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fan_eluneTitle: Beyond Omens, Good or Bad
Author: Fan'
Written for:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
shadesofbrixton, hope you like it!
Fandom: Good Omens
Rating: PG-13?
Beyond Omens, Good or Bad
Some argued that the Earth wasn't supposed to make it to the year 200,057. It was actually an ongoing quarrel, both Up There and Below, whether or not the abortion of the apocalypse back in the twentieth century was part of the Ineffable Plan. Popular belief decreed that it was, and for once Crowley, an Angel who didn't so much Fall as Saunter Vaguely Downward, was inclined to agree with popular belief. It didn't mean he had to like it, though, and some of the time he really wished the damn Ineffable Plan had had the world end thousands of years ago. Because eternity could get really long, especially towards the end.
But the very specific situation he was in now, the situation his angel associate was in now with him, well, it sort of made up for the long and boring centuries (none of which had been a repeat of the fourteenth, thankfully, though a handful had come dangerously close). The situation they were in now sort of made him really grateful that the world had not come to an end, all the more so because as time passed it took more and more to surprise Crowley, and they never really were good surprises. Except this time he really was utterly and completely surprised, and pleasantly so, at that.
Never, in all his 204 centuries of existence, had Crowley ever thought he would actually be standing next to a very naked Aziraphale, at least not unless it involved some sort of dire and formidable mischief on his part. He had, of course, entertained the thought. They'd been working against each other (or so they reported to their respective bosses) for entirely too long not to become close friends, after a fashion, and Crowley was a demon. You could not parade such an angelic disposition, an open and loving face, in front of a demon and expect him not to want to corrupt and debase it in the most pleasurable ways. Lust definitely was one of the sins demons had all luxury to indulge in; it was in fact highly encouraged by the Authorities Below, though Crowley had his doubts as to whether they had meant for lust to be exercised for an angel, an Enemy, one who, Crowley was convinced, would never give in to that particular temptation. He blamed that on the amount of time he'd spent around Men, who definitely had a thing for ill-conceived attraction, star-crossed lovers and other such romantic nonsense. It might be romantic, but it was also highly unpractical.
So yes, Crowley had entertained the thought, but he had never believed that his powers of temptation were so great that he could have Aziraphale give in to that particular one. And indeed, his powers of temptation had nothing to do with the situation they were now in. Which was admittedly slightly vexing.
But then he didn't even know whether Aziraphale had a sexuality, was actually fairly convinced he didn't, and didn't plan on getting one either. Anyone who met the angel was shortly convinced that he was the greatest poof to ever walk the earth (or whatever planet, moon or colony they were on at the time), but Crowley knew better. It was a well-known fact that angels were sexless unless they really wanted to make an effort, and he didn't see what could possess his angelic associate into wanting to make such an effort. Truth be told, possessing a libido could be something of a bother. Indulging in lustful activities was all well and good, but the other side of the libidinous coin became apparent when certain urges started surfacing, urges that targeted one specific angel that, granted, wasn't the most gorgeous and perfect being of the creation, but was the only thing on Crowley's mind when engaging in said lustful activities, no matter his partner (or, more often than not, lack thereof).
Their Arrangement had been in place for thousands upon thousands of years now, what did you honestly expect? There was only so much half-hearted denial any demon could go through before they had to face up to the fact that, dear God (because such an admission was cause for blasphemy), that angel with his blond locks and disgustingly innocent blue eyes was just to be sanctified for.
The one time they had brushed the subject of sexuality was in the forty-ninth century, Crowley remembered, back when he was still convinced that what he felt for Aziraphale was nothing but an incredibly misplaced friendship. They had been sitting on a terrace in the hippest place in Cairo (Egypt had been quite the thing that year, due to the return of triangle fashion) when the demon had remarked on what seemed to be Man's growing tendency to no longer merely explore the universe, but shag his way through it.
Aziraphale had looked at him pensively, then made a small non-committal pout. "They'll grow out of it," he'd said dismissively.
The matter would have rested at that, but Crowley hadn't been ready to let it. "Don't underestimate lust, angel. It's one of the seven."
"They come and go. Greed, pride and envy," the angel had shuddered as he listed the sins, "those have had their turns. Now it's lust. They'll go through the others in time."
"And you're not bothered?" Crowley asked suspiciously.
Aziraphale had shrugged philosophically. "It's always balanced out by one of the Capital Virtues, dear boy."
Crowley had groaned. "I hate how you put capital letters on those."
Aziraphale had smiled sweetly, and in that sweet smile Crowley saw again what he undeniably thought was the undying core of bastardise that enabled him to like the angel despite his many and obvious virtues. "These days it's Hope. They're trying to achieve the unachievable... and admittedly using a rather decadent way of carrying it through. But they strive for a peaceful coexistence with all species."
"They strive for enjoyable fornication with all species," Crowley had retorted, piqued that Aziraphale would take something so very sinful and present it in a somewhat virtuous light. Then he'd let the matter rest.
