Chapter Text

Aziraphale wiggled in his seat. This flight wasn’t getting off to a good start. Not only had take off been especially bumpy, he had realized shortly after the seatbelts lights went off that he hadn’t, in fact, packed his books in his carry-on. Onboard wifi wasn’t any help either since his smartphone and laptop batteries were empty as usual. (Who needs one of these modern gadgets when they can read a good book instead ? People who forget to pack their books, that’s who.) He was not looking forward to a ten hour London-Seattle flight with only the view from the porthole to occupy him. To be fair, he had always found the views of clouds to be uniquely cheerful, but ten hours of cloud gazing was nowhere near as captivating as “Early Arameic merchants correspondence: an analysis of commercial relations” would have been, if it hadn’t been cozily nesting with his knitwear inside his suitcase in the cargo hold.

It didn’t help that he became a nervous wreck anytime the slightest turbulence appeared. Thankfully, his neighbor didn’t seem to mind his fretting and anxious gasps too much. She had flaming red hair, too much makeup, and a kind smile. After about an hour, she took pity on him, introduced herself as Tracy, and tried to cheer him up. Aziraphale was grateful for the distraction.

“There, there love, we’re all going to be just fine. I think I’m supposed to tell you how safe airplanes are on average, but I don’t know shit about statistics. Don’t you have a book or something to distract yourself ?”

“I have several, but they are in my suitcase, unfortunately.”

“I have a few magazines if you want.” She took them out from her bag; Aziraphale glanced at them and recognized the trashiest kind of celebrity tabloids. It wasn’t his usual kind of reading at all, but he didn’t want to be judgmental of someone who was being so nice to him.

“Oh thank you!” He smiled at her while he took the pile, and she went back to chatting on her phone, her gel nails ticking at the screen.

Aziraphale took the first magazine resting on his knees. The cover was garish and quite busy, but the star of this issue seemed to be one Anthony Crowley, owner of: tech giant Wahoo Inc., a striking vintage Bentley, cutting cheekbones, an orbital telescope, and now apparently one ex-boyfriend to add to a long list of flashy exes of various genders. Aziraphale sighed. He was bored enough to actually consider reading about the details of that breakup and the apparently wild circumstances that led to it. This curiosity may or may not have been related to the aforementioned cheekbones. In any case, he ended up reading the issue cover to cover, then put it down and moved on to the next magazine. A moment after he was done with Tracy’s stash, she poked at his shoulder.

“Look what I found for you. That gentleman here” she pointed at her neighbor on the other side “has a bit more variety”. She gave him another magazine and the current edition of The Guardian. Aziraphale thanked them both profusely and chuckled when he recognized Crowley on the front page of the magazine, some kind of business publication.
He spent the next hour reading the newspaper in its entirety, then the magazine. He got quietly amused when reading the very earnest and borderline obsequious spread about Crowley that it featured, which made for a stark contrast with the article in the tabloid. The picture was better though, a clean studio shot of an impossibly glamorous angular figure all in black and sunglasses. Aziraphale let out a small huff. He knew more about this man than he cared to by that point. He didn’t pay too much attention to the tech world generally, apart from the very specific parts that Anathema shared with him. She had unsuccessfully tried to convince him to get a Wahoo account, arguing that lots of professional networking in their fields was happening there.

His thoughts drifted to her. What a spot of bad luck, getting into a car accident the day before flying to America for a prestigious tech & industry conference. They were both supposed to present their joint publication there, but Aziraphale would have to do it all, while she spent a week in the hospital. He warmed up at the thought of their latest project. It had been a great success, and Gabriel was extremely enthusiastic about it, assuring him that it may well be the pivotal piece on Aziraphale’s bid to get a permanent Lecturer position. Hopefully the elusive but priceless academic grail that was the interdisciplinary collaboration would finally tip the scales in Aziraphale’s favor. Budget limitations in the humanities were brutal, and Gabriel liked to remind him of this a little bit too much. At least Anathema didn't have to deal with that in her field. She had built a computer vision model that was very good at recognizing written characters from CT scans of ancient scrolls that were too fragile to be opened. Aziraphale had contributed his skills in ancient linguistics and history. Together they had deciphered the contents of one of the most fragile artifacts in the British Museum, a discovery that had made quite some waves, hence their invitation at the 3rd International Computer Vision Conference in Seattle. Aziraphale was a bit nervous at the prospect of presenting the more high-tech aspects of their work to an attendance of specialists, but Anathema had explained the process in detail all along the project, so he thought he had a decent grasp on it.

After he was done with all of Tracy’s material he gazed again through the window. The night had fallen on the cloud sea. Sleep was coming to him, finally. He drifted into a restless series of naps, interrupted at some point by a nightmare featuring Crowley’s latest ex crashing a vintage car into him just in front of the conference venue.

When the plane finally landed, he was a tired and frazzled mess. He made it to the hotel somehow, slept some more in a real bed, and got up decently rested at 9pm.
Good thing he’d planned a few days of tourism before the conference. It wouldn’t be as fun without Anathema, but still he toured Seattle’s main attractions, and even found the perfect gift for his godson’s twins. They had asked him to bring back a sample of all the thirty seven flavors of ice-cream that he was sure to find in America. They’d both been very sad when Aziraphale had explained the inescapable nature of time and thermodynamics.

The conference first day arrived. His talk wasn’t until the last day, but he went to all the talks and poster presentations that he and Anathema had identified as interesting. All in all, the atmosphere of this event wasn’t so different from the one of history and linguistics events he was used to. The snacks and beverages were much better, courtesy of the many industrial sponsors (including Wahoo Inc.) that had their logos all over the venue and on a few of the presentation slides. The attendees he chatted with were overall curious to hear about his research when he mentioned his speciality in ancient texts. By the eve of the last day, he had forwarded a few contacts to Anathema and was looking forward to his presentation with none of the misgivings he had landed with.

Aziraphale was walking into the hotel lobby, having come back from dinner with Anathema’s old colleagues from her previous lab. He recognized one of the PhD students he’d talked with the day before, a young man named Warlock. When Warlock waved at him, they walked towards each other and Warlock announced that he was going out because he needed to unwind from all the networking he’d done over the last few days. Aziraphale found this very relatable. As much as he liked to talk about any kind of highly technical subject, his brain was starting to feel a bit too full of the latest advances in visual recognition neural networks.

“You could come with me if you want? There’s a bar just around the corner that’s doing a standup open mic,” Warlock offered.

“That sounds a bit risky,” Aziraphale smiled.

“Not from my point of view, see, I’m not great at public speaking. So if I see someone fucking up on stage, it helps put things into perspective, and if they kill it I get a good laugh. Win either way !”

Aziraphale chuckled. When he’d told Anathema that he used to complement his income as a student by performing magic tricks at the pub he worked at, she had dragged him along to her own theater class, on account of him needing to ‘get back to the stage’ to ‘express his inner self’. It had been fun enough to convince him to come back several times; it was fulfilling what was left of his childhood dreams of becoming some sort of showman, and it had given him a new appreciation for anyone having the courage to actually walk onto a stage. He was still a bit jet-lagged and knew he wasn’t going to sleep for a while, so he accepted Warlock’s offer and they left for the Downstairs Comedy Club.

The place was dimly lit, with a bar near the door and a stage at the far end of the room. All the seats and tables seemed taken, and a dozen people were standing at the bar. Aziraphale spotted two free seats just in front of the stage, and urged Warlock to accept sitting in what the latest called “the danger zone”, on account of Aziraphale’s forty year old knees. The girl on the stage had just finished her set when they reached the table with their drinks, and the compere was introducing the next one, a greasy looking man called Hastur.

Chapter Text

Unfortunately, it looked like Hastur’s idea of humor was simply to rant about his day job and pick on a selection of people in the audience. A selection that clearly skewed towards marginalized people, while Hastur repeatedly insisted he was an equal opportunity comedian who wasn’t afraid of speaking truth to power. In the span of just a few minutes, he had bothered a couple of women with matching blue hair, a scruffy old guy in a Queen t-shirt, and a Black girl with nose piercings. He turned to Aziraphale after an unoriginal monologue about management, and smiled hungrily at his bow tie and sweater vest. 

“Well, well, well, what have we got here? Did you lose your way to the Women’s Studies Department?” 

Aziraphale pushed his chair back and looked at Warlock.

“Get your funniest friend on the phone dear boy,” he whispered. He hoisted himself on the stage, while Hastur looked in bewilderment, walking back as Aziraphale approached.

