temptational | Open post

[ It had been several years since their latest lunch, though in a friendship that spanned six thousand years, was really rather inconsequential. Aziraphale wasn't sure if Crowley was just going to sleep through the rest of the century, and he found himself thinking it would be quite a shame if he did.

He stared at his phone, the one with an old rotary dial that he'd kept in good condition since he'd bought it in the 1930s, but thought to himself that he'd get around to it tomorrow. After all, people in general did not like to be disturbed from their sleep and he imagined that if it wasn't important, he probably shouldn't, just in case.

A month later, he'd come around to picking up the phone, and even dialed in a single digit, before hanging up once more.

Aziraphale was in the shop when he'd heard a hard knock. ]

Terribly sorry, but we're closed!

[ The knocking persists, so Aziraphale eventually gets up from his desk and musters up a polite but stern expression. Yet, when the door swings open, it falls from his face. ]

Crowley! Heavens, are you quite alright?

He wasn't sure where it had all gone wrong--

Well, that wasn't true. He knew exactly where it had all gone wrong, did Crowley.

The Italian countryside in the 13th century wasn't his favorite place to be, so far in the last several millennia of Earth's existence, but it wasn't the worst either. It should have been an easy enough job, to get up there and mess with the burgeoning little crusade the French had going on, bunch of young peasants following around some shepherd boy on the notion that they were all going to the Holy Land, misguided by the boy's ridiculous claim that he carried a letter from Jesus Christ. Last time Crowley had seen that poor bugger he'd been on his cross, and hadn't made it back to Earth in person yet from what Crowley'd heard, though his followers were always claiming this or that as a portent for the end times. He knew what his bosses wanted, for the crusaders to reach the Mediterranean and march into the arms of the slave trade business that was thriving in the area. But though Crowley enjoyed a holy crusade dissolving into chaos as much as the next demon, he didn't particularly enjoy the wailing of children, so he diverted the slavers with a few shipwrecks (nasty time of year to be sailing the Mediterranean, he'd tell Hastur, always storms around) and intercepted the crusade near the southern coast of Italy.

It should have been so easy to stop them there--curse this so-called letter, make it so that the next time the shepherd boy tried reading it his flock he'd start gibbering in unholy tongues and they'd likely all run away screaming. All very simple, he thought, until he touched the letter.

It burned like he imagined holy water must feel in those few terrible moments before your body simply combusted and ceased to exist. Except Crowley didn't combust, he just went on and on burning, the blackened scorch-marks and oozing red, raw wounds scoring his palms, crawling slowly up the insides of his wrists, his forearms, beginning to creep past his elbows when he'd taken shelter in some fisherman's hut and collapsed against the brackish-smelling floor. There he closed his eyes and grit his teeth and concentrating on trying to combat it, trying to push the holiness out, curses forcing themselves past his lips as hours crawled by and he managed only to slow the burns' progression.

Edited 2019-06-30 18:12 (UTC)

After leaving the bookshop Crowley wanders, still in a daze, and finds himself back at his flat without quite remembering how he'd gotten there. He's filled up, in a way he can't remember being for long centuries, as though he was starving and is now finally sated, and his thoughts scatter and meander with no particular order to them, dwelling here and there on the memories of Aziraphale's pulse jumping beneath his mouth, his fingers caressing through Crowley's hair, and all the words, all the loving praise Aziraphale spoke to him, that Crowley drank in desperately, hardly knowing how much he'd needed to hear it. He has the strange, light-headed feeling that he's been absolutely ruined, and perhaps made anew. Winding his way towards his bed, not so much deciding to as following an instinctive need for sleep, he collapses face-down across the mattress, only stirring long enough to miracle shoes and shirt away before falling into a blank, heavy sleep.

He isn't sure how long he sleeps or when he begins to dream. But the dream feels like a long one, sweet and lingering: lying in lush grass with the scent of ripe things growing all around, his head in Aziraphale's lap and the angel's fingers in his hair, long red strands of hair, stroking through them as they lengthen and curl.

Crowley wakes at last to a soft and persistent knocking on his door, for several moments unable to identify the sound before he realizes that he's in his flat, in his bed--under the covers now, cocooned in a messy pile of sheets and blankets--and that it's Aziraphale knocking, it must be, because no one else comes to visit him here. No one who knows what's good for them, anyway. He struggles out from under the blankets, mumbles, "’m coming, angel," and remembers to pull on a shirt before making his way out of the bedroom and to the door. There's an unusual weight on his shoulders, spilling down his back--at first he wonders vaguely if his wings have come out, not paying much attention, but then when about to reach the door he suddenly stops dead.

His hair. It's long, grown out in thick waves, almost as long as it became in the dream, as long as it was when he and Aziraphale first met. He feels an anxious, mortified twist in his stomach, thinking for a brief moment of miracling it back the way it was, but--Aziraphale will like it. The realization makes him hesitate, and slowly lower the hand that was about to gesture it back into order. Aziraphale will love it. That's worth anything, Crowley thinks, and he resolutely reaches for the door and opens it.

Years later, it surprises him how little really has changed, since the night that he and Aziraphale promised themselves to one another: how little notice Heaven and Hell seem to take of them, content that things are going along like they should as time marches on ever steadily towards Armageddon. Crowley doesn't trust surprises, views them with a great deal of suspicion, in fact--but he's not one to poke a nest of sleeping vipers either (he should know not to, being their cousin) and if Beelzebub and the others think all is as it should be on earth, so much the better. He keeps the holy water carefully sealed away, checking on its hiding place now and again to be sure it hasn't gone and evaporated on him or any such thing, brooding over the possibilities as decades wear on and the Antichrist at last arrives. When he does, it seems only natural to enlist Aziraphale's help.