And there they stood now, as naked as Adam and Eve back in the days (that matter of an ingenuously-placed leaf was absolutely ludicrous and pure invention of the clergy, both Aziraphale and he could testify to that), and Crowley could only stare at the angel's body.
They'd both been wandering around in the same bodies for ages (literally), but they weren't the worse for wear. Crowley had actually grown pretty fond of his. The high cheekbones had earned him a few admirers, even though the face held no mesmerising beauty; it could morph into the most interesting expression of mischief, and that was all that mattered really. He kept his body constantly tanned, since he liked the darker complexion better and thought that it somehow made up for his lack of stunning physical attributes.
That said, there was absolutely nothing especially stunning about Aziraphale's body either. It was not particularly muscular, neither thin nor fat, and looked about thirty. The fact that it was about 200 000 years old really didn't show. It was covered in some sort of very light down, almost invisible to the eye; it had taken sixty centuries for Crowley to notice it, and a couple more decades before he admitted that, try though he might to cling to his disgust at the sight, he actually liked it. He'd taken to brushing Aziraphale's arm now and then, to feel the down's softness under his fingertips. Now he could see that, indeed, it covered every inch of Aziraphale's body (one fewer question he hadn't thought he'd ever get the answer to), though it was denser in places... places where his gaze now tended to linger, truth be told.
Crowley wasn't entirely sure how this situation had come about. They'd both been drunk, that much was certain. They'd been sitting in a small Japanese place (or had it been Korean? Asian, in any case, unless it had been French), drinking sake (or had it been wine? red, white, rosé? champagne?)... No. That had been last century. He remembered now. They'd been in a VIP lounge in the middle of New York's classiest neighbourhood (or maybe it had been in the unexpectedly select area Manchester's Canal Street had become over the centuries?*), nursing triple vodkas and mourning days past, days of better damn booze than this.
Crowley was passably certain that Aziraphale had been the one to wish the bottle of Château Laffite into existence, and fairly annoyed that the angel had done so without even letting him tempt him first. The demon had made up for it by making damn sure the bottle never emptied.
That was how they had got drunk. The question remained as to how the drunkenness had led to this precise moment in time.
The lounge had been packed with television sets, as was the whole planet really. Crowley knew the television sets had played a part.
They'd been arguing about the alien races, as they did now and then, about who should get credit for which one, and whether they were part of the ever so famous and frankly quite tedious Ineffable Plan. Crowley always got off on suggesting that maybe they were part of Someone Else's Plan, that maybe all they'd ever taken for granted was wrong, that maybe the One Up There wasn't the only one who got the trick of creating Life down.
And, given some of those alien species, that maybe those other players actually did a better job than Him.
It never failed to ruffle Aziraphale's feathers the wrong way, which never failed to make Crowley smirk (and, as was often the case when he was having a grand time – or when he was off his game – lapse back into hissing fits).
But one of the television sets had distracted Crowley somehow. They all broadcasted those reality shows, something else along with the Spanish Inquisition that had earned Crowley an undeserved commendation**. Except somewhere along the line (year 200 000 to be exact) something had gone extremely wrong, which ought to have been cause for celebration to all Beings of the Nether Reaches but left Crowley with a hint of the bad aftertaste of a hungover morning***.
Crowley had always supported the theory that Men came up with much more horrible things than Hell ever could (and Aziraphale had his own theory that it was only thanks to that that Men could achieve holiness, something to do with free will), but this was just beyond anything else. Crowley had always sort of liked Men, though it didn't sit well with his superiors, but for a few decades now he'd turned towards aliens to find himself a new pet species. Only none of them were quite as fascinating as Men (which were only fascinating in the same way a car crash was, mind you, only now the car crash had taken horrific proportions and even he didn't seem to want to keep watching).
Those reality shows had been perverted into killing institutions, and Big Brother was now nothing but a series of slaughter houses.
That said, it didn't explain how he could now be staring at Aziraphale's belly button, and following a trail of denser down all the way down to... Crowley decided he really quite liked Aziraphale's mortal coil, even more than he had thought.
Yes, there had been something about pale, naked flesh on screen. Extreme Makeover, that was the program, and it had caught his eye when the participant had appeared stripped. He had stopped in the middle of his sentence (something about how whoever had thought up the Face of Bo must have the shittiest taste in the universe, which he had planned on using to trap the angel into admitting that it couldn't possibly have been Him, now could it?) and stared at the screen.
"Crowley?" Aziraphale had asked worryingly, and followed his gaze. "'s wrong?"
He had had to cover it up. He couldn't well explain that the naked participant was pretty tall, and pale and blond in a milky way, and that his eyes were likely blue, and that he sort of reminded Crowley of, well, an acquaintance of his he wouldn't mind seeing starkers. "I'ss jusst thinking back t'when I came up wi'the idea for that show," he lied, and prayed that his slurred speech would conceal the telltale hiss.
"Oh nonono," Aziraphale had countered. "You can't take credit f'that one, Crowley. That one was ours. You told me y'self you had nothing to do with the reality shows."