“Uh dude you can’t … ?” 

“Give me that. It’s obvious you don’t know how to use it,” Aziraphale said as he grabbed the microphone from Hastur. Hastur looked at the compere, expecting some sort of rescue, but they shrugged and said “You’re supposed to be the funny guy, go with the flow or whatever. Maybe the librarian here can rescue your set?”

The audience looked on expectantly. Most of them had checked out from what was happening on stage by then, but the surprise appearance of a man who looked like the patron saint of humanities professors was drawing eyes back to the stage. Hastur’s huffing was tearing a few smirks from the audience too, but without a microphone, no-one heard the details of his fuming.

“Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Mr Hastur here was in the mood to speak truth to power, as he said himself. I’m not sure why he picked me for that.” Aziraphale looked in the audience to scattered groups of people in sharp business suits. The bar was near the downtown business district after all. Hastur had retreated to the side of the stage and was glaring at him. Aziraphale looked back at him with nothing but benevolence in his eyes. “But I’ll do my best to deserve it.”

“I’m going to ask a favor from all of you. Please name the most powerful person in your contacts list, and I’ll call the worst one for an honest ‘truth-to-power’ attempt.”

Someone yelled “I know the owner of this bar!” Another said the name of a C-list actor that Aziraphale didn’t recognize.

“I am willing to entertain impersonations if none of you know any actual VIPs” he added. The smiles turned into laughs. Several people started yelling over each other, “Barack Obama!” “Taylor Swift!”  “Elmo!”

“Anthony Crowley!” Warlock was beaming while he got up and handed Aziraphale his phone.

The audience roared. Aziraphale took the phone from Warlock; it was on speaker, and still ringing.

“A tech billionaire! That’s a good one. Let’s hope he’s not too busy to talk to us then, shall we?”

He looked at the audience as the line clicked open, and placed his microphone close to the phone speaker.

“Hello?”

“Good evening, this is Aziraphale Fell. Warlock volunteered you to participate in a spot of comedy. Would you be willing to impersonate Anthony Crowley for roasting purposes? To give you some context, I’m currently standing on stage at the Downstairs Comedy Club in Downtown Seattle, and this is Amateur Stand-Up Night.”

“Hum what?”

“I understand this is a bit sudden, it’s perfectly fine if you don’t feel up to the task. You would be doing me a big favor by accepting though, because I didn’t really plan any of this and am rather at a loss for another way to entertain the public. ”

The man on the line laughed.

“I should be up to the task, seeing as I am Anthony Crowley.”

Aziraphale smiled with relief at the front row of the audience.

“Commitment to the bit from the very start! How marvelous.”

Warlock yelled “This is the real Crowley!”, which in Aziraphale’s opinion would have been more believable if he hadn’t been laughing so hard while he said it. Aziraphale shook his head at Warlock and came back to the phone conversation.

“We’ll see to that. How much time can you spare for us?”

“I have about twenty minutes until I have to get back into my meeting.”

“A meeting, at this hour? I thought a billionaire such as yourself would find more entertaining ways to fill their time?” 

“Hey, large companies are a lot of work. I do this all the time. The one-percent life is not all celebrity parties and dream islands you know.”

“And yet you take time in your obviously very busy evening to answer phone calls from strangers. I have a feeling your meeting is just you and your college roommates, am I wrong?”

“No, I swear it’s a very real meeting. At Wahoo headquarters, in a real conference room. Haven’t set foot in a college in a long long while.” 

“Alright then, what is this very real meeting about?”

“That’s confidential. It would bore everyone out of their minds anyways.”

Aziraphale gave the audience a knowing look. He took the phone away from his face. “That sounds like an excuse I think. Would a notoriously extravagant CEO ever admit their life’s work is boring? I have to admit I’m not part of these circles myself, being an academic, but it seems unlikely.”

‘Alright “””Anthony J Crowley””” ‘ - Aziraphale mimed air quotes with his fingers, which was no small feat since he was holding both the phone and the mic close to his mouth, but the physical comedy of it got a laugh out of the public. “You can’t see my expression right now, but I’m afraid you can hear the skepticism in my voice. But let’s suspend disbelief for a moment.”

“Speaking of, are you even really on a stage right now ? I’m checking the Downstairs lineup online and ‘Fell’ is not on it.”

“Oh, well I sort of stole the spotlight from someone. He was being atrocious, so I just hopped onstage and took the microphone from him.”

The other barked a laugh. “You fucking bastard. Does that mean you’re improvising everything? That explains a lot. ”

“There is no need for that kind of attitude. We’re both beginners trying to make it big in the show business world, aren’t we now?”

“Speak for yourself. I own Wahoo Streaming, I’m already big in the show business world. Have you not seen our latest hit by the way? ‘The Oracles’, with Sheen and Tenant? Since you like comedy.”

“I’m afraid I don’t watch much TV. I lean closer to Shakespeare and Earl Grey than Wahoo & Chill, as the children say.” The audience gave loud heckles at that, someone in the back yelled “Nobody says Wahoo & Chill anymore!” 

“What possessed you to start guerilla comedy then? You sound like an English Lit professor. Are you wearing a sweater vest right now?”

He was. He looked suspiciously at the audience, pointedly lingering on the few people who were taking pictures while he answered.

“Surely you cannot infer this kind of thing just from my accent? Do you have a friend in the audience sending you pictures?”

“I do not, taking the measure of people is something I’m famously good at. Also I can still  hear you when you take the phone away from your mouth. What are you doing on stage instead of spending the evening in your favorite armchair with a cuppa?”

Aziraphale pondered. It was actually a good question. He looked at the public, all smiles and excited anticipation in the darkness. He had had many an idle daydream of being on stage throughout his life, although he had usually fancied himself a world famous magician filling West End theaters and not an improv comic in a small American comedy cellar. And yet. He could feel excitement coursing through him like electricity, crackling on the tip of his fingers and his brain and his mouth. It felt irrationally good, it would be very hard to explain to Gabriel if anyone was uploading videos online, and yet he couldn’t get enough of it.

“I suppose you are witnessing the world’s second most absurd midlife crisis.”

“Second?”

“Excuse me, but I am talking to Mr Anthony J Crowley?” 

Aziraphale took the microphone away from the phone again, further this time and with his finger on the audio input.

“Dear friends, I am not up to date with all the celebrity news, but even I have heard about Mr Crowley’s antics. Not that I read the tabloids of course.” He pursed his lips. “I don’t believe Mr Crowley is the kind of man to go gently into his forties.” The crowd laughed and hooted.

“You know what you did!” Aziraphale hissed loudly back into the phone.

feral_hog.wahoo.com

y’all the Downstairs Comedy Club amateur hour is on fire tonight
 thread vvv

feral_hog.wahoo.com

the softest looking librarian from your uni days is shredding some random
guy pretending to be Crowley on the phone
everyone is in tears

feral_hog.wahoo.com

the librarian wasn’t even on the lineup
he just straight up stole the mic from some asshole who was doing bigoted jokes
and is improvising EVERYTHING

feral_hog.wahoo.com

phone guy is rolling with it, must be a crowley fanboy 
bc he’s working in plenty of little details about Wahoo 

feral_hog.wahoo.com

this right in: the librarian is an actual researcher 
he’s talking at the International Computer Vision Conference tomorrow
he’s inviting us all and phone guy too
See y’all there

“What does the J stand for, in your name?”

“It’s uh Jessica.”

“Wouldn’t the real Anthony Crowley know his own middle name?”

“No but really, I am Anthony Crowley. Doesn’t my name show up on the phone?”

“I just see” Aziraphale looked at the screen. “The Godfather? Oh dear me, are you and young Warlock in the mafia?”

Warlock was bent in two, tears of laughter running down his cheeks. The rest of the audience was in a similar state, occasionally throwing in comments and suggestions to Aziraphale.

“No, I’m bad but I’m not that bad. Dangerous but in a cool way. You know, rakish. Devilishly handsome.”

“Oh, going for the whole demon aesthetic are we? That would explain why Wahoo’s own users refer to it as ‘The Hellsite’.”

“Aww, and you would be a right angel yeah? With your blue eyes and blond curls and your dedication to the pursuit of knowledge and all.”

“Now I know you have someone in the audience sending you pictures. But thank you.”

“No, I just searched for your name online. I found one Aziraphale Fell on the website of the Tadfield University Linguistics department. You should upload a higher resolution picture by the way angel, can’t see the dimples very well, that’s a shame. And get a Wahoo account!”

