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moveslikebuckywrites · 6 years ago

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Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Good Omens (TV) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens) Characters: Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley (Good Omens) Additional Tags: Light Angst, Feelings Realization, Retrospective

Another one for the weekly Ineffable Outliers prompts! The prompt this time was Bonfire Night and uh...it kind of got away from me? But I’m happy with it anyway!

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November 5, 1940 – In a bookshop in Soho, an angel reminisces.

Don’t you Remember, The Fifth of November, ‘Twas Gunpowder Treason Day, I let off my gun, And made’em all run. And Stole all their Bonfire away!

Aziraphale could hear chanting out in the streets, the old ditties mixed with the newer ones. He always preferred the old ones. Time marching on and all that, but still. He was glad some were actually out celebrating. It was hard times right now, during this war. Never let it be said you could keep a good Brit down, he supposed. Though he wished it would all end soon. Was starting to feel like the End Times in London these days.

It had felt that way for a while for Aziraphale. For seventy-eight years now in fact.

Seventy-eight years, six hours, and forty-three minutes if he wanted to be exact.

Aziraphale remembered Guy Fawkes, of course. Not that he remembered much about the man per se, but he did remember him. Hard to forget someone who nearly blows up the king.

He did enjoy the bonfires though. The revelry and happiness that came with them even in the early days. It was one of the things he secretly looked forward to every year, deep down inside where he’d never let anyone know. As time went on, he’d sit in his bookshop, pretending not to notice the commotion outside, but loving the happiness coming from the people all the same.

After all, it wasn’t a sin to cut loose once in a while.

Years passed and then the fireworks came; he hadn’t been a fan of those at first. Too loud, too scary. But he’d learned to appreciate them over the years. The beautiful colors that humans could coax out of a few chemicals, painting the sky in dazzling stars.

He’d convinced Crowley to come see with him once, knowing the demon’s love for human ingenuity. For some reason they had just made Crowley sad and he’d slept for three weeks1.

Aziraphale didn’t invite Crowley to Bonfire Night after that, and he didn’t ask why it upset him. The angel liked to think he had more tact than that. No, if the fireworks bothered Crowley, he’d leave it be.

But that was then, and this is now. He settled in with his glass of wine (which would conveniently become a lovely single malt as the evening went on) to remember.

Remember, as he did every year, not the fifth of November 1605, but the fifth of November 1862.

Seventy-eight years, seven hours, and twelve minutes since his world had been turned upside down.

He set aside this time, every year, to remember and to hope.

Seventy-eight years, seven hours, and fifteen minutes since he’d seen or heard from Crowley.

Seventy-eight years, seven hours, and sixteen minutes since he’d spat out the word “fraternizing” at his best friend like he couldn’t care less.

Seventy-eight years, seven hours, and seventeen minutes since he’d been asked to do the one thing he couldn’t do.

I’m not giving you a suicide pill, Crowley.

Aziraphale’s entire world had come crashing down around him with two words. Two words, nine letters, one small piece of parchment.

The means to an end. ‘Insurance’, Crowley had said.

Aziraphale pondered as he always did what Crowley meant by that. He came to the same conclusion he always did; if Hell ever turned on Crowley, he wanted an easy way out.

Selfish as he was, Aziraphale couldn’t give him that. Feelings and emotions that he’d been fighting tooth and nail since the Garden. Since Mesopotamia. Since Golgotha and Rome and the Globe and everywhere in between clawed their way out to the surface that day, wrenching him open and bleeding there in the middle of St. James for everyone to see.

A world without Crowley was not one that Aziraphale wanted to live in, and so the angel had panicked. Had fallen back on their old habits. His old song and dance of what if (what if the Arrangement is discovered, what if my side finds out, what if your side finds out), the same old pushback he always gave.

He hadn’t wanted to push Crowley away. He’d wanted to pull him closer, beg him to stay. Aziraphale would’ve fought all the hordes of Hell just to keep Crowley safe; he had been a soldier once, flaming sword notwithstanding.

But he’d been weak, he’d stormed off. Left Crowley standing there on his own, the last image of the demon, scowling and hurt, burned into his mind with startling clarity even now, after all these years.

After seventy-eight years, seven hours, and thirty-four minutes.

The Bonfire festivities that night had gone by and he hadn’t even bothered to look out his shop window. Too upset with himself, too upset with Crowley.

The thought of Crowley leaving him here alone was…well…excruciating.

He’d slammed the door of his bookshop, not even bothering to reopen that day. He’d screamed and he’d cried, and he’d even prayed a couple of times.

But now that the flood had bubbled over, there was no putting it back.

Aziraphale was an angel, and he was in love with a demon. A realization that had no place to exist and also no place to go. Even if Crowley were still around, what could they do?

My side doesn’t send rude notes, Crowley had told him once in a cell in the middle of revolutionary France.

What would either side do to them if Aziraphale had acted on it? What would either side do if Crowley felt the same?