"Sso it wasn'me," Crowley had conceded. "Show's sstill ours. How could it be yours?"
"Because!" Aziraphale had retorted rather more forcefully that he would have done if it weren't for the numerous glasses of wine. "It's about making people happier. Originally. Before the droids started slicin' them up."
"How's that?"
"Improve their self-esteem. Offer the chance to look good to any and everyone. 's a good deed."
"Sounds a fair bit like vanity to me. Were you people rooting for pride to be the next leading sin?" Crowley had encompassed the whole lounge with a wave of his hand, the elite of this world slouching on couches and staring stupidly at the TV sets. "Sloth won, no mistake."
"It's about equal chances, and turning your life 'round. We should go interview the participants. Before they get sliced up," Aziraphale had added after an instant's reflection. "They'll tell you. Originally, it's a show of good. A good show."
"Let usss, then," Crowley had hissed.
They had sobered up as one; stumbling and wobbling forward were hardly proper ways for angels and demons to go about, even less so when they were off to settle a most crucial dispute. They hadn't spoken again until they were in Crowley's modish spaceship, a sleek black thing that never had any technical problems (because those just didn't happen to Crowley), a model B'NtlI that dated back to before the fatidic date of 200 000, back when Man could still produce something of quality. It had a cassette player, even though those had gone out of existence thousands of years ago, simply because Crowley had never stopped expecting them to be an integral part of whatever means of transportation he chose.
Consequently, they had flown towards the Game Station at incredible speed listening to Who wants to live forever****.
After a particularly poignant rendition of the chorus, Aziraphale had chanced speaking up, stating out loud the realisation sobering up had brought them both. "It seems we're on a bit of a fool's errand."
Crowley had groaned his agreement. No matter that he literally had all the time in the world, he still hated wasting his.
"I mean, the show's obviously yours. The wine must have got to my head. Even at its creation, it was clearly centred on vanity and pride. You were right."
Crowley had sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose under the sunglasses he still wore most of the time. "Yeah. Wasn't mine, though. We're on our way, we might as well check it out."
Aziraphale had hesitated, then breathed out, "Yes."
It shouldn't have been possible for any ship that unexpectedly showed up like Crowley's to dock at the Game Station, nor for them to be admitted onto the Extreme Makeover Studio without any question and a least a gun or two pointed their way, but it all did happen without a glitch simply because Crowley couldn't have considered anything else.
"Oh, two for one," one of the droids had grated out with what sounded like approval.
"Stand still for the defabricator," the other had warned.
And before they could ask, protest, or move, their clothes had been artfully defabricated.
Yes, now he remembered. That was how they had gotten there.
"Dear boy," Aziraphale's voice broke through the fascination certain parts of the angel's anatomy held over Crowley, "if you could bear to come back to the present..."
The demon looked up at his associate's face and frowned. There had been something slightly off in his tone, something that threatened his usual calm more deeply and subtly than any temptation or taunt Crowley had ever thrown his way. And now that Crowley saw the way Aziraphale was clearly doing his damnedest to look him in the eye, well, now he felt positively demonic.
A smirk graced his thin lips and he resisted the urge to hiss or lick them with his serpentine tongue. "Yess, angel?" he answered in the best approximation of innocence he was capable of, an approximation rather belittled by the hiss he couldn't repress in his glee.
Aziraphale gulped. "We ought to leave, I do believe..."
"Nah," Crowley dismissed the angel's concern with a wave of a hand. "Let's play a bit first."
"P-play?"
"Ladies," Crowley still hadn't lost the smirk, "we're all yours. Dress us up."
Oh, now. If he had been human, Crowley might have thought he'd died and gone to a very inaccurate view of heaven. Because heaven was, in truth, entirely more boring than this turned out to be. The droids had from the start picked his colour right – black, of course – and he'd pranced and preened about in the different outfits they proposed and discussed, letting them defabricate them off him time and time again. They'd finally all agreed on dark green snakeskin shoes and a matching shirt, as well as a black tie to go with the devilishly well-cut suit that accented the width of his shoulders (which, truth be told, really weren't that wide to start with). They hadn’t asked him to remove his sunglasses, which would never have happened with any other candidate but really didn't seem to phase Crowley any.
All throughout the modelling, Aziraphale had done an excellent job of looking through the racks of clothing for something that would suit his fancy, while throwing occasional guilty and everything-but-discreet glances at his demon associate. It seemed that, while the angel was perfectly at ease with his own nakedness, Crowley's was a bit more than he was willing to handle.
"What do you think?" Crowley finally asked him, spreading his arms and turning around on himself for Aziraphale to get an overall view.
"It suits you."
Crowley smirked again. "Your turn now."
He leaned back against the wall of the room and admired Aziraphale as the droids made him go through white outfit after white outfit, none of which seemed to satisfy them all. As far as he was concerned, Crowley soon made up his mind: he liked Aziraphale best without anything on.