“Certainly not. I like my arguments civilized and peer-reviewed. Present company excluded, of course.”

feral_hog.wahoo.com

Important update: 
phone guy’s name is now Jessica
the librarian is now angel

feral_hog.wahoo.com

Still going to refer to him as the librarian tho
can’t explain why but it seems wrong for anyone but Jessica to be calling him angel

feral_hog.wahoo.com

Jessica can’t decide if he’s going for Tech Businessman persona 
or Trainwreck Tinder Date persona 
but tbh that is very on brand for crowley

feral_hog.wahoo.com

The librarian is not having any of it lol
Jessica (imagine a sultry voice here): I could send a picture 
the librarian: “Good lord, am I about to receive the first dick pic of my life ?”

feral_hog.wahoo.com

I cannot stress enough
how the librarian is the last person on God’s green Earth 
who should ever utter the words “dick pic”
he made air quotes with his fingers when he said “dick pic” 

feral_hog.wahoo.com

omg Jessica actually sent a pic

feral_hog.wahoo.com

the librarian is looking like my nana when I show her the latest bullshit on TikTok
im talking gold-rimmed glasses low on in the nose
 screen inches away from his face
scrunched up eyebrows

feral_hog.wahoo.com

the compere said they have a projector 

feral_hog.wahoo.com

I am half agony, half hope

“Jessica dear, what … what are we looking at here?”

Half the public was clamoring to see the picture, the other half was telling them to shut up.

“Come on, the Obelisk is a world famous landmark! It’s the view from Wahoo headquarters! Told you I was at work.”

“Well as much as I am relieved that this is not an intimate picture,” he looked at the audience again “although it does look rather phallic”, “I don’t see how that proves anything, except that you do work at Wahoo and that they have no regard for work-life balance.”

The man on the phone groaned.

“Jessica! We kind of drifted a bit from the original purpose of this call, but. This important meeting you are going back into soon? Is Anthony Crowley attending by any chance?”

“He is, actually.”

Aziraphale beamed at the crowd and took the phone away from his face.

“Do you think this is real? I’m afraid I can’t tell anymore.” People yelled “it’s real” and “he just found the picture online” and “omg what if this is the real Crowley”. Aziraphale came back to the phone conversation.

“Don’t say he is because you are.”

“Angel, I swear on the ashes of Andy Kaufman that Anthony Crowley is going to be in this meeting room within five minutes.”

The audience cheered and booed in equal parts. Aziraphale surveyed the room with an intent look and a predatory smile.

“Friends. Are you thinking what I’m thinking ?”

“Jessica.” Aziraphale tone dropped to a purr. “How much do you want to keep a job where you have to go to boring evening meetings on the regular and deal with the likes of Anthony Crowley? I’m sure he is an absolute nightmare.”

“Hum”

“Jessica dear, would you please invite me to that meeting’s conference bridge? I did announce to the audience tonight that I would speak truth to power. If you’re invited to high-level off-hours meetings at Wahoo I’m assuming you’re in-demand enough that you could easily find work elsewhere. Or retire and come with me on a tour of the world’s premier comedy venues?”

“That’s tempting and all but I think I’m going to stick with my job. Gotta go now, people are starting to come back into the meeting room.”

“Oh alright. If you change your mind you can call me back. Thank you very much for your time and for humoring me.”

“You’re welcome, that’s the most fun I’ve had all week.”

“Oh now really, you’re just fishing for me to ask you what kind of scandalous things you got up to last week.”

“Sorry ‘tis confidential.”

“You are a terrible tease. Friends, can I get a tremendous round of applause for Jessica?” He turned the phone towards the audience so that the uproar of applause and whistles would be heard on the other end of the line.

“Thanks, but if you plan to do this regularly I can’t guarantee I’ll pick up every time.”

“You have already been very generous with your time, I wouldn’t dream of imposing on you. Good luck for your meeting.”

“Sure, ciao!”

“Goodbye, Anthony.”

Aziraphale ended the call without waiting for a reaction and triumphantly bowed to the audience while the compere jumped to the center of the stage and shouted “And that’s a wrap on The Amazing Mr Fell aaand Jessica!” 

Aziraphale closed his eyes for a few seconds, smiling at nothing in particular and enjoying the flying feeling of the thunderous applause. He finally handed the microphone away, gave the phone back to Warlock, and went back to his seat as the next comedian walked on the stage. 

crowley.wahoo.com

I just got off the most entertaining phone call of my entire life

Chapter Text

Aziraphale had gone almost straight back to his hotel bed after his impromptu comedy session. It had all been very exciting, but once the stage high had worn off he’d found himself drained. He woke up the next day with an uneasy feeling. Hadn’t he gone too far on that stage? What must Warlock think of him now, in the cold light of day? And his friend? He was here in a professional capacity, and he wasn’t sure what would happen if his performance somehow got back to Gabriel, or if anyone at the conference apart from Warlock had attended the event. 

He took out his laptop and sent Warlock an email, blessing his decades old habit of always exchanging contact details with anyone he talked to at a conference. He asked Warlock to check in with his friend and let Aziraphale know if himself or his friend had been in any way uncomfortable during his act, offering his deepest apologies if that was the case, and promising him that he would keep his own behavior absolutely professional from now on.

He got an answer shortly after finishing his breakfast. Warlock enthusiastically set his worries to rest, assuring Aziraphale that he’d found the bit hilarious, that he wished his advisor was half as fun, and that his friend (or rather his godfather) unreservedly shared that opinion and had even forwarded his phone number together with a vague invitation for ‘coffee or something’. 

Aziraphale breathed a sigh of relief. While he walked to the conference venue with his suitcase in tow, he thought about Warlock’s godfather. He didn’t know much about the man he still took to calling Jessica, for lack of an actual name. He obviously shared his own sense of humor, had a rather attractive warm voice, and a demanding job at Wahoo. Should he really speculate though, since he would soon return to England, and the man probably lived in the Pacific Northwest? Who knew what the future held though. He’d promised Anathema he’d make more of an effort to ‘seize the day’. In the end, he texted “Good morning. This is Aziraphale Fell. I didn’t catch your name yesterday evening?” to the number Warlock had given him, and walked into the conference center to the lecture hall where he was to give his presentation. 

He was the last person to talk before the conference closing dinner, which probably meant he would have to work extra hard to keep everyone’s attention. He arrived in the large room as the first presenter was testing his slides. People started trickling in and moving down the stairs to fill the seats. He spotted Warlock sitting in the second row from the stage. He waved, relieved again to see Warlock smiling back and giving him a thumbs up as he sat just in front of him on the first row, next to the handful of other presenters for this session. 

The session passed pleasantly. Aziraphale dutifully took notes and clapped at the end of each talk, until his turn came. As he got up and turned towards the audience, he was startled to see that the room which had been three quarters empty at the beginning of the session was now completely packed. Some people were even seated on the aisle stairs or standing against the back wall. When he walked onstage, the low drone of hushed conversations went completely still. 

He frowned. He knew his and Anathema’s work had attracted attention, but to that level? This session wasn’t even the main event, there were a few others taking place at the same time in larger and fancier lecture halls. And it was the last talk before the conference dinner, so it’s not like anyone was saving a spot to hear someone famous later.

He checked with the session organizer that his slides showed as expected, and that the laser pointer and mic worked. She had done a good job; they were going to start right on time. He turned to the audience and just after he was done introducing himself, his team and his university, the double doors at the top of the hall opened and Anthony Crowley walked in.

Aziraphale was shocked into silence. The crowd whispers rose like a wave as Crowley looked around. 

“There is room at the front,” Aziraphale called out reflexively, gesturing at his own empty seat. He immediately regretted it, cursing his polite habits. He and the rest of the audience watched as Crowley sauntered to the front row.

“Don’t stop on my account, folks,” Crowley said while he sprawled into the padded seat. Just behind him, Warlock was trying to suppress a laugh; he leaned towards Crowley to whisper something that made the man grin even harder. A cold realization descended on Aziraphale. 

Warlock did in fact know the real Antony Crowley. 

His godfather. The man he had summoned on the phone the day before, to roast in front of a live audience. Word, and possibly video, must have gone out; was the large crowd in front of him the result of one of these “viral moments” he kept hearing about?

Aziraphale gathered his thoughts and looked all over the room. What did he have to fear exactly? Warlock had told him his friend had enjoyed their improvised act. He was allowed to have hobbies, surely. And he was in this room for a reason.