Of course he didn’t, there wasn’t a possibility of it. Demons can’t feel love, everyone in Heaven knows that. Just like they know demons are inherently evil at all times, that demons don’t care about kids or carpenters from Galilee or floundering Shakespearian productions or stuffy angels who get themselves locked up for being peckish.

Seventy-eight years, eight hours, and six minutes and his wine had indeed changed into a single-malt scotch.

Thoughts like these didn’t do for sobriety.

Aziraphale was in love with a demon, and that demon was not currently speaking to him.

He spared a glance out the window at the drunken revelers. Not a good night for that, not since the bombs started dropping. Technically Bonfire Night had been suspended by parliament due to the war, but this was Soho and Soho was always a party.

Aziraphale finished off his scotch and sent a quick blessing out to the revelers. They’d all make it home in one piece before any bombs fell tonight.

As for the ever-shattering broken pieces of himself, he’d have to pick them up himself.

He had a meeting tomorrow, with British intelligence. Apparently, they had need of a bookseller for something very important.

---

January, 1941 – In the rubble of a church in London, an angel feels relieved.

He came back, to save me.

Seventy-eight years and he came back.

Swooped in at the last minute, every bit the dashing hero. Well, save for the hopping, but that’s to be expected.

Seventy-eight years and he was back, they were still friends. He still meant something to Crowley, though what that was he couldn’t say.

A new name, a new plan, and one bomb later, Aziraphale felt his life falling back into place.

A warmth, radiating from where his heart would be if he were he human, spreading throughout him. Filling him with waves of love; waves of relief.

Aziraphale watches as Crowley cleans the dirt off his sunglasses; he’s overwhelmed with affection for the demon. Seventy-eight years had done nothing to wall off the broken dam of feelings released back in 1862.

The silence is palpable, something hanging in the air that needs to be said but cannot possibly be said.

“That was very kind of you,” the angel says, trying to find something to fill this silence.

“Shut up,” Crowley retorts, but there isn’t any bite to it. If Aziraphale weren’t mistaken, he could’ve sworn he heard some fondness in there.

“Well, it was,” Aziraphale says trying to tread lightly, “No paperwork for a start…”

The angel isn’t sure what to say. There’s too much to say. How do you sum of seventy-eight years of missing someone, of worrying about someone, of loving someone from a distance? How do you even begin to?

No one ever wrote prophecies about something like this. Wait a minute…

“The books! I forgot all the books,” the angel starts to fret as he is wont to do, barely registering Crowley walking past him, “They’ll all be blown to…”

He stops when he hears a crunching sound, like brittle bones cracking. He turns and sees Crowley, holding out a leather satchel. The same leather satchel that Mr. Harmony had sequestered Aziraphale’s precious books into.

Aziraphale reaches out for the bag, and their hands brush.

“Little demonic miracle of my own,” Crowley says from behind those dark glasses and oh what Aziraphale wouldn’t give to be able to see the demon’s eyes right now. To read into all of this, to see if that fondness in Crowley’s voice reaches all the way to them.

“Lift home?” Crowley asks as he turns and walks away. His voice is soft, possibly even tender. Aziraphale can’t move, he’s too stunned.

There’s no reason for Crowley to save his books. There’s no benefit in it for him. Nothing except Aziraphale’s happiness; how could he have missed it?

Flashes of love; plain as day.

Flashes of love, painting beautiful colors. Copper and charcoal; potassium and barium. Strontium, lithium and all of the rest.

No, fireworks are nothing compared to the colors he can see now. The only thing that had ever compared to these colors were the stars, as seen up close in the early days of heaven.

“You coming, angel?”

“Yes, of course, sorry lost in thought,” Aziraphale stammers as he rushes to catch up with Crowley.

He’s back, he doesn’t seem to be angry with him, and for the first time in a very long time, Aziraphale lets himself feel hope.

---

1 – It would be a few centuries before Crowley would tell Aziraphale about his time before the fall; painting the skies with stars and planets and nebula. He hadn’t seen them up close in so long, and the fireworks only reminded him of what he’d lost all those millennia ago.

#good omens #my fic #ineffable husbands #aziraphale #crowley #ineffable outliers

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caseybanning · 5 years ago

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on love

((some slight spoilers for Ambition: Nemesis 100))

"It's not your usual fare," Casey's editor remarks, flipping through the article. It's several pages in length, word-dense, and cites everything from the Bible to the latest gossip in the honey dens of Veilgarden. His cigarette trails a line of smoke in the air, burning away almost untouched in the ashtray on his desk as he reads. He gives pause, Casey watching him as he reads, and finally his eyebrows go upwards on his face. He glances over the papers to Casey, his expression one of slight shock.

"Pointing out precisely what love is not is going to make a few people unhappy," He says. "And especially on such a personal level."

"I couldn't not write on the subject of romance without drawing from past experience," Casey explains. "Love is simultaneously the greatest pleasure and also the most harrowing pain. If I'm unable to explore both sides, this isn't going to work."

The editor exhales and sets the article aside. He taps the cigarette against the tray, loosening the ash and takes a drag. He contemplates quietly, and finally...