Crowley had never liked white anyway. It was extremely unpractical, for one thing, at least when you weren't Up There where dirt didn't exist. Not only did it get dirty really easily, but all it took was a red sock in the washing machine for it to turn pink. There was really nothing to say for white.
Except that it went very well with Aziraphale's pale complexion, set off the golden shine of his curly hair, and that in turn heightened the spark of his blue eyes.
Finally it seemed that the angel got his way. The droids gave up and let him pick the nondescript straight trousers, cotton sweater and regular shoes he wanted, but they did not relent on the matter of the coat. What they picked for him was not one of his regular long coats, but instead a white leather jacket that showed off his bum when Crowley was lucky enough to be in the angel's back.
"It is time for the face-off," one of the droids announced.
It was time to leave, really. "No, I think we'll be heading off now. Thanks for the clothes," Crowley remarked, and with a smirk, "and the defabrication."
And, just because the demon was hardly going to be held there against his force, Aziraphale and he were able to simply leave. During the silent walk back to the ship, the angel was shrouded in thoughtful silence. Crowley had his hands in the pockets of his new suit, a smirk still on his lips, and was cheerfully whistling Bohemian Rhapsody, which happened to be the upcoming song on the tape.
"Well, that was enlightening," he commented as he started the B'NtlI. "Wouldn't you say?"
"I liked my old coat better," Aziraphale answered mournfully, and took the offending garment off.
"I like that one better."
"You do?" And Aziraphale, who had been looking at the jacket and probably about to turn it into his usual coat with a wave of the hand, paused and considered the matter.
"So, angel," Crowley spoke up once he had set the ship on an orbit around earth. He expertly took off his sunglasses and slid them in his breast pocket, revealing reptilian golden eyes. "You're aware you still haven't got any better at lying. I think it's because of this whole absence of free will for us deal. You angel types just don't cut it as far as lying's concerned."
"What are you getting at?"
"Just keep it in mind when you answer this," Crowley answered with his best "watch out, here comes mischief" expression. "Back there... were you perhaps – tempted – by me?"
"That," Aziraphale replied, clearly flustered but unable to look away, "is between me and my Maker."
Crowley rolled his eyes. "Why do you always have to bring Him in?" He stood up and took off his jacket, hanging it on the back of his seat, then started unbuttoning his shirt. "I think it's time we dropped the pretence. You don't serve Him any more than I do the Morning Star. I just love wrong things, and a few right ones, and you love right things, and a few wrong ones. And we try not to disobey Them too overtly, because things could become very unpleasant for us, of the shit-hits-fan variety."
"Why are you undressing?"
"No defabricator handy." He took off the shoes, and the trousers followed. "Where was I? Oh, yes. Back in the times of Armageddon-That-Wasn't, we pretty much had to face up to that. Our Arrangement's not so much an arrangement as, well, a friendship." He walked closer to Aziraphale, absolutely stark naked, and smirked. This time he did hiss, serpentine tongue sliding out between his teeth, and he revelled in it. "And I've just had an epiphany. Let's have ssexsss."
"I-I beg your pardon?" Aziraphale let out in a high-pitched voice, but made no move to push Crowley off when the demon straddled him.
"Trust me. You'll love it."
~~the end~~
* Crowley still hadn't determined whether the end result, a gathering place for people rich, vain and greedy, was something to be prouder of than what it had originally been in the twentieth century, when it teemed with all manners of people that were either sexually confused or on the contrary very clear on what they wanted, with most of them intent on debauchery and cavorting. Those had been the good times... but still the whole thing had reeked of such an atmosphere of tolerance and acceptance that Crowley had never been fully convinced it was such a horrible place. As it was, you could find no such tolerance in the neighbourhood now.
** Just because there might just be no Armageddon at the end of the road after the letdown of the first attempt didn't mean demons and angels would ever stop competing, although Crowley and Aziraphale were something of a special case.
*** Not that he had ever been hungover, but Crowley had studied the exquisite phenomenon extensively, as such a state made men cranky and therefore much more prone to wrong-doing. He had gathered that the bad aftertaste of a hungover morning depended on what you had eaten in the past twelve hours, given that would be what you'd throw up in the toilets or by the side of the road, combined with the pounding agony of a dreadful headache and the bitter knowledge that it could have been easily avoided by refusing a glass or twenty the previous night.
**** After over 200 000 years of existence, Crowley and Aziraphale could have told you that it was a very valid question. Armageddon should have long come, but instead it had come, not happened, and gone back the way it came, and now it seemed that they were truly in for eternal life. Needless to say, it got tedious after a while, even in such good company.
Author: Fan'
Written for:
shadesofbrixton, hope you like it!Fandom: Good Omens
Rating: PG-13?
