his sunglasses, then says guardedly, "What was that for?"
"Hm? Must there be a reason? Let's go, no time to stand about dilly-dallying -"
"'Dilly-dallying'," the demon says as Aziraphale opens the door and offers it to Crowley to go ahead first.
"Very like shilly-shallying," Aziraphale says. "If I'm honest I'm not sure what the difference is."
"I know what it means." Crowley snaps as Aziraphale locks up, and takes Crowley's arm for the walk through Soho. "Just - one of these days your slang needs to get further than the 1940s, angel."
"Oh I'm sure it will," Aziraphale assures him. "You'll teach me."
That makes Crowley swallow whatever he was about to say, staring at him before he starts walking stiffly on, and Aziraphale holds his arm happily, because Crowley doesn't blush - possibly it's a snake thing? - but Aziraphale does love putting that blank look into his eyes, now he's learned how to do it. It's only the teensiest bit disingenuous, and it is such a lovely look on him . . .
*
You would think, for a snake, that Crowley would have more of a spine, but it's not really that he doesn't dare to bring it up, to be honest about it and apologise for it. It's that he doesn't know if bringing it up is the right thing to do about it at all.
(That's a lie; he really doesn't dare to bring it up. What if that finally makes Aziraphale see right through him? Angels are obliged to forgive but Crowley's never wanted Aziraphale's forgiveness because he has to give it, he only wants what Aziraphale wants to give him . . .)
It's not that Crowley likes kids in any personal way - he's not a big fan of individual humans generally, he likes that humans exist, it doesn't mean he wants to hang out with any in particular. He just doesn't think that kids deserve to get caught up in any of it, they're not old enough to have made any big choices about good and evil yet, they wouldn't even understand the choices they were making. And that's the point of it, isn't it? All demons have to do is tempt and rouse and enrage, the human has to choose to sin, and kids don't know how to make choices. Let them grow up and then they're fair game, but you can't punish kids just for getting born into a Russian roulette game of a world.
And he doesn't want to kill kids. He's never got a kid killed, certainly never done it himself, and he doesn't want to, and he knew he didn't want to. Call it squeamishness but even a demon has to draw a line or two. But he, unlike Aziraphale, can plot an evil plot quite a few stages ahead, and he, unlike Aziraphale, never believed that the 'good guys' would inevitably triumph (Aziraphale thinking in his vague way at the time, Crowley thinks, that both himself and Crowley, and Heaven itself, counted under that loose banner), and so he, unlike Aziraphale, began thinking very early on about what they would have to do if the Antichrist turned out not to be amenable to the influences of the both of them, and needed to be wiped out before he could wipe everything else out.
Aziraphale is chewing, eyes closed, breathing slowly inwards, savouring; Crowley is running a finger around the rim of his wine glass, cheek propped on his knuckles, watching him. He eats now and then, he likes trying new things but he's not that into it, just like the angel doesn't sleep much but will indulge Crowley doing it on his chest. Compromise, meeting in the middle, feels good, better than getting his own way all the time, who knew? Not that there was much in the way of compromise when it came to the little matter of the killing of the Antichrist . . .
The thing was that Warlock was evidently a bit of a shit by seven years old, and Crowley thought that giving even a perfectly ordinary child all the power of his Dark Lord and Father was dangerous enough as it was, whether he displayed any particularly Hellish influences or not. A kid who was already kind of a dick and would one day soon manifest all the cataclysmic power of Hell itself didn't really bear thinking about. So odds were it was all going to go tits up, and the kid was going to have to be dispatched one way or another, and Crowley couldn't do it. Hell would know and Hell would do something, if Crowley killed the Antichrist. Plus he didn't much fancy killing a kid.
But then, he wasn't the only person on the planet who knew who the Antichrist was.
Crowley did nothing about it for years because getting to hang out with Aziraphale on the regular, almost every day after centuries of barely seeing each other - that wasn't something Crowley was about to throw away unless forced to. He tried to enjoy it and ignore the churning of his stomach. Well, he did enjoy it. They had, during those years, whatever the stakes were, fun. They had fun. They saw each other all the time, met up once a week or more to 'discuss their progress', a title they applied to much what they're doing now; using their days off as nanny and gardener, or as tutors, to hang out in restaurants to eat (Aziraphale) or drink (Crowley and Aziraphale). Crowley enjoyed it. The kid was increasingly a brat as he got older but given that that was Crowley's own doing (he knew he was influencing him more towards chaos than actual evil), he had no-one to blame but himself. And it was fun regardless of the kid. He got to be with Aziraphale, that was the best bit, the bit that really mattered.