The boy Warlock needs a nanny, his house needs a gardener: they fall into their roles together, and tending to the Dowlings' household means that they can virtually live together, as long as the nanny is not discovered in flagrante delicto in the gardener's bed. At night, when the Dowlings are asleep and the protection detail are looking the other way, Crowley steals into the gardener's cottage on the estate, where he and Aziraphale shed their disguises. Sometimes Crowley sleeps, sometimes not; he longs for those hours with Aziraphale, a quality of desperation to them as though they grasp for what time they have left before the end of the world.

That night he does sleep, because the next the Dowlings will be off on an early flight overseas, and so there's little for Nanny Ashtoreth to do after tucking young Warlock into bed. Which means he can wake with Aziraphale, linger for hours with him instead of stealing back early to the main house. He supposes Aziraphale may have some gardening he ought to be getting on with--then again, Crowley had a rather emphatic word with the landscaping before going to the cottage the night before, so the flowerbeds won't dare be too demanding. Dawn comes, light flooding the cottage, but Crowley only buries his head in the pillow, determined to wring as much enjoyment out of a late morning as he can.

It's been a few weeks since the subject came up during their (first) picnic in St. James Park, but Aziraphale still hasn't fallen asleep, let alone dreamed.

Angels don't sleep. And although he is far from a typical angel, Aziraphale has never felt the desire to try it until recently, and it doesn't come naturally. Even curled up in post-coital bliss with Crowley, he doesn't drift off. He'd rather watch his beloved sleep instead, features smooth and peaceful in slumber. Eventually the angel's attention drifts to the pile of books on the nightstand (his or Crowley's, a good number of his books have found their way into the demon's flat). Just a few pages, he tells himself, and before he knows it, the light of dawn is creeping in through the windows and his thoughts turn to that delightful bakery on the corner with the exquisite pain au chocolat.

He really would like to have a dream, though, if only to understand what sort of spell it can cast, how it managed to coax Crowley into growing his hair out long. So, in the middle of the afternoon, in the back of his bookshop with the sign on the door turned to 'closed', Aziraphale lies on his couch, preparing to take a nap. He's traded in his jacket for a comfortable cardigan, his bow-tie undone and shoes off. The desk and nearby table are cleared of books so he doesn't get distracted.

Crowley is there, though. Whether he proves to be a distraction or not is irrelevant. It won't do to wake up from a dream and not find his precious demon within arm's reach.

The glorious ceremony, behind them now--the choir singing, the priest speaking words of holiness and blessing, all as painful as it had been to simply stand on the consecrated ground of the cathedral, but Crowley in a perverse, defiant way enjoyed it. What a novelty, a demon married off to an angel, their union blessed by God. He's certain it's the most original, inventive thing any demon in the history of Creation has ever done, and will be talked about for all eternity down Below, just as surely as it will be Above: the denizens of Hell sure that Crowley must have managed the ultimate temptation, the angels convincing themselves that surely this is all some clever ruse to keep as close an eye on their demonic brethren as possible. It makes him gleeful to think of it, but in truth it's the smallest part of this entirely vivid, overwhelming bliss that has struck into his very soul, so that he holds his head up high in the church like any bride very much in love with her groom, physical discomfort almost forgotten beneath so much sheer joy.

Then the feasting and the dancing, and if anyone notices that la principessa takes little food it can surely be excused away as nerves about the wedding night. Crowley would like to drink more, but it wouldn't do to have the court witness the bride imbibing too much. Still, he shares a few extra toasts with Aziraphale while miracling attention away from them, and there is more wine waiting in their bedchambers. The feasting goes very late but at last they're permitted to escape, Crowley leaning more heavily on Aziraphale once they're out of sight.

Which only reminds him what a joy it is to touch his angel, to hold him or be held, and everything else that might be permitted tonight and in the nights to come; how much love blazes in him so that he feels as though he can't contain it, and Crowley stops them along the way to drag Aziraphale into an alcove and kiss him urgently.

Edited 2019-09-07 12:42 (UTC)

Aziraphale, Crowley decides, is not allowed at any more parties without him: he's sure this has to be the third or fourth time he's gotten himself in trouble at one this century. Why he insisted on attending this one dressed so absurdly he doesn't know--soft blond curls piled on top of his head, rouged cheeks and pink lips, and that gown, all gauzy fabric and ribbons, clinging just where it oughtn't for an angel who intends to remain holy. Crowley mutters something in a dark voice and turns back to glare at the three mortals who'd been getting entirely too close and handsy for his taste, putting the fear of Crowley back into them with a flash of a rancorous yellow gaze. One appears to be in a swoon: he'd gotten the full force of the face Crowley had shown him. None of them are entirely sure what they saw, too stunned with confusion and terror, but it will haunt their deepest nightmares for years to come.

"You owe me for this," Crowley tells Aziraphale, dragging him out onto the grounds of the house where the party is being held, laughter and music and the light of glittering chandeliers spilling out onto the dark lawns. "Supposed to be spreading temptation, not saving you from--from--" He stammers, getting distracted by staring at Aziraphale in his gown. His fingers pinch a little fold of the skirt, gingerly. "Whatever you were doing."

Of course, Crowley's dressed the part too, more or less, in a tailcoat, waistcoat and breeches, all unfashionably black. He had a top hat at one point but must have put it down somewhere; oh well, can always conjure another. He's really not sure about going back to the party, though. It doesn't seem a good idea to let Aziraphale out anywhere dressed like that.

Edited 2019-10-05 15:18 (UTC)

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