Beyond Omens, Good or Bad
Some argued that the Earth wasn't supposed to make it to the year 200,057. It was actually an ongoing quarrel, both Up There and Below, whether or not the abortion of the apocalypse back in the twentieth century was part of the Ineffable Plan. Popular belief decreed that it was, and for once Crowley, an Angel who didn't so much Fall as Saunter Vaguely Downward, was inclined to agree with popular belief. It didn't mean he had to like it, though, and some of the time he really wished the damn Ineffable Plan had had the world end thousands of years ago. Because eternity could get really long, especially towards the end.
But the very specific situation he was in now, the situation his angel associate was in now with him, well, it sort of made up for the long and boring centuries (none of which had been a repeat of the fourteenth, thankfully, though a handful had come dangerously close). The situation they were in now sort of made him really grateful that the world had not come to an end, all the more so because as time passed it took more and more to surprise Crowley, and they never really were good surprises. Except this time he really was utterly and completely surprised, and pleasantly so, at that.
Never, in all his 204 centuries of existence, had Crowley ever thought he would actually be standing next to a very naked Aziraphale, at least not unless it involved some sort of dire and formidable mischief on his part. He had, of course, entertained the thought. They'd been working against each other (or so they reported to their respective bosses) for entirely too long not to become close friends, after a fashion, and Crowley was a demon. You could not parade such an angelic disposition, an open and loving face, in front of a demon and expect him not to want to corrupt and debase it in the most pleasurable ways. Lust definitely was one of the sins demons had all luxury to indulge in; it was in fact highly encouraged by the Authorities Below, though Crowley had his doubts as to whether they had meant for lust to be exercised for an angel, an Enemy, one who, Crowley was convinced, would never give in to that particular temptation. He blamed that on the amount of time he'd spent around Men, who definitely had a thing for ill-conceived attraction, star-crossed lovers and other such romantic nonsense. It might be romantic, but it was also highly unpractical.
So yes, Crowley had entertained the thought, but he had never believed that his powers of temptation were so great that he could have Aziraphale give in to that particular one. And indeed, his powers of temptation had nothing to do with the situation they were now in. Which was admittedly slightly vexing.
But then he didn't even know whether Aziraphale had a sexuality, was actually fairly convinced he didn't, and didn't plan on getting one either. Anyone who met the angel was shortly convinced that he was the greatest poof to ever walk the earth (or whatever planet, moon or colony they were on at the time), but Crowley knew better. It was a well-known fact that angels were sexless unless they really wanted to make an effort, and he didn't see what could possess his angelic associate into wanting to make such an effort. Truth be told, possessing a libido could be something of a bother. Indulging in lustful activities was all well and good, but the other side of the libidinous coin became apparent when certain urges started surfacing, urges that targeted one specific angel that, granted, wasn't the most gorgeous and perfect being of the creation, but was the only thing on Crowley's mind when engaging in said lustful activities, no matter his partner (or, more often than not, lack thereof).
Their Arrangement had been in place for thousands upon thousands of years now, what did you honestly expect? There was only so much half-hearted denial any demon could go through before they had to face up to the fact that, dear God (because such an admission was cause for blasphemy), that angel with his blond locks and disgustingly innocent blue eyes was just to be sanctified for.
The one time they had brushed the subject of sexuality was in the forty-ninth century, Crowley remembered, back when he was still convinced that what he felt for Aziraphale was nothing but an incredibly misplaced friendship. They had been sitting on a terrace in the hippest place in Cairo (Egypt had been quite the thing that year, due to the return of triangle fashion) when the demon had remarked on what seemed to be Man's growing tendency to no longer merely explore the universe, but shag his way through it.
Aziraphale had looked at him pensively, then made a small non-committal pout. "They'll grow out of it," he'd said dismissively.
The matter would have rested at that, but Crowley hadn't been ready to let it. "Don't underestimate lust, angel. It's one of the seven."
"They come and go. Greed, pride and envy," the angel had shuddered as he listed the sins, "those have had their turns. Now it's lust. They'll go through the others in time."
"And you're not bothered?" Crowley asked suspiciously.
Aziraphale had shrugged philosophically. "It's always balanced out by one of the Capital Virtues, dear boy."
Crowley had groaned. "I hate how you put capital letters on those."
Aziraphale had smiled sweetly, and in that sweet smile Crowley saw again what he undeniably thought was the undying core of bastardise that enabled him to like the angel despite his many and obvious virtues. "These days it's Hope. They're trying to achieve the unachievable... and admittedly using a rather decadent way of carrying it through. But they strive for a peaceful coexistence with all species."
"They strive for enjoyable fornication with all species," Crowley had retorted, piqued that Aziraphale would take something so very sinful and present it in a somewhat virtuous light. Then he'd let the matter rest.
And there they stood now, as naked as Adam and Eve back in the days (that matter of an ingenuously-placed leaf was absolutely ludicrous and pure invention of the clergy, both Aziraphale and he could testify to that), and Crowley could only stare at the angel's body.
They'd both been wandering around in the same bodies for ages (literally), but they weren't the worse for wear. Crowley had actually grown pretty fond of his. The high cheekbones had earned him a few admirers, even though the face held no mesmerising beauty; it could morph into the most interesting expression of mischief, and that was all that mattered really. He kept his body constantly tanned, since he liked the darker complexion better and thought that it somehow made up for his lack of stunning physical attributes.