His teaching muscles stretched. 

“I usually start my talks with a few humorous quips to make sure everyone is paying attention,” he said as he surveyed the room. That got a few smiles. “However. I think I’ve done quite enough of that already, and you all look attentive enough. Let’s dive right in!” He beamed and launched into his talk.

He immediately felt better as he started the presentation of his project. He was extremely proud of all of it, and it had been such a joy to work with Anathema. He loved teaching and research, and he knew he was rather good at it. He got a few laughs at his usual jokes on ancient scroll manipulation, and he thought he did justice to Anathema’s work on the more computer science related parts of the talk. He purposefully avoided eye contact with Crowley, despite the fact that the man radiated troublemaking energy. He was lounging in his seat like his spine was made of rubber, making his crossed legs look even more impossibly long. He had his arms crossed and his eyes glued on Aziraphale, and a smirk on his face that Azirpahale resolved to not find distracting. He had plenty of experience dealing with rowdy students in his classes, but they were i) essentially children ii) dependent on him for passing grades iii) not dressed in perfectly tailored expensive black-on-black suits iv) not looking like that . This was an entirely new kind of problem, he thought wistfully as he reached the conclusion of his presentation.

“Do we have any questions?” Aziraphale asked the audience.

A good hundred hands shot up and noisy talk erupted everywhere.

“Do we have any questions not related to the presence of Mr Crowley among us today?”

Only a few hands stayed up into the air, and the noise died down. Aziraphale internally let out a sigh of relief. He’d been worried that Crowley making an entrance would distract people’s attention away from the actual contents of his presentation, but it looked like a few at least hadn’t come to hear him because of some nonsense that blew up on social media. They were thoughtful questions, and he answered them at length, hoping to run the clock on the moment when he’d have to address the metaphorical elephant in the room. 

He was just concluding on the last one, when Crowley raised his hand. Aziraphale stared at him with just a hint of disapproval. Discouraging people from asking questions fundamentally went against his nature as a teacher, but his professorial instincts told him that this was going to be a disruption attempt. He took a deep grounding breadth and nodded at Crowley.

“First, great talk, loved it. I was wondering if you could expand on the scroll’s first section. Especially that bit about fertility ritual artifacts?” 

His tone conveyed nothing more than honest intellectual curiosity but something in his expression gave Aziraphale the distinct feeling that Crowley absolutely knew that ‘fertility ritual artifacts’ was an archeological euphemism for dildos. 

“I didn’t go in depth on that part since the first section is written on the outermost part of the scroll, and therefore didn’t represent much of a challenge for imagery and deciphering.” Aziraphale locked eyes (or rather eyes and sunglasses) with Crowley, and added “Those rituals are quite fascinating of course, but we’re running short on time. If you're interested I can share some references with you later.” Aziraphale didn’t let the pause go long enough for Crowley to answer.

“My dear colleagues, I won’t keep you any longer, I’m sure we’re all impatient to join the conference dinner. Thank you again for your attention.”

He waved at the audience as they applauded. Thankfully, this lecture hall had a door on the side of the stage, so he made a quick and discreet escape, or about as discreet as such things can be when hundreds of eyes are on you because of one unruly celebrity.

He walked at random, hoping that he would be able to find his way back to get the coat and suitcase he’d left at his seat. He found an unoccupied meeting room and dropped into one of the chairs.

It had gone pretty well, all things considered, so why was he so fidgety? This was a public event, and Crowley had a legitimate professional reason to attend this kind of conference. Aziraphale also uncomfortably remembered he might have extended a rather large invitation to his talk the day before. Crowley was known as a bit of an extravagant character, they’d shared ~slightly~ flirtatious banter but Crowley probably did that with everyone. And he had gotten curious enough or bored enough to come hear about his research, what of it.

Aziraphale took out his phone. He had a dozen missed calls from Anathema, and a few texts from the same.

[Anathema]

y ur ? famous 

[Anathema]

azriphl

[Anathema]

call me

[Anathema]

cant type loopy fingers hosptal drugs good

[Anathema]

not sleep was looking at talk streaming u did good why crowley

Of course, all the talks were recorded and streamed live for people attending remotely. Aziraphale rang Anathema’s number. He hoped he wouldn’t wake her up, but he did need to talk to someone.

She picked up on the first ring.

“Aziraphale ! YOU’VE GONE VIRAL”

“Hello dear, there’s no need to shout. How are you feeling?”

“Sorry, I still feel a lil’ bit drunk because of all the pain meds. I’m alright. How did the talk go? Is it true Crowley was here? Did you know someone did a live comment of your bit yesterday on Wahoo? And Crowley made a cryptic reference that has everybody losing their goddamn minds online?”

“The talk went fine. Surprisingly smoothly in fact, considering that most of the audience must have read that commentary you mentioned, and that my co-star had a literal front row seat.”

“OH MY GOD”

“You don’t think it was too much? My little foray into amateur standup yesterday?”

“Are you kidding? That was so fucking funny, I knew there was a comedian in you. Wish I’d been there.”

“Me too my dear, but I don’t know if I would have dared to do that if anyone I knew had been in the audience.”

“That’s too bad. So that was really Crowley on the phone? And you had no idea?”

“Yes and no, respectively. He must have enjoyed it, I suppose, since it seems he came to hear me talk again.” 

“No shit, he flew overnight from the Bay Area to Seattle for you sweetie.”

Aziraphale hadn’t realized that Wahoo headquarters were so far away. That did color the event slightly differently, didn’t it? And the invitation for ‘coffee or something’?

“But enough about me, are you recuperating all right?”

“Been better, but the drugs work and the guy who crashed his weird three-wheeled car into me is actually very cute. He feels so guilty he’s bringing me flowers and chocolates every day after work. When I told him I was a research scientist in computer vision he looked at me like he’d just been introduced to the Queen. I’m going to ask him out as soon as I’m out of that cast.”

Aziraphale smiled. If anyone deserved to be fussed over, it was Anathema, and she’d complained in the past of suitors getting insecure when they learned about her advanced skills.

“Hey. HEY. Speaking of. Since the tech mogul likes you, do you think you could get him to sponsor a project or two? Those cloud computing bills are NOT cheap.”

“If I’m going to seduce someone into making donations, I’m keeping the money for the humanities department. We need it more than you do, do you realize Gabriel is making me travel back on a night flight tonight right after the conference dinner?”

“ ‘Seduce’? Why my dear Mr Fell, that is not at all what I was implying! But yeah go for it girl. He’s not hard on the eyes eh? Bet you’d let him feed you choco…”

“I think you need to rest now my dear. I’ll talk to you soon.”

He hung up. He was absolutely not going to think about Crowley that way right now. He was going to go to the conference dinner, do some more networking, and solidify his reputation as a professional academic. He would act like a normal person, and not at all like it had been a significant effort to avoid answering Crowley’s question about fertility rituals with an extraordinary amount of double entendres. The man was probably already back home or in another of those very important meetings.

He still read Crowley’s Wikipedia entry to know what he was getting into if he did end up speaking to the man at the conference dinner. 

The ‘career’ section featured a more detailed version of the story he’d read in the airplane magazine, describing how Crowley had dropped out of his Computational Astrophysics PhD to found Wahoo with Shax Pieklo and Eric Dis. Back then it had only been a place to share amateur pictures of celestial objects and stargazing locations, before turning into the world’s first and most enduringly successful social network. Wahoo’s longevity was due in no small part to the frugal approach to monetization it could afford due to its relative independence from investment funds. The company’s line about this was that it was all due to lean engineering design inherited from the founders space industry background (some code from Shax and Crowley was still running on the Hubble Space Telescope), although it was rumored to be linked to Crowley's rather unique personal brand being a deterrent for traditional investors. Relatedly, the article’s ‘controversy’ section was a third of its total length. 

Apparently, Crowley had: driven a burning vintage car on the motorway after a particularly wild party; bought a botanical garden after arguing with its manager about his subpar tropical plant care practices; had had an affair with the director of the Securities and Tradings Commission; had thrown his dessert in the face of diet influencer Raven Sable at the MET charity gala; and there were unconfirmed accusations that he had pressured the UK Highways Agency to change the layout of the M25 motorway in London to make traffic jams worse (the reasoning being that people would use Wahoo’s new traffic prediction feature to find more optimal routes). 

So really, it would be preposterous to read anything special into Crowley’s presence. Who even knew what went through the brains of such people. 

