Chapter Text
“What’s that then, fanfiction?” Michael asks, nonchalantly. They have been filming series two of Good Omens for a couple of weeks now, and it feels like they've exhausted every topic on Earth. Michael takes a long sip of his wine. The hotel bar has already quieted around them.
David waves his hand dismissively and crinkles his nose. “Oh, you don’t want to know. It’s nothing.” David shifts in his seat and starts babbling nonsense about a film he’s seen on Netflix.
Michael frowns. If he didn’t want to know before, he most certainly wants to now that someone’s trying to keep it from him.
“No, wait,” he says, cutting David off mid-sentence. David looks dismayed. “Tell me. Is it like – it’s not porn, is it?”
“How should I know?” David says, high-pitched and defensive, pouring himself another glass of Merlot. “I don’t go out looking for it, Sheen.” His accent is stronger when he’s had a few drinks.
“But you know of it,” Michael presses, leaning forward in his chair. “It’s porn, isn’t it. They are writing pornography about our characters, that’s it, isn’t it?”
David rolls his eyes, leaning back. He sighs, looking resigned. “Yeah. Yep.”
“Oh,” Michael says, doesn’t really know what to do with the information now that he has it. “Okay, then. Great.” He considers this for a moment, then grins. “Can’t believe you are so sheepish about it.”
David opens his mouth to argue, but Michael cuts him off again, asking him something about the Netflix film. David jumps at the chance to change the subject, and soon they are talking about guilty pleasure reality shows.
In the back of Michael’s mind, though, his curiosity has been piqued.
**
Some two hours and a few more glasses of wine later, Michael’s back in his hotel room. He’s tired, but he picks up his laptop and opens it with a lop-sided smile. He needs to know.
He has to laugh at himself when he types in questionable search words and hopes to god his laptop isn’t hacked and this won’t somehow end up on the front page of the Daily Mail. The search is shorter than expected. Somehow Michael had figured he would have to go in deep to find this stuff, but apparently his search had been expertly executed, as a few story titles grab his attention at once.
He clicks on the first one. Still, even through the haze of the somewhat copious amounts of alcohol and the amusement over what he’s doing, he feels slightly paranoid he’s about to accidentally share the page on Twitter.
His eyes dart on the words. The author’s notes read Sorry. But also, you all know I’m not sorry, not really.
Michael has no idea what to make of that.
The story begins innocent enough, Crowley visiting Aziraphale in his bookshop, browsing through the horror section.
“You have anything decent about demons?” Crowley hollers, emerging lazily from between the shelves. For once he’s not wearing his sunglasses, maybe because it’s just the two of them in the shop. Somehow, Aziraphale finds himself easily lost in those eyes, in the raw, tantalising beauty of them.
“I’m afraid not,” he replies, a beat too late. Crowley considers him, and Aziraphale feels uneasy. Sometimes he thinks – fears – Crowley might be able to read him better than he lets on.
“I am bored,” Crowley complains, taking a few steps forward. His eyes are still fixed on Aziraphale, looking at him so intensely Aziraphale feels like he can’t move, can’t breathe – and though he, admittedly, is an angel and doesn’t technically need to breathe, he starts to feel light-headed.
“I – I’m ever so sorry to hear it,” Aziraphale offers meekly, swallowing. He notes how Crowley’s eyes move downward to watch how his throat works.
“I might have a few ideas, Angel,” Crowley drawls, and suddenly his hand is on Aziraphale’s cheek.
“What are you -” he begins, alarmed, but Crowley shushes him.
“It’s okay. I’ll take care of you, okay? You just need to trust me for a minute.”
Aziraphale looks him in the eye. For all the evil he’s supposed to find there, he only manages to find kindness. Crowley looks earnest. His hand is still lingering on Aziraphale’s cheek, warm and so tempting.
“But you are a demon,” Aziraphale breathes. Crowley’s so close now, hovering in his personal space. He smells something like cinnamon, sweet and familiar. “I can’t trust you.”
Crowley gives him a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes, and for a second, Aziraphale regrets his words. He doesn’t like upsetting Crowley, it makes his insides curl up in a ball.
“I’ll kiss you now, Angel,” Crowley says, little more than a whisper.