That said, there was absolutely nothing especially stunning about Aziraphale's body either. It was not particularly muscular, neither thin nor fat, and looked about thirty. The fact that it was about 200 000 years old really didn't show. It was covered in some sort of very light down, almost invisible to the eye; it had taken sixty centuries for Crowley to notice it, and a couple more decades before he admitted that, try though he might to cling to his disgust at the sight, he actually liked it. He'd taken to brushing Aziraphale's arm now and then, to feel the down's softness under his fingertips. Now he could see that, indeed, it covered every inch of Aziraphale's body (one fewer question he hadn't thought he'd ever get the answer to), though it was denser in places... places where his gaze now tended to linger, truth be told.
Crowley wasn't entirely sure how this situation had come about. They'd both been drunk, that much was certain. They'd been sitting in a small Japanese place (or had it been Korean? Asian, in any case, unless it had been French), drinking sake (or had it been wine? red, white, rosé? champagne?)... No. That had been last century. He remembered now. They'd been in a VIP lounge in the middle of New York's classiest neighbourhood (or maybe it had been in the unexpectedly select area Manchester's Canal Street had become over the centuries?*), nursing triple vodkas and mourning days past, days of better damn booze than this.
Crowley was passably certain that Aziraphale had been the one to wish the bottle of Château Laffite into existence, and fairly annoyed that the angel had done so without even letting him tempt him first. The demon had made up for it by making damn sure the bottle never emptied.
That was how they had got drunk. The question remained as to how the drunkenness had led to this precise moment in time.
The lounge had been packed with television sets, as was the whole planet really. Crowley knew the television sets had played a part.
They'd been arguing about the alien races, as they did now and then, about who should get credit for which one, and whether they were part of the ever so famous and frankly quite tedious Ineffable Plan. Crowley always got off on suggesting that maybe they were part of Someone Else's Plan, that maybe all they'd ever taken for granted was wrong, that maybe the One Up There wasn't the only one who got the trick of creating Life down.
And, given some of those alien species, that maybe those other players actually did a better job than Him.
It never failed to ruffle Aziraphale's feathers the wrong way, which never failed to make Crowley smirk (and, as was often the case when he was having a grand time – or when he was off his game – lapse back into hissing fits).
But one of the television sets had distracted Crowley somehow. They all broadcasted those reality shows, something else along with the Spanish Inquisition that had earned Crowley an undeserved commendation**. Except somewhere along the line (year 200 000 to be exact) something had gone extremely wrong, which ought to have been cause for celebration to all Beings of the Nether Reaches but left Crowley with a hint of the bad aftertaste of a hungover morning***.
Crowley had always supported the theory that Men came up with much more horrible things than Hell ever could (and Aziraphale had his own theory that it was only thanks to that that Men could achieve holiness, something to do with free will), but this was just beyond anything else. Crowley had always sort of liked Men, though it didn't sit well with his superiors, but for a few decades now he'd turned towards aliens to find himself a new pet species. Only none of them were quite as fascinating as Men (which were only fascinating in the same way a car crash was, mind you, only now the car crash had taken horrific proportions and even he didn't seem to want to keep watching).
Those reality shows had been perverted into killing institutions, and Big Brother was now nothing but a series of slaughter houses.
That said, it didn't explain how he could now be staring at Aziraphale's belly button, and following a trail of denser down all the way down to... Crowley decided he really quite liked Aziraphale's mortal coil, even more than he had thought.
Yes, there had been something about pale, naked flesh on screen. Extreme Makeover, that was the program, and it had caught his eye when the participant had appeared stripped. He had stopped in the middle of his sentence (something about how whoever had thought up the Face of Bo must have the shittiest taste in the universe, which he had planned on using to trap the angel into admitting that it couldn't possibly have been Him, now could it?) and stared at the screen.
"Crowley?" Aziraphale had asked worryingly, and followed his gaze. "'s wrong?"
He had had to cover it up. He couldn't well explain that the naked participant was pretty tall, and pale and blond in a milky way, and that his eyes were likely blue, and that he sort of reminded Crowley of, well, an acquaintance of his he wouldn't mind seeing starkers. "I'ss jusst thinking back t'when I came up wi'the idea for that show," he lied, and prayed that his slurred speech would conceal the telltale hiss.
"Oh nonono," Aziraphale had countered. "You can't take credit f'that one, Crowley. That one was ours. You told me y'self you had nothing to do with the reality shows."
"Sso it wasn'me," Crowley had conceded. "Show's sstill ours. How could it be yours?"
"Because!" Aziraphale had retorted rather more forcefully that he would have done if it weren't for the numerous glasses of wine. "It's about making people happier. Originally. Before the droids started slicin' them up."
"How's that?"
"Improve their self-esteem. Offer the chance to look good to any and everyone. 's a good deed."