Aziraphale tried to make his way back to the lecture hall, but this part of the conference center was a maze of utility corridors. When he finally found it, it was mercifully empty apart from the janitor. The man explained to him how to find the lounge bar/wedding reception area where the conference dinner was probably already underway. 

Aziraphale headed out, but lost his way again when he dunked into a side corridor and walked down a few flights of stairs to avoid a noisy group of stragglers wearing Wahoo branded hoodies. He ended up exiting the center via a fire door, ending up in its back alley, and walking back all around it until he saw the windows of the dinner area on the ground floor.

It was a long room with high ceilings, dark red walls, and soft lighting. It was packed with people, mostly standing with glasses of wine and food plates from a lavish buffet. The atmosphere was moving out of “polite academic conversation” and into “steadily getting sloshed”. A waiter offered him a generous glass of white wine, which he took to get something to occupy his hands. Nobody had noticed him yet, which was a relief. Hopefully he wasn’t that famous after all. 

He made a beeline for the buffet across the crowded room but stopped in his tracks when he saw that Crowley, surrounded by a rowdy group of people, was standing between him and the salmon rolls.

Chapter Text

Aziraphale immediately turned back, only to find himself face to face with a woman all in red who looked at him like a lioness would look at a particularly chubby zebra.

“Mr Fell! I am so pleased to meet you.” She extended a hand, and Aziraphale shook it cautiously.

“I’m Carmine Zuigiber, from Horsemen Entertainment. I’ve followed your little … performance from yesterday on socials. You’ve made quite a big impression on Crowley, you must be very pleased with yourself.” 

“Oh really no, I guess I just felt the call of the stage?” Aziraphale let out a nervous laugh. “It was just a bit of fun, you know how it is. I’m not really on social media much.”

“Are you expecting me to believe that you didn’t know who you were talking to on the phone? I can tell you’re not one of the dumber ones. A good in-your-face provocation is in fact a much better way of ingratiating oneself to him than the bootlicking he usually gets. But you’re shooting way out of your league here, so tread carefully.”

Aziraphale felt a sharp spike of outrage. There was shame in there too somehow, and he hated that it was there. “What are you insinuating exactly?” 

“Oh, come on. I’m just giving you some friendly advice because you look like a nice man who accidentally bit more than he could chew. Don’t get into a pissing contest with Crowley, the last guy who tried is now a crater that is visible from space . What was his name again.” She looked pensively into the distance “Edmond Nusk or something”

Aziraphale looked at her in shock and consternation. She was accusing him of being some sort of golddigger, but to add insult to injury she seemed to think him an incompetent one, who couldn’t possibly hold his own against someone at Crowley’s level. He gave her an icy glare.

“You are right on one point. I wouldn’t enter into a pissing contest with Mr Crowley, because I am a nice man, and I wouldn’t want him to be embarrassed when he loses.”

“ ‘When’ I lose? What are you willing to bet on that?”

Aziraphale slowly turned back to see Crowley standing not two feet away from him, one hand on his hip and a smirk on his face, backed by a gathering of onlookers. Aziraphale looked between him and an obviously amused Carmine. He was cornered.

This is all a misunderstanding.

Just a silly joke.

I really have to go, nice meeting you all.

That was how any well adjusted person would have reacted. 

“Anything you care to name; it doesn’t matter much since you’re losing,” was what Aziraphale said instead. 

He couldn’t believe his own ears as he said it. He looked at Crowley; he was standing close enough that he could make out his eyes behind the sunglasses. What was it about this man that made him go rogue? And the crackling feeling had come back to his extremities and his soul, because he’d just had an idea. There was nothing for it now but to go with the flow. 

He shrugged and sipped at his wine. “And if I win, you fund my whole department for five years.” Crowley cackled. Someone said “That’s what, hundred thousand dollars tops ?” Aziraphale maintained unblinking eye contact with Crowley.

“You’re pulling my leg right? ‘Anything I care to name’? Do you know how risky that is?”

“Not very.” 

“Care to perform a live demo?” Crowley looked like he saw this kind of thing every day, but his expression had an intensely inquisitive edge.

“Certainly, just give me fifteen minutes, I haven’t had dinner yet and I’m feeling peckish.”

Aziraphale looked beyond Crowley at his entourage, gesturing at the buffet behind them with the hand holding his wine glass.

“Excuse me gentlemen, but I’d like to get to those salmon rolls.” The small group parted in stunned silence while Aziraphale moved towards the buffet, leisurely selecting a few items and placing them on a plate. He looked over his shoulder to add: “Do carry on, I’ll meet you at the alley out back in a moment. I need to make a phone call.”

He walked away while eating the contents of his plate, and found a quiet spot to text Gabriel near the luggage lockers. Gabriel was visiting family on the East coast, so he would hopefully be awake; Aziraphale hoped that Gabriel's inability to disconnect from his phone would play in his favor for once. Time was of the essence.

[Aziraphale]

Good evening Gabriel, I hope I am not disturbing you. I have an opportunity to secure five years of funding for the whole department from Anthony Crowley but the method is a bit unorthodox. What are your thoughts?

[Gabriel]

Is it related to your viral thing? 

[Gabriel]

really really don’t want to know the details, but if you can get us that kind of funding, I’ll personally make sure you’re tenure-tracked within the year

[Gabriel]

Top team-player attitude there buddy 👍 👍 🦅🦅

A light snow was falling outside. There were a few dozen people clustered around the alley’s entrance, clear from the overflowing trash containers. Crowley was standing in the center; he lit up with a mischievous smile when he saw Aziraphale approaching.

“So you did turn up. I was wondering if this was an elaborate prank to get me to freeze my tits off at the trash heap.”

“No, of course not. I thought we’d established that I was the nice one?” Aziraphale walked into the alley and stopped in the middle, gesturing at Crowley to stand side to side with him, facing away from the intersection.

“Excuse me,” Aziraphale turned to talk to the assembly. “Would you mind giving us some privacy? We’re already toeing the line of propriety here, and I’d hate for anyone to feel uncomfortable.” The little crowd retreated behind the corner of the conference center. Aziraphale turned back to Crowley.

“I’d offer for you to go first, but since you’re going to forfeit, I’ll do the honors. No need for you to get cold for nothing, right?”

In the privacy of his own mind, Crowley was thinking that cold was absolutely not going to be a problem in the immediate future. Aziraphale looked like an absolute angel, all kind smiles and flecks of snow on his downy hair. He sounded so serene and sure of himself, as if he was about to discuss the finer points of old Sumerian over tea instead of wiping out his cock in a back alley to win a bet against a notoriously chaotic billionaire. 

Please, Someone, don’t let this be how I find out the angel has a public sex kink. Crowley was starting to think that it would be very difficult to deny this man anything. He hoped Aziraphale would use this power wisely if he ever noticed.

“This isn’t happening folks. There’s no way.”

“They are insane. I had no idea there was a man in this world as insane as Anthony Crowley but guess I was wrong.”

“That other guy is so quiet and polite though. It’s almost scary. If Crowley had shown up at my talk I would not have kept my cool, let me tell you.”

“What do you reckon they’re really doing in there?”

The speculation of the group was interrupted by a loud cry of “FUCKING HELL!”.

They all ran towards the intersection. 

Aziraphale was standing with a smug smile on his face, the water pistol he'd bought for the twins in his right hand still holding some yellow liquid in its clear container. Crowley was alternating between fits of laughter, cursing, and righteous indignation. About thirty feet behind them, a yellow trace laid on the freshly fallen snow as victorious evidence.

“This is cheating, Fell. There’s no way. I mean, how could that possibly count?”

“Mr Anthony J Crowley” Aziraphale said in his most professorial tone, “are you, of all people, going to argue with me that technology" he gestured at his water pistol, “cannot be used to address some of the limitations of the human body and mind?”

“That's cheating,” Crowley repeated, with slightly less conviction.

“No dear, I believe that is called engineering.”

Chapter Text

Crowley chuckled despite himself. The nerve on that man. Aziraphale mercilessly twisted the knife by asking him to concede and confirm his funding promise, taking the assembled onlookers as witnesses. Oh well, Crowley had funded worse things than humanities departments in his long career as a very rich man (he’d once commissioned a rock opera that was a thinly veiled retelling of the demise of one of Wahoo’s competitors). He sighed and acquiesced. 

And then Aziraphale shot him a full spectrum supernova-level smile. 

Right. So. I’m fucked. 

