Work Text:
Now
“Come on, angel.”
The buzz of the ring signal was getting on his nerves already. “Come on.”
A click, finally. A peevish, beloved voice. “AZ Fell’s bookshop, we’re quite closed at the moment.”
“Angel! Finally!”
“Crowley? Is something the matter?”
Crowley grinned at the assembled crowd and said through his teeth, “I need you to come get me. Now.”
“What the-- are you hurt? Is something the matter?”
“Not hurt, everything’s fine, just get OVER here.”
“I... all right, but you simply must give me some idea of what’s going on when I get there.”
“Are you done yet? It’s my turn,” said a young... person, swathed up in leather and denim and a drawn-on five o’clock shadow.
“I’ll tell you everything, just get over here,” Crowley grated, and snapped his mobile off with more force than should have been possible. The world really lost something when phones with handsets you could slam went out of fashion.
He tucked the mobile in his pocket and smiled. “Okay. You’re next. Ready?” and he flashed a grin for the camera.
Last Week
“Are you quite sure that’s a good idea?”
Aziraphale raised an eyebrow at him over those tiny glasses. Crowley refused to let himself be distracted.
“It’ll be fun. You’ve been wanting to spend some more time at the shop anyway. And what kind of demon would I be if I let an opportunity like this pass by?”
“A reasonable one,” Aziraphale said. “You don’t even like that show.”
“Sure I do. It’s hilarious.”
“You subjected me to a lengthy rant about all the ways in which they ‘got it all wrong,’ as I recall. And you were particularly annoyed at how they presented that one fellow, what was his name... oh, yes, it was Crowley.”
“Right, yeah, they could have left me out of it, fair, but come on! I’ll get to go in dressed as a demon. Nobody will even blink at the eyes, everyone will think it’s just contacts. Do you know how much fun I could have in a situation like that?”
“By which you mean how much petty mischief you could get into, naturally?”
“Well, naturally.”
Aziraphale peered at him for a few more seconds, then sighed and picked up his copy of the Celestial Observer. “I won’t forbid you, dearest. I only ask that you be careful and consider that the humans who enjoy such an entertainment might have a few things on hand that could damage even you.”
“I hardly think they’re all going to be running around with blessed weapons, angel. And even if someone did stumble into one, they’ve all got to be zip-tied into sheaths at the door.” Crowley dropped down onto the sofa and leaned his chin on Aziraphale’s shoulder. “I checked.”
Aziraphale set his newspaper back down. “I think this is a bad idea.”
“You could come with me if you want. Be my angel buddy. We’d just have to get you a regular tie. And a trench coat.”
“Crowley!” It had been a while since he had managed that level of affronted indignation from his angel, and he wasn’t even sure whether it was the trench coat or...
No. It was the tie. He’d love a trench coat. Probably even had one in his closet somewhere. Probably original to the Great War, come to that.
Hmm. Best not dwell there.
“You don’t have to go. Really. You can just hang out in the shop and laugh at people who try to figure out what your hours are, if you want.” He waved vaguely around the cottage. “Could even stay here, if you’d rather.”
“What has brought this on, my dear?”
“It... it looks like fun. And I can’t get up to any of the really fun mischief here, you always get cross. ‘Oooh, Crowley, noooo, Crowley, these are our neighbors, Crowley...’”
“Oh, Crowley... are you just... bored?”
“Not bored of you, angel.” He snuggled in closer. “Never bored of you. But sometimes the itch gets a bit strong, yeah.”
Aziraphale looked at him for a long moment, a smile creeping onto those prim angelic lips. “Oh, very well. Only you must promise me to be careful.”
“Demon scout’s honor. If there was such a thing.” Crowley leaned in and brushed a kiss across Aziraphale’s mouth. “And you’ll come to London with me?”
“I suppose I must. Someone should be around when things go pear-shaped.”
“That’s it, angel, really show me how much faith you have in me.”
Two Hours Ago
This was even more fun than he’d expected, Crowley considered. There were plenty of people with eyes weirder than his, thanks to human costume ingenuity; he’d taken his sunglasses off some time ago and nobody noticed beyond complimenting his contacts and asking him if he could see through them. Well, and one or two people who asked where he got them, who only smiled and nodded when he told them they were custom. It was true, after all. There wasn’t another pair of eyes like his anywhere in the world (or above or below it, for that matter).