Michael blinks. The story goes on to describe an angel and a demon kissing, and for some reason, he finds he can’t stop reading. The story is ridiculous and out of character and yet, Michael doesn’t find it as funny as he thought he would. For some reason, his heart is pounding slightly.
There’s a part two to the story that’s pure filth, and Michael reads that, too, doesn’t even skip a word. He’s never really seen gay porn if not by accident and he’s certainly never read it. It’s odd to picture what’s essentially him and David doing these things. It unsettles him how much it’s not unpleasant.
Not at all unpleasant, in fact, rather the opposite.
Michael blames his hard-on on being drunk and laughs at himself, closes his laptop after carefully deleting his browser history and goes to sleep. He intends never to return to the world of fanfiction, but it has certainly been an experience.
What an odd night, he thinks, amused, before falling asleep.
**
The next day, when he sees David, his heart skips a beat. He swallows.
“You alright?” David greets him, narrowing his eyes. “Hangover?”
“Yeah, a bit,” Michael says, even though it’s not really true. The truth would be something along the lines of, spent an hour last night reading porn about our characters and now I see you and think of your naked body, but somehow he feels David wouldn’t appreciate the honesty. Michael’s stomach is full of inconvenient butterfly friends, yet he has to stifle a giggle. It’s so absurd.
“Right.” David considers him, frowning, making Michael feel exposed. David is a perceptive bugger, and Michael hastily tries to make him think of something else.
“I think Shooby should’ve won The Circle,” he blurts, placing his now empty cup of coffee on the table between himself and David, like a barrier.
**
Throughout the day he finds he sees David in a way he’s never seen him before. Of course, he’s always known he’s a dashing chap, all charm and beautiful bone structure, but he’s never stopped to think how – for a lack of a better word – gorgeous he is.
“Cut,” the director says and Michael blinks. He grimaces. He needs to get his head out of his arse and try to remember to say his lines out loud instead of only lovingly gazing over at David, who is looking at him again with a quizzical, slightly worried expression on his face. He’s wearing the contacts so Michael knows he can basically see fuck-all, but somehow his gaze still manages to make Michael squirm.
Jesus, he thinks, panicked. You are an old man, not a teenager. Out loud he calls, “Sorry! What’s the line?” Even though he knows the line.
When the day is over, Michael retires to his room quickly, doesn’t stick around long enough to give anyone a chance to ask him down to the bar for drinks.
In his room, he looks at his laptop like everything is its fault. He takes a shower and gets comfortable in his bed. It has been a long day, and he had barely slept the night before, but he feels wide awake. His phone buzzes on the table but Michael doesn’t have it in him to reach for it.
Instead, he opens his computer and goes down a rabbit hole. When he clears the browser history, his heart pounding and chest still heaving from the orgasm, he isn’t sure he’s ever felt so bad.
He glances at his phone and sees a text from David. "Ok, I'll give it to you. Shooby should have won."
Michael feels even worse.
**
“Mate,” David says to him in the morning. “You look like crap.”
Michael forces a smile and scratches his head. “I haven’t been sleeping that well,” he says, which is true. As long as he doesn’t need to explain why, he isn’t lying and David won’t be able to tell he’s lying with his perceptive superpowers.
“Ah,” David says, all sympathy and big eyes, a hand coming up to rest on the small of Michael’s back for a second and it’s all Michael can do to keep from jolting. “Why’s that?”
That bloody bastard.
“I don’t know,” he stammers and it’s amazing, really, how he ever managed to become an actor, because apparently, he can't act for shit.
David appears to be thinking along the same lines. “Hey,” he says, voice low, glancing around as if to check there’s nobody around. “If there’s a problem you can tell me. I know I can be a tit sometimes,” he adds, like an afterthought, and Michael’s heart drops.
“It’s not -” he starts, alarmed, eager to at least make David understand that it’s nothing he’s done. “Mate, it’s not you – it’s me.”
David laughs at that. “Are you breaking up with me?” he teases, a wide grin spreading on his face. There’s a hint of a stubble on his face, and Michael wants nothing more than to run his fingers over it.
Michael smiles. “Dear,” he says warmly, “I would never.”
“Thought so,” David says, all flirt and charm. “See you tonight for drinks?”
“Of course,” Michael says, and watches as David disappears to the make up trailer.
This is it, Michael thinks, this is the midlife crisis.