He’d had an inkling things could go that way when he’d hung up the phone the day before, discovering a picture that Warlock had sent him seconds after, courtesy of his table neighbors. “That’s him just after the ‘Be not afraid’ joke. Are you taking his invitation to his talk? :-) ” and “fair warning the vibe will probably be very different”. Aziraphale looked so good under the stage lights, eyes crinkling, soft smile spreading while he listened to whatever absurdity Crowley had answered. So Crowley had hopped into his jet (poor impulse control and massive wealth made for a very unfortunate mix) and spent most of the flight reading Aziraphale’s academic publications, the only trace of him that he could find online. He’d then gone down a rabbit hole of weird archeological facts and linguistics jokes, stopping only to ask Warlock if he thought Aziraphale was single (“dunno but he has no ring”) and if showing up to his conference talk would be fun crazy or scary crazy (“everything you do is scary, how do you keep forgetting you’re a billionaire? Fell can handle it though, you should have seen him snatching the mic off that asshole. Made me think of you.”). Crowley was an optimist at heart, so that was all the encouragement he needed.

“Well, it was nice meeting you in person, but I really need to get back to my hotel, I forgot something and I have to catch my flight back to London tonight.” Aziraphale started towards the street.

“I can give you a lift.” Crowley meandered to his side. The crowd parted to let them pass in shocked reverence, still reeling from Aziraphale’s little demonstration. A few were frantically typing on their phones.

“That’s very kind of you, but there’s no need, my hotel is on the next block.”

“I meant to London,” Crowley said, and added when he saw the confused expression on the other man’s face, “on my private jet ? I’m headed to London as well.” He wasn’t supposed to go to London before another week, but Aziraphale didn’t need to know that.

“Oh. Thank you dear, but I can’t ride in a private jet. These things are terrible for the environment, I couldn’t possibly.” Crowley’s disappointment showed only for a fraction of a second. Aziraphale couldn’t very well explain that the real reason he wouldn’t allow himself to accept was that he was getting scared of the unbridled maniac version of himself that came out every time Crowley was near. Who knew what he would end up doing if alone with that man for ten hours in a comfortable and private space? Aziraphale wasn’t one for casual relationships, unlike the inventor of temptation walking beside him at that moment. He’d made that mistake before, assuming that love came as easy to others as it did to him. He was going to take it slow and safe. If there was anything to even take; nothing indicated that Crowley wasn’t like that (staring like that, bantering like that, smiling like that, good lord ) all the time and not just in his company.

“I would love to meet you again in London of course,” Aziraphale said while handing Crowley a card with his contact details. Then, because he couldn’t help himself, he added “if you can bear to be parted from me for a day or two, that is. If not, you could always see if there are any seats left on my red-eye flight and accompany me back.”

“You know what? I might just do that. Makes me nostalgic for my childhood.”

Aziraphale looked at him quizzically. They had reached the front door of his hotel.

“What? I didn’t grow up around private jets, you know.” Crowley gestured at himself with a flourish. “You’re looking at the American Dream here.” He looked at Aziraphale over his sunglasses and smiled. This was the black hole smile, the one inexorably pulling everything into its event horizon. “See you soon then.” He waved and sauntered away.

Aziraphale swallowed. He’d definitely made the right choice. He’d been seconds away from grabbing the man by his coat lapels, pushing him against the wall and snogging him senseless right there in public . He needed to sit down. He needed a cup of tea. There would be time to consider and weigh and reflect on his flight, in between the spikes of existential terror that were sure to pepper any airplane trip. 

Aziraphale wiggled in his seat. Take-off had been uneventful, but the tremor he could feel in the cabin was making him slightly uneasy. And this time, he would have to really get a hold of himself. He was seated on the right side of the central row at the back of the plane, and his neighbor was a heavily pregnant woman who shared his visceral distrust of airplanes. It wouldn’t do at all to feed her tension with his own. They’d talked at length back at the gate, when Aziraphale had offered her his seat. She and her husband (Eve and Adam, “we know haha”) were flying to London to a state of the art medical institution, the only one in the world able to perform the kind of surgery that their son would need just after his birth due to a very rare genetic condition. Both of them were dreading the flight; Eve because she was afraid of flying (which Aziraphale reassured her was very common and nothing to be ashamed of, offering himself as evidence), Adam because he had a back injury that made long stretches of time without lying down very painful, and both of them because of fears around the effect of a long flight on her pregnancy.

Aziraphale looked around. Eve was putting on a brave face, holding her husband’s hand in her own. Adam was looking at her with adoration, whispering reassuring things in her ear. The cabin lights were low, and all the other people near them were either settling down to sleep or deep into various kinds of screens.

“What’s up ?” said a now familiar voice.

Aziraphale started and looked up to his right. Crowley was standing in the alley, elbow leisurely resting on top of the seat in front of Aziraphale.

“What …? How?”

“Told you I was heading back to London. Got a divine apparition warning me off my evil ways re: private jets. Saw the light and booked a first class ticket instead. And wouldn’t you know? It was a two for one sale. Would you like to join me over there?”

“You are very kind, I would love to,” Aziraphale beamed at him. A frown immediately formed on his brow. “But I don’t think I could. My dear neighbor here” he gestured at Eve, who glanced at them with curiosity “needs these kinds of comforts much more than I do. I wouldn’t feel right accepting your offer.” He looked apologetically at Crowley. “She’s not having an easy time at all with the pregnancy.”

Eve looked at them, her expression a mix of shyness and hope. 

“Ngk, fine.” Crowley looked at Aziraphale. “You really are an angel, Someone have mercy on me.” 

Eve started thanking him profusely, saying he could change his mind whenever he wanted. Crowley turned to Adam and told him to go with her to seats A5 and A4. “Wouldn’t want to separate you two lovebirds. Now get a move on before I change my mind,” he added. Adam looked dumbfounded but Aziraphale encouraged him to get up. He and his wife left for the front of the plane and the fabled first class. The whole central row next to Aziraphale was now empty, since the fourth passenger had moved to another empty seat near a porthole before take-off.

“Please, do sit down,” Aziraphale said, showing the seat next to his.

Crowley slithered between him and the seat in front. Aziraphale froze. Those jeans were very tight, and Crowley’s bottom was very close during the few seconds it took him to reach the seat.

“I don’t suppose there’s any decent wine to be had down here?” Crowley pouted.

“I’m afraid not. I had some left in my water pistol but I drank it before going through airport security.”

“You what?” Crowley gaped, understanding dawning on him.

“Well, it would have been a bit distasteful to fill its container with my own, ah, bodily fluids, don’t you agree? Especially when I had a full glass of appropriately hued Chardonnay in my hand,” Aziraphale said with an almost apologetic smile. Almost, because Crowley could definitely discern some self-satisfaction in there.

“Bloody hell, I’m not touching white wine ever again.” Crowley couldn’t hide an admiring smile though. He didn’t feel like the most unhinged fiend in the room for once, which was both fun and alarming.

What wasn’t fun at all was the legroom situation he’d gotten himself into. He squirmed and moved like a sullen teenager trying to find a comfortable sitting position.

“Are you feeling nostalgic yet?” Aziraphale asked, because he was a fucking bastard.

“I was nine years old the last time I traveled like this, and high on sugar so it was a different situation,” Crowley growled as he toed his shoes off, moved to the side and laid his back across the three empty seats, his hair barely an inch away from Aziraphale’s thigh and his feet on the furthest armrest.

“I can’t fix the passage of time, but I can offer you some truffles?” Aziraphale produced a small bag of sweets. “It’s only airport chocolates, but I hear they’re typical from Seattle.” 

Crowley declined, but Aziraphale popped one of the truffles in his mouth. Crowley swiftly craned his neck towards him when he heard the delighted, no, downright salacious noise that Aziraphale made as he ate the candy. 

‘k I’m inviting you to the Ritz, I have to hear what gastronomic cuisine does to you if that’s your reaction to airport chocolates.

“It was really nice, what you did for that young couple.”

“Ngk, I’m not nice.” Crowley squirmed and crossed his arms. This was only marginally more comfortable than sitting, although feeling the top of his hair barely brushing Aziraphale’s thigh was making up for it. 

“I mean, I messed up with your professional event, I goaded you into entering an actual pissing contest with me, then I basically stalked you right down to your airplane seat.” Crowley looked up at Aziraphale. “You would be well within your rights to tell me to fuck right off.”