He still made sure with a week to go before the end of the world to tempt an angel into killing a child, though.
Crowley knew exactly what he was doing because he's a demon, and while Aziraphale might know how to do puppydog eyes, Crowley knows very well how to manipulate, thank you, it's - he dings his glass with a fingernail in irritation; it was - his literal job. So he put the idea into Aziraphale's head (which took forever, the angel does not absorb new ideas quickly, though once he has them he rather does get a good hold of them, put them on the shelf and dust them and arrange them into their best position and generally look after them), he knew Aziraphale would need the time to absorb it, and Crowley kept an eye on the idea, and when it eventually came to it he just screamed at Aziraphale to do it for fuck's sake.
And Crowley knows how this works, he's a demon, all he did was tempt, Aziraphale did it - tried to do it, thanks Madame Tracy - but Aziraphale never would have done it if Crowley hadn't quite purposefully shoved him in front of the idea and held his nose to it and made him recognise it for what it was. And that -
That genuinely might be the worst thing Crowley's ever done. He was really frightened of that. Maybe Hell wouldn't have thought it was a bad thing, if Crowley had stopped the apocalypse but he'd tempted an angel into murdering a child to do it. Maybe . . .
Maybe lots of things. Aziraphale dabs his mouth with a napkin, says, "That was scrummy. Do you want coffee?"
Crowley checks his watch. "Nah, cinema's already been holding the film for half an hour without knowing why." He drains his glass. "Let's go, angel."
He knows Aziraphale hasn't noticed it. Aziraphale is very easy to manipulate, even crap Nazis can confuse him, all of Aziraphale's cleverness is concentrated in very particular ways leaving a huge blind spot where people twisting his good nature to their less good ends is concerned, Crowley knows Heaven did it to him for centuries. He could get annoyed that Aziraphale never learns - he does, sometimes, but knows he's only doing it to avoid taking that long hard look at himself. Why doesn't he tell him? Aziraphale would forgive him. But would he forgive him because he's an angel and that's what he does, his job description, or because he honestly does understand and forgive?
He doesn't bring it up because he gets so angry, he never can really handle his stronger emotions, they all come out as rage. He knows, and hates, that forgiveness from Aziraphale would mean nothing to Crowley unless it came from the recognition that Crowley only did it, as he does many of the things he does, fuck it most of them, out of fear. And he can't face any of that himself, or face seeing that knowledge on Aziraphale's face, in his voice, he gets angry even thinking about it, he can't.
Maybe in the grand scheme of things it's not like it's the worst thing he's ever done, Crowley's done a lot of shitty things in his time - he is a demon - but he thinks it's the worst, because it's the worst thing he's ever done to him, and that matters more. He should never have plotted to make Aziraphale kill the kid so he didn't have to do it, out of sheer fear; he should never have decided that every single human on Earth could burn and that would be okay if he could just get Aziraphale, just him, finally all to himself, out of the sheer fear of losing him (how would Aziraphale survive a war?) - he should never have got so angry with the angel for refusing to come with him and let all of the Earth burn, even if the was going about trying to save the Earth in the most ridiculous way (and Crowley was angry with Aziraphale's refusal to run mostly out of fear, but, sitting in that pub after the burning bookshop thinking that Aziraphale had died because he refused to run away, he really did feel that he was partly angry out of shame). He hates Aziraphale's goodness sometimes. It's incredibly inconvenient.
His own goodness, when he allows himself to look askance at it from the corner of his eye, is worse than a mere inconvenience, and might have ended up deadly to him, once.
Stepping out into the Soho evening Aziraphale takes Crowley's arm and says, "Isn't it a lovely night," simultaneous to a drunk man throwing up against the wall at the opposite side of the street, and Crowley thinks that Aziraphale only sees and hears what he chooses to, really. Not that he can't see and hear the rest, he's just choosing, in his prim angel way, to ignore it until it goes away, like he ignores mice in the bookshop, and Starbucks. So maybe he knew all along. Maybe he knew, and just decided to think of Crowley as good regardless, and given that his wings never stopped being white, maybe he chooses not to worry about his own goodness one way or another, now.
His arm is warm in his. Crowley says, "Yeah," and all the chaos of Soho at night - drunken revellers, shuffling shifty men in grubby macs, the large visible queer community of London that Aziraphale has explicitly chosen to live amongst for decades - all of it parts for them, just gently, moving out of their way on the narrow pavements like a soft-rippling sea so that they can continue to walk side by side. "Yeah," Crowley says. "It is."
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