He’d seen at least one person in three different costumes so far, and had shifted his own outfit a few times-- first a subtle change to the cut of his jacket, a restyling of his hair; then for a while he wandered about in jeans and a loose blue shirt. And again, nobody noticed or cared. This was the best place-- nobody expected you to look the same all the time. Everyone had come here to see and be seen and show off their costumes, and he could make all the changes he wanted.
And oh, the opportunities for mischief! A tweak to the functioning of a sound system or the connections for programs, and the resulting annoyance was delicious. Aziraphale wouldn’t even be able to get too mad at him for it, not once he pointed out that everyone had been somewhat vexingly kind about it all. Audience members shouted jokes or helpful (or unhelpful) suggestions, and the presenters carried on regardless in good humor. A subtle weakening to the construction of a costume was met with a yelp when it failed, but then other people had offered to help fix it.
All that good will--it’d be enough to make a demon throw in the towel completely if he wasn’t already retired. But he was, and he couldn’t help thinking how much Aziraphale would love it.
He was walking through the halls enjoying himself thoroughly, right up until he ran into an invisible wall.
Someone collided with him from behind as he fetched up short, said sorry, and bustled around him, right through the unseen barrier.
Crowley frowned and put a hand on it. Almost no give, and it didn’t feel holy but it definitely wasn’t letting him through. Fine, then, he’d--
“Oh, look, he’s caught in the devil’s trap! That’s dedication,” said someone.
Crowley looked up, around to the sides, feeling his way along the wall. Then down to the patterned carpet where...
Oh. Oh, bollocks.
How had they got it right? Everything in the bloody show was wrong, how had they got this, this of all things, right?
Sitting on the floor beneath him, looking enough like all the other booths with floor panels or cloths that he hadn’t noticed, was a mat printed as a stone floor with a devil’s trap on it. It butted up to a little backdrop of the same kind of thing, printed with stones.
“Come on, mate, you’re holding up traffic.”
Fine, this was easily fixable. Crowley snapped, aiming at the lines on the mat.
Nothing happened.
He snapped again, to pull himself away entirely.
Nothing.
Bollocks.
“If you’re gonna just stand there, mind if I get a shot with you? Those are the best contacts I’ve ever seen.”
Crowley turned to find a young woman in t-shirt and jeans looking at him questioningly.
He blinked, then grinned widely. When stuck, do the best you can, he guessed. “Of course!” he said, and spread his arms wide. “Where do you want me?”
Now
Crowley smiled for one more set of cameras and ground his teeth. Aziraphale was certainly taking his own sweet time--
“Pardon me, I believe it’s my turn now,” said a prim voice, and he spun on his heel.
“Angel! You... you didn’t.”
“You asked me to come, dearest.” Aziraphale stepped up next to him, wearing a trench coat (oh god it really was from the war, he remembered that coat) and a loose long tie. “Now do hand your mobile to one of these nice young people so we can have a photograph?”
“What are you going to do with a picture?”
“Frame it and hang it on the wall as a memento, of course.” Aziraphale smiled brightly and held out his hand. “Mobile, please?”
He sighed and handed it over. “You’re not gonna let me live this down, are you.”
“I absolutely am not. However...” A snap, and a small pop beneath his feet.
Crowley felt power flooding back into him and sagged with relief. “Cheers, angel.”
“Of course! I’m always here for you. Now smile for the camera.”
They got out of the convention and back to the shop without further incident. Well, if one didn’t call getting cheered when Aziraphale gave him a kiss and they walked out of the circle an ‘incident’, anyhow. The bookshop was blessedly quiet, after all that.
Crowley dropped onto the couch, letting his head fall back. Perhaps he’d had enough of humans for a while, really. Maybe his angel would be satisfied with a takeaway rather than going out for dinner. Maybe they could even go back to the cottage.
Boredom was starting to look better and better.
“Well,” Aziraphale said, shucking off his coat and hanging it on the coatrack. “That was an adventure, wasn’t it? And did we learn anything?”
Crowley squirmed. Boredom was definitely looking better.
“How was I to figure they’d get it right? Nothing on the show ever got it right. Not once, not even the literal devil’s traps on the show.”