“That would make the rest of this flight rather awkward.” Aziraphale smiled, a new one to add to Crowley’s rapidly growing collection. Gentle with a side of amusement and … something else. It was gone before Crowley could put a name on it.

“But don’t worry dear, I’m taking your presence here in the spirit in which it was intended.”

“Which would be …?” Crowley teased.

“None at all, I don’t believe you really thought this one through.”

“Oh but I did. I was going to dazzle you with champagne, comfortable seating, and fancy cakes. Originally in a more private place than a commercial flight, but I can be flexible when the circumstances demand.” Crowley’s hip rolling motion when he said "flexible" had enough plausible deniability in it to pass for a posture adjustment.

“You could have done that in London.” The gentle and amused and something else smile had taken residence on Aziraphale’s face. ”It would, by the way. Dazzle me, that is.”

“You may have noticed that I have absolutely no patience whatsoever.”

“We’re going to have to work on that then.” 

Hungry. That’s the ‘something else’. Crowley squirmed again, wondering how he was going to survive nine more hours of this without spontaneously combusting. A flight attendant interrupted that train of thought. She had a couple of champagne flutes in her hands.

“I’m sorry, are you Mr Fell?” She asked Aziraphale. He confirmed. “Mr and Mrs Kwanza said you and your friend lent them your seats in first class. This is a very generous gesture, and I’d like to offer you this on behalf of the whole crew. Please let any of us know if you’d like anything from the first class menu.”

Crowley sat back upright in his seat to take the glass the flight attendant was offering. She explained how to get the menu on their phones and left.

Aziraphale raised his glass and toasted Crowley “To nice gestures.”

Crowley’s answer was cut off by a sharp increase of turbulence. Aziraphale bottomed up his glass and put it away just as the “fasten your seatbelts” signal lit up. Crowley followed and they both put their seatbelts back on as the usual “we are experiencing some turbulence” message went through. The shaking was getting significant, waking people up all around the cabin and sending paper cups rolling everywhere.

Crowley was about to grumble about badly timed atmospheric events, but he stopped when he felt his wrist locked in an iron grip on the armrest he shared with Aziraphale. The man had a tense look on his face, looking straight ahead. His other hand was gripping the other armrest, knuckles white.

“Hey, you ok?” Crowley asked. Aziraphale glanced at his own hand and immediately clutched it back into his lap. 

“I’m so sorry, I am rather a nervous flyer.”

“That’s alright, you can claim our armrest if you want.” Crowley removed his hand, trying not to think about what he’d just discovered about Aziraphale’s strength. He could tell that Aziraphale was focusing on not showing any panic. Crowley himself wasn’t bothered by bumpy flights; he’d had his share after various trips to Japan during typhoon season. He removed his sunglasses and leaned slightly forward to try and catch Aziraphale’s gaze. “Or you can crush my bones if that would make you feel better.” He held out his hand.

Aziraphale looked at it, then into Crowley’s eyes. They were a beautiful color, almost golden. A sudden air gap made him squirm and grab Crowley’s hand. He pressed back against the back of his seat and looked ahead, but he could still see Crowley’s calm face in the corner of his eye. 

“I’ve flown through much worse, we’ll live, I swear.” Crowley gave Aziraphale a gentle look and a short squeeze on the wrist with his other hand.

“Sorry, I know airplanes are very safe but I can’t help it.” 

“Don’t apologize, your brain knows things that your gut doesn’t, and your brain is not driving right now.”

You can say that again. Aziraphale looked in fascination at their hands on the armrest, head still firmly pressed against the headrest. It seemed safer than to look at Crowley’s face.

“We’ll ride it out and drink some more champagne afterwards, yeah?” 

Aziraphale nodded stiffly. The shaking let out a bit, enough that he felt comfortable releasing some pressure on the armrest and Crowley’s hand. He didn’t let it go though.

“One would think that all the time I spent studying theology would help me face my own mortality with more grace.” Aziraphale smiled weakly. The turbulence was settling into a steady, heavy vibration. Or maybe the thrumming in his own heart was drowning it out. “Years and years of attending conservative church services, and still it’s airborne travel that really put the fear of god into me.”

Crowley went very still. He’d heard a lot of stories that started like this, and what unfolded was usually dire. He stroked Aziraphale’s thumb with his own, unthinking. It seemed to startle Aziraphale out of his thoughts.

“Oh it wasn’t that bad. The messaging was dreadful of course, but my mother never let any of it apply to me. When I was a teen she tore down a church biddy and her son with very pointed and literal quoting from the Gospel, in front of the whole congregation, after they tried to come at me with Leviticus. They didn’t return for weeks afterwards.”

“Smiting runs in the family then?” Crowley relaxed, seeing an arch grin slide on Aziraphale’s face.

“Do you know, the son is now a priest in a much more open-minded denomination. I went to one of his services once. It was alright, but he still can’t quote scripture worth a damn.” They both chuckled.

The turbulence finally smoothed out. Aziraphale gave Crowley his hand back with a bit of embarrassment and not a small amount of regret, but keeping it would have made the situation more intense than he thought he could handle safely. Crowley decided to behave and not share his deeper thoughts on the red marks Aziraphale’s fingers had left on his wrists.

Crowley picked up one of the books in the mesh pocket in front of Aziraphale’s seat.

“Guess I need to cultivate myself a bit more, just to be on the safe side. What’s this?” He laid down on his back across the row of seats again and looked at the book cover.

“‘Theological discourse material in early Christian communities’, that looks topical.” He opened the book on a random page and started reading in a low voice. People around them had gone back to movies and slumber and the lights were back to their low night setting.

“... although these documents were recovered from the Eassir dig site (Fig 43.a) at a much later date. They represent the first recorded mention of the classic paradox: can god make a mountain so high that even he cannot climb to its top? …” Crowley stopped talking and looked into the distance. When he spoke again it sounded like he was reading from another book.

“we are the mountain that god made and that she cannot climb”

“What’s that?” Aziraphale looked down in surprise.

“That’s the hot take that got me kicked out of Sunday School when I was sixteen.” Crowley looked up at Aziraphale. “The priest was talking about the whole ‘Jesus died for your sins’ bit, and I’d always been confused by the logic of that. I guess I had a stroke of inspiration, thinking that god just needed the lived experience of being human to understand sin. I explained that to the priest and threw in the feminine gender as a bonus.” Crowley looked back at the book. “Thought myself real clever then, but the priest didn’t like it at all. He was a real ass though, and as boring as watching paint dry. Almost got suspended from that fancy Catholic school over it.”

Aziraphale stared at Crowley. If that had happened in my Sunday School class I would have run after you and have you ravish me right there in the hallway. He wanted to ask many more questions to Crowley, about his family, his interests as a teen and then an adult, or any other hot takes of his on the subject that had been the main focus of Aziraphale’s home life before he left for college.

But Crowley was yawning. It was 2 am, and it looked like sleep would claim him soon. Aziraphale took another one of his books and started to read. Not long afterwards, he heard Crowley’s book fall gently to the floor. He picked it up and put it away. 

Crowley’s face was very different when he was sleeping. No smirk, no amused or surprised or intense expressions; just a quiet vulnerability that probably didn’t show very often for a man in his position. Aziraphale tried to read, but somehow couldn’t get to the end of his page, his eyes darting back to Crowley’s face and his thoughts to the events of the last thirty-six hours. 

He was suddenly yanked out of his reverie by grunts and movements against his left side. Crowley was shifting around in his sleep, subconsciously trying to find a more comfortable position. Aziraphale gasped as he saw and felt a hand clumsily grabbing his left knee while Crowley hoisted his face on his thigh, rolling to his side and going back into a deep and peaceful sleep.

Aziraphale sat stock-still. This felt a bit like the time a skittish stray cat he’d been feeding for months at his favorite park bench had surprised him by jumping onto his knees and settling down for a nap. He fought the impulse to stroke Crowley’s hair, but there really wasn’t anywhere convenient to rest his hand other than Crowley’s upper body. He considered waking him up, but immediately wondered what for. He wasn’t bothered. Quite the opposite, in fact. He just wondered how awkward it would be if Crowley woke up and noticed Aziraphale had let him stay where he was. But this was the most generous action Aziraphale could take at the moment, right ? Those seats were not the most comfortable. But if he was honest with himself, the quiet domesticity of it, after all the flirtatious banter and the fact that Crowley obviously wanted his company very much, was what really stopped him from doing anything about the situation. 