"Sounds a fair bit like vanity to me. Were you people rooting for pride to be the next leading sin?" Crowley had encompassed the whole lounge with a wave of his hand, the elite of this world slouching on couches and staring stupidly at the TV sets. "Sloth won, no mistake."
"It's about equal chances, and turning your life 'round. We should go interview the participants. Before they get sliced up," Aziraphale had added after an instant's reflection. "They'll tell you. Originally, it's a show of good. A good show."
"Let usss, then," Crowley had hissed.
They had sobered up as one; stumbling and wobbling forward were hardly proper ways for angels and demons to go about, even less so when they were off to settle a most crucial dispute. They hadn't spoken again until they were in Crowley's modish spaceship, a sleek black thing that never had any technical problems (because those just didn't happen to Crowley), a model B'NtlI that dated back to before the fatidic date of 200 000, back when Man could still produce something of quality. It had a cassette player, even though those had gone out of existence thousands of years ago, simply because Crowley had never stopped expecting them to be an integral part of whatever means of transportation he chose.
Consequently, they had flown towards the Game Station at incredible speed listening to Who wants to live forever****.
After a particularly poignant rendition of the chorus, Aziraphale had chanced speaking up, stating out loud the realisation sobering up had brought them both. "It seems we're on a bit of a fool's errand."
Crowley had groaned his agreement. No matter that he literally had all the time in the world, he still hated wasting his.
"I mean, the show's obviously yours. The wine must have got to my head. Even at its creation, it was clearly centred on vanity and pride. You were right."
Crowley had sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose under the sunglasses he still wore most of the time. "Yeah. Wasn't mine, though. We're on our way, we might as well check it out."
Aziraphale had hesitated, then breathed out, "Yes."
It shouldn't have been possible for any ship that unexpectedly showed up like Crowley's to dock at the Game Station, nor for them to be admitted onto the Extreme Makeover Studio without any question and a least a gun or two pointed their way, but it all did happen without a glitch simply because Crowley couldn't have considered anything else.
"Oh, two for one," one of the droids had grated out with what sounded like approval.
"Stand still for the defabricator," the other had warned.
And before they could ask, protest, or move, their clothes had been artfully defabricated.
Yes, now he remembered. That was how they had gotten there.
"Dear boy," Aziraphale's voice broke through the fascination certain parts of the angel's anatomy held over Crowley, "if you could bear to come back to the present..."
The demon looked up at his associate's face and frowned. There had been something slightly off in his tone, something that threatened his usual calm more deeply and subtly than any temptation or taunt Crowley had ever thrown his way. And now that Crowley saw the way Aziraphale was clearly doing his damnedest to look him in the eye, well, now he felt positively demonic.
A smirk graced his thin lips and he resisted the urge to hiss or lick them with his serpentine tongue. "Yess, angel?" he answered in the best approximation of innocence he was capable of, an approximation rather belittled by the hiss he couldn't repress in his glee.
Aziraphale gulped. "We ought to leave, I do believe..."
"Nah," Crowley dismissed the angel's concern with a wave of a hand. "Let's play a bit first."
"P-play?"
"Ladies," Crowley still hadn't lost the smirk, "we're all yours. Dress us up."
Oh, now. If he had been human, Crowley might have thought he'd died and gone to a very inaccurate view of heaven. Because heaven was, in truth, entirely more boring than this turned out to be. The droids had from the start picked his colour right – black, of course – and he'd pranced and preened about in the different outfits they proposed and discussed, letting them defabricate them off him time and time again. They'd finally all agreed on dark green snakeskin shoes and a matching shirt, as well as a black tie to go with the devilishly well-cut suit that accented the width of his shoulders (which, truth be told, really weren't that wide to start with). They hadn’t asked him to remove his sunglasses, which would never have happened with any other candidate but really didn't seem to phase Crowley any.
All throughout the modelling, Aziraphale had done an excellent job of looking through the racks of clothing for something that would suit his fancy, while throwing occasional guilty and everything-but-discreet glances at his demon associate. It seemed that, while the angel was perfectly at ease with his own nakedness, Crowley's was a bit more than he was willing to handle.
"What do you think?" Crowley finally asked him, spreading his arms and turning around on himself for Aziraphale to get an overall view.
"It suits you."
Crowley smirked again. "Your turn now."
He leaned back against the wall of the room and admired Aziraphale as the droids made him go through white outfit after white outfit, none of which seemed to satisfy them all. As far as he was concerned, Crowley soon made up his mind: he liked Aziraphale best without anything on.
Crowley had never liked white anyway. It was extremely unpractical, for one thing, at least when you weren't Up There where dirt didn't exist. Not only did it get dirty really easily, but all it took was a red sock in the washing machine for it to turn pink. There was really nothing to say for white.
Except that it went very well with Aziraphale's pale complexion, set off the golden shine of his curly hair, and that in turn heightened the spark of his blue eyes.