Aziraphale gave him a long look. “It’s only a shame nobody warned you about that, isn’t it?”
“Is this it? Is this what we’re doing now? I just get home from that and we’re doing this?”
“No harm done, then? Over and finished, forget all about it?” Aziraphale shook his angelic head. “I think you owe me a bit more than that.”
He threw his head back again, landing in the worn cushions with a groan. “Angel...”
“Don’t you think you owe me a bit more than that?”
“You’re going to push this, aren’t you?”
“If you mean, am I going to ask you to do the dance, well. The answer is yes. I’m going to make you do the dance.”
“Come on, angel. It wasn’t that big.”
“It’s not how big it was, my dear. It’s that you were told. For this once, you were warned, I warned you, and you paid no attention.” Aziraphale came and sat down next to him on the sofa instead of in the battered wing chair. “Crowley, I worry about you.There’s so much more in this world that can hurt you than there is that can hurt me. And I don’t like to think of you captured and at the mercy of people who might know how to hurt you--”
“Nobody was trying to hurt me--”
“--And who might have reasons to believe that hurting you was a good and right thing to do,” Aziraphale went on. “If-- if you feel the need to do something like this again, I am going with you. No arguments. I should have gone with you this time.”
Crowley helpfully refrained from pointing out that having Aziraphale with him might have put a damper on his ability to cause mischief, and focused instead on the memory of his angel showing up in both costume and the spirit of things, smiling at the humans, and getting a picture--
Bollocks. He pulled out his mobile and scrolled back to the photos.
“I do hope you’re not planning to delete that,” Aziraphale said.
“Who, me? I would never,” said Crowley, who had been planning exactly that.
“Of course you wouldn’t, darling. Just the same, though...” A hand appeared on his knee, Aziraphale’s warm body leaning into him. “Do let’s have a look?”
“Uh... yeah. Sure.”
The picture was... actually, the picture was great. He wasn’t sure he’d have been able to delete it anyway, really. Aziraphale was cheery and happy and had an arm around his shoulders, and Crowley couldn’t deny that his own face looked happy as well.
It wasn’t an expression he was used to seeing. He didn’t quite know how to feel about it.
“We should maybe get more pictures together. Now that, y’know. Now that we can.”
Aziraphale smiled at him. “I’d quite like that. But I also like this one.”
“Y-- yeah. Yeah, me too,” Crowley said, and saved the picture.
“You still owe me the dance, though. Maybe it will make it easier to remember next time, hmm?”
“Aaaaangel, come on. Don’t make me do the dance.”
“I definitely think you need to do the dance.”
He looked carefully-- Aziraphale wasn’t mad at him, really, or at least the corners of his mouth didn’t look like it. But he was standing firm on it.
“This is bollocks,” Crowley groused, standing up.
“Fair is fair.” Aziraphale settled back into the cushions, folded his hands over one knee. “The sooner you start...”
“Aaaaaugh, fine, okay.” He balanced himself, going through the motions. “You were right, you were right, I was wrong, you were right.” The last little twirl brought him back around to face his angel again. “Fine? Good?”
“Very fine,” Aziraphale said, eyes dark, set with that bastard tilt to his chin. “Now. Take off your clothes and do it again.”
“I... you what?”
“Take off your clothes, and do it again.”
This... this was maybe turning interesting. “Oh? And what are you going to do, then?”
“I’m going to watch, of course.” There was a little smile playing about the corners of his lips. “I need to get a good look at your form.”
Definitely turning interesting. Crowley should feel that it was humiliating-- would have been humiliating, if anyone else had asked him to do this. He’d have laid odds that morning that this was nothing he would ever go along with, at all...
...and he also knew that if he said no, right now, Aziraphale would take it perfectly well. Would back off, tell him it was fine. They’d have a drink, maybe go out for dinner; they’d come back and possibly even make love in the bed upstairs, and it would be a perfectly lovely night.
If he said yes, though... there were no guarantees of what would happen, of course, but it wouldn’t be as predictable.
Crowley reached for the buttons at his collar and started undoing them one by one. Whatever anyone might say about him, he thought ruefully, it would never be that he wasn’t curious.
“That’s a love,” Aziraphale breathed.
Crowley grinned at him. Right choice, he thought, and started to make a show out of undoing his buttons. The day was looking up.