Aziraphale put his book down, finally acknowledging that he wasn’t going to do any reading for a while. He realized with a start that he wasn’t worrying at all about where this was going. He looked down at Crowley. Let’s do stupid things together. He was surprised at how easy it came to him.

Crowley’s steady breathing lulled him into drowsiness. He closed his eyes, and for the first time in his life, got a decent amount of sleep in an airplane.

The cabin lights went up as the plane began its descent towards Heathrow. Crowley woke halfway up, blinking, confused, and sore all over. That mattress was terrible, but at least the pillow was great. There was a warm hand over his temple. He sat up with a sudden burst of realization. This wasn’t a bed? 

He stared at Aziraphale, who was somehow still asleep, then down at the thigh he’d just used as a pillow for literal hours. Aziraphale was starting to make some growling noises and wrinkling his nose. It was the most adorable thing. 

Get a fucking grip on yourself. When he wakes up, try to act like a normal fucking person. You walk out of that plane, say goodbye and get into a fucking taxi and think about your choices. Then (AND ONLY THEN) you extend a dinner invitation, after a few days. And keep the wording fucking tasteful.

The plane landed with a vibrating thud, brutally finalizing Aziraphale’s awakening. Aziraphale looked around him, disoriented. When he noticed they were already safe on the ground, he gave Crowley another of his astronomical scale smiles.  

It took everything he had, but Crowley mostly followed up on his resolution. He only cracked at the end, as Aziraphale got into his taxi.

“Hey angel. How about Wahoo and Chill at my place on Saturday?” 

Notes

“Rise and Fall of the Blue Kingdom”

A Rock Opera

Starring 

Tori Amos as Tonia Khroly

Danny DeVito as Edmond Tusk

Hugh Jackman as Josh Dorzet

Available worldwide on Wahoo Streaming

Chapter Text

Aziraphale looked at his plate. Like the ones that had come before it, it was beautifully arranged, and like them it contained absolutely delicious creations complimented by perfect wine pairings. He looked up at Crowley, who was gazing intently at him, chin in hand. Even with the sunglasses, it bore a hole right through his thoughts, especially with the hint of a smile that was creeping up on Crowley's mouth. 

I know what it tastes like now.  

Aziraphale hoped he wasn’t blushing. He’d always found the first meeting after spending a night with someone a bit surreal, and that feeling was even stronger than usual with Crowley. 

Crowley, who had invited him for “Wahoo and Chill”, which Aziraphale used, up to that night, to take literally as a quiet evening at home with a movie. They hadn’t even made it to the expensively minimalist leather couch, ending up instead on the thankfully very thick rug in the … plant salon? Aziraphale wasn’t quite sure, as his mind (and eyes and hands and all the rest) had been occupied elsewhere. He only remembered large dark leaves hovering above Crowley’s head while he …

“Anything on your mind, angel?”

Aziraphale shook his head, trying to get back in the moment. Crowley grinned like he knew exactly where Aziraphale’s thoughts had just been.

“Oh, just, hum, wondering how you picked ‘Jessica’ as your middle name.”

“It’s just Jay, actually. I wanted to avoid the J/Jay jokes, it would have been too easy. I suppose I identify with Jessica Rabbit a little bit too.”

“Who?”

“Jessica Rabbit? Tall, scheming, good-looking ginger who likes funny men? From ‘Who framed Roger Rabbit'?’”

“I’m sorry dear, that doesn’t ring any bells.”

“Let’s add it to the queue for our next Wahoo and Chill then.”

“Really darling, is it wise to add to that queue? We were supposed to watch The Oracles the other day, and look where that got us.” 

Crowley’s smile was full now. He was unquestionably at peace with a months-long Wahoo queue if that meant a repeat of that night. He could still feel Aziraphale’s hand pushing between his shoulder blades. Aziraphale, who was now looking at him like he was thinking about the exact same thing.

“Speaking of, how did you learn about fertility ritual artifacts?” 

“I tried to find out who you were on my way to Seattle and all I could find online was professional publications. I sort of went down the archeology rabbit hole after that.” Crowley looked quizzically at Aziraphale over his wine glass. “Where are you on Wahoo by the way? I couldn't find anything for any variations of your name.”

“Oh I’m not on Wahoo.” Aziraphale glanced apologetically at Crowley. The man was looking at him like he'd just announced that he didn't care much for hot water or electricity. “It just seemed a bit … daunting”.

“That's it, give me your phone.” Crowley straightened up and extended his hand over the table, moving his fingers in an unmistakable ‘come hither’ movement. 

Aziraphale reached for his phone almost subconsciously.

“This does feel like some kind of deal with the devil,” he said when Crowley snatched the device.

“Hmmm technically you are the one giving something to me right now so I’m really doing a deal with an angel here.”

Aziraphale watched as Crowley leaned with him over the device and started setting up a Wahoo account, moving through the steps with uncanny speed and showing him the basics of how it all worked. At the end, he handed Aziraphale his phone back.

“Vavoom! Sorted.”

Crowley sank back into his chair, crossing his arms. 

“I set it up to subscribe to my feed and your coauthor’s, that girl with the unusual name. And one of the fun archeology ones I found on the plane. It’s the source of my fertility rituals knowledge by the way. You can add more later but that should get you started.” 

He took his own phone out and gave it a few taps. “And now I’m subscribed to your feed!” He smirked. “Welcome to this century, angel.”

Aziraphale looked down at the screen. He had two messages. “Danathema [Anathema Device] is now subscribed.” and “Crowley [Anthony J Crowley] is now subscribed.” Well, Anathema would certainly have questions about all this. The archeology feed seemed interesting at least, and it quoted peer-reviewed sources. He clicked around, reading a few posts, following references, subscribing and saving bookmarks. It did look like Anathema had been more right than he gave her credit for. There was a host of interesting things in there for sure. 

He looked up at Crowley. The man was smiling victoriously.

“Well well, looks like my life’s work may steal my man from me after all. How ironic.”

“I just sent you a message. But it’s for later, I see dessert coming.” Aziraphale smiled back, both at Crowley and at the chocolate soufflé with bitter orange liqueur the waiter laid in front of him. 

The rest of the evening went deliciously, and they’d just passed the “yours or mine ?” point in the discussion (it would be Aziraphale’s, as Crowley had insisted on being introduced to Aziraphale’s cats) when Crowley took out his phone to quickly glance at Aziraphale’s message just as the other man was getting up. 

“Hey angel, did you mean to make a public post with this?”

“What do you mean ‘public’? I answered that little ‘Crowley just subscribed, why not @ them with something’ message? That’s the email symbol. Surely that means something like a private communication?”

“Hum, no that’s the tag symbol. It notifies people when they’re mentioned in public messages. Public is the default for Wahoo posts.” Crowley looked at Aziraphale over his sunglasses with impossible fondness. “The feeling is mutual, by the way.”

Aziraphale blushed furiously. He sat back down and took his phone out of his pocket at record speed, only to see the familiar “Battery empty” signal on the dark screen. “Well there has to be a way to delete this?” He looked beseechingly at Crowley, who was shaking his head.

“You can use my phone.” He handed it to Aziraphale, watching him frantically typing on the login screen.

“Oh bother. Do I only get three password tries?”

Crowley burst out laughing. 

“We could reset your password through email, but we’re going to need something else than my phone. My other communication apps are pretty locked down for security reasons.” He gave Aziraphale a softer look. “I personally don’t mind if this - us - becomes public. And that message was adorable. Very you.” 

Aziraphale had his face in his hands, an eye peeking at Crowley between his fingers. Crowley peeled one of his hands away from his face and held it on the tablecloth.

“It can’t be worse than what you already did in that back alley in Seattle. And that is a matter of public record. Might even mention it on the donation grant.”

Crowley removed his sunglasses and looked into Aziraphale’s eyes.

“Do you want me to make a phone call and get someone on this? It’s probably not going to change much now, that message already had a large amount of views and likes a moment ago.”

Aziraphale looked back at him and sighed. It was hard to stay afraid of anything when Crowley was holding him like that.

“Oh well. I suppose I do have to live with the times.” He refilled both wine glasses with his free hand and raised his own glass at Crowley. “To the few subscribers I might get from that little mishap then.”

“I think you’re underestimating the Wahoo user base here. Let’s drink to the world!”

azfell.wahoo.com

@crowley Saturday night was lovely,
the popularity of “Wahoo and Chill” as an expression makes much more sense to me now.
I hope we can do this again soon, 
and maybe actually watch The Oracles afterwards this time? 

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