Finally it seemed that the angel got his way. The droids gave up and let him pick the nondescript straight trousers, cotton sweater and regular shoes he wanted, but they did not relent on the matter of the coat. What they picked for him was not one of his regular long coats, but instead a white leather jacket that showed off his bum when Crowley was lucky enough to be in the angel's back.
"It is time for the face-off," one of the droids announced.
It was time to leave, really. "No, I think we'll be heading off now. Thanks for the clothes," Crowley remarked, and with a smirk, "and the defabrication."
And, just because the demon was hardly going to be held there against his force, Aziraphale and he were able to simply leave. During the silent walk back to the ship, the angel was shrouded in thoughtful silence. Crowley had his hands in the pockets of his new suit, a smirk still on his lips, and was cheerfully whistling Bohemian Rhapsody, which happened to be the upcoming song on the tape.
"Well, that was enlightening," he commented as he started the B'NtlI. "Wouldn't you say?"
"I liked my old coat better," Aziraphale answered mournfully, and took the offending garment off.
"I like that one better."
"You do?" And Aziraphale, who had been looking at the jacket and probably about to turn it into his usual coat with a wave of the hand, paused and considered the matter.
"So, angel," Crowley spoke up once he had set the ship on an orbit around earth. He expertly took off his sunglasses and slid them in his breast pocket, revealing reptilian golden eyes. "You're aware you still haven't got any better at lying. I think it's because of this whole absence of free will for us deal. You angel types just don't cut it as far as lying's concerned."
"What are you getting at?"
"Just keep it in mind when you answer this," Crowley answered with his best "watch out, here comes mischief" expression. "Back there... were you perhaps – tempted – by me?"
"That," Aziraphale replied, clearly flustered but unable to look away, "is between me and my Maker."
Crowley rolled his eyes. "Why do you always have to bring Him in?" He stood up and took off his jacket, hanging it on the back of his seat, then started unbuttoning his shirt. "I think it's time we dropped the pretence. You don't serve Him any more than I do the Morning Star. I just love wrong things, and a few right ones, and you love right things, and a few wrong ones. And we try not to disobey Them too overtly, because things could become very unpleasant for us, of the shit-hits-fan variety."
"Why are you undressing?"
"No defabricator handy." He took off the shoes, and the trousers followed. "Where was I? Oh, yes. Back in the times of Armageddon-That-Wasn't, we pretty much had to face up to that. Our Arrangement's not so much an arrangement as, well, a friendship." He walked closer to Aziraphale, absolutely stark naked, and smirked. This time he did hiss, serpentine tongue sliding out between his teeth, and he revelled in it. "And I've just had an epiphany. Let's have ssexsss."
"I-I beg your pardon?" Aziraphale let out in a high-pitched voice, but made no move to push Crowley off when the demon straddled him.
"Trust me. You'll love it."
~~the end~~
* Crowley still hadn't determined whether the end result, a gathering place for people rich, vain and greedy, was something to be prouder of than what it had originally been in the twentieth century, when it teemed with all manners of people that were either sexually confused or on the contrary very clear on what they wanted, with most of them intent on debauchery and cavorting. Those had been the good times... but still the whole thing had reeked of such an atmosphere of tolerance and acceptance that Crowley had never been fully convinced it was such a horrible place. As it was, you could find no such tolerance in the neighbourhood now.
** Just because there might just be no Armageddon at the end of the road after the letdown of the first attempt didn't mean demons and angels would ever stop competing, although Crowley and Aziraphale were something of a special case.
*** Not that he had ever been hungover, but Crowley had studied the exquisite phenomenon extensively, as such a state made men cranky and therefore much more prone to wrong-doing. He had gathered that the bad aftertaste of a hungover morning depended on what you had eaten in the past twelve hours, given that would be what you'd throw up in the toilets or by the side of the road, combined with the pounding agony of a dreadful headache and the bitter knowledge that it could have been easily avoided by refusing a glass or twenty the previous night.
**** After over 200 000 years of existence, Crowley and Aziraphale could have told you that it was a very valid question. Armageddon should have long come, but instead it had come, not happened, and gone back the way it came, and now it seemed that they were truly in for eternal life. Needless to say, it got tedious after a while, even in such good company.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2005-09-29 10:45 am (UTC)*scurries off to go put on the master page*
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Date: 2005-09-29 01:54 pm (UTC)But, anyway. I'm so happy you think I nailed them, I really tried to get the same sort of style and voice as Pratchett and Gaiman. Including the footnotes (wish I could have used anchors so that you didn't have to scroll all the way down and then back up, but I have no clue how to do that in LJ).
*frollicks off, ecstatic that you liked it*
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Date: 2005-09-29 02:43 pm (UTC)However, I think I saw them being used, two weeks ago.
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Date: 2005-09-29 05:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-30 01:45 am (UTC)So I have faith in anchors. ;-)
And sometimes I wonder about javascriptno subject
Date: 2005-09-30 03:40 pm (UTC)*hugs the story and calls it George!*
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Date: 2005-09-30 03:57 pm (UTC)George, eh?