"It's not ready yet," He says. "You can do more with it, and you will have to publish this elsewhere."

"Carlisle--"

"You'll be unable to attract the audience you want with this publication," He explains. "I have some potentials that this could be sent to, but it's competitive. Work on it more, wait until the Feast is over. It'll stand out more."

On love

On the subject of love, my thoughts are numerous and scattered; it is my only hope that I may compile them here for you in one document and contribute my own into the conversation.

The subject of love is often introduced at a young age in your usual Christian household with popular verses. "Let all you do be done in love" is what we are told from 1 Corinthians 16:14, to the classic John 3:16 chiming in that God's act of love was to give his only Son for us to be forgiven of our sins. On this matter of love I've contemplated at great length in contrast of this being described as an act of love when it was instead such an act of violence and grief--Surely for Christ, who had been tortured and speared, and for his loving Mother to lose the son that she had brought into the world for this very purpose...

"Love?" Amos asks with a smile. "In what sense?"

Casey shrugs. "What's the first thing that comes to your mind?"

"Christ, of course." He says. "I don't think there would have been any greater act of love than his."

Casey leans forward in their chair. Surrounding the two of them in Amos's office were shelves and shelves of books--Bibles, different types, books on general theology, some novels. The candlelight here was warm and inviting, and gave a much better sense of ease than being in the church proper. "If a regular everyday man were to sacrifice himself for the love of his life, would that not be the same as what Christ did?" They ask.

Amos regards this question with a soft laugh. "You have to remember, Jesus was also as much of an everyday man as any of us. He was a carpenter. Also, his was for all of humanity and not just the love of a single individual."

"A single person's act of love for another single person could single-handedly change the course of history," Casey says with a smile. "Why else is London hidden away here?"

"I have little to say on the matters of the Empress," Amos says carefully, reaching for the tea on his desk.

"Here's a different question for you then," Casey sits up straighter now as Amos takes a sip of his tea. "Since London was taken underground and so much emphasis has started on the cultivation and actual sale of love stories, the matter of love is one that is expressed more openly. Theology and the church certainly had to make some changes once it was discovered that Hell is just a train ride away." Casey splays their hands out, motioning to all the books around them. "Why is it that, at best, the Church is still so silent on people like me and at worst an enabler for the likes of Jeremiah Lakewood?"

Amos blanches at the question, setting aside his tea with an abrupt clink into it's saucer. "I can't speak on behalf of the entire Church," He says. "At least as far as this parish goes, the attendees here do tend to hold similar opinions to you. I will tell you something though." He sits up, and his gaze is sharply fixed on Casey's as he starts to speak. "When the Veilgarden arsons were occurring, I was giving a sermon one morning when an attendee stood up express how they had been feeling. They'd said much of the same things that you did, just now, and back then I didn't have the answers. I still don't."

He folds his hands together atop his desk and continues. "What I believe, and additionally what I know to be true is this: People like Jeremiah Lakewood are not representative of the message of Christ. There are always disagreements between churches and congregations, but..." He stops to contemplate his words, almost long enough for Casey to press him to continue. "After the attacks in Veilgarden, what I was able to witness was an outpouring of love. It was the love of community. People opening their homes to the displaced, a few crossing class and belief lines to make sure the injured were cared for and safe, a single person interrupting a sermon to question everything right in the house of God. These are not insignificant moments. This is more what Christ meant to represent: the gathering of few to benefit the most, and working using love as a tool."

What types of love can we explore? We always hear so much on romantic love, and of course I can spend our time in this article together poetically exploring this subject, but I implore you also to consider beyond: the love between friends, the love between siblings, the love between yourself and your mother and father, the love you may feel during your favorite meal. Gestures, little gifts, sheltering someone from the rain, are all pieces that make up the puzzle of love. Love is a connection, and love is often a choice; a playing card that comes up in our hand that we can play or discard.

At the townhouse, Casey occupies a moment of time alone to go prepare a fresh pot of tea. Out in the parlor, they can hear Rashida's laughter as their aunt Mary regales another tale from her latest night out on the town. Behind her laughter were the intermingling voices of Blanche and Astrid, comparing notes on the latest play they were working on. The clinking of the china in the tray provides a gentle rhythm to the thrum of the chatter, and as they return Mary reaches out to touch Casey's arm.

"Oh, my dear--" She starts, gesturing them to sit. "Earlier you mentioned that my sister was in town."

"Yes," Casey clasps their hands together. Rashida's jovial expression softens, her gaze only breaking as she reaches for her teacup.

"About as well as one could expect?" She asks. Casey lifts up the teapot and pours into her cup, shrugging.

"It was worse before it got marginally better," They replied. "I don't quite think any supper with my family is complete without at least one person being called a disgrace, so in that regard my father did not disappoint. Roland was about to throw him out onto the street."

Mary sips her own tea quietly, and Rashida reaches out to hold Casey's hand. "That's terrible." She says. Cynthia, who had been quietly sketching in her journal his whole time next to Rashida, looks up.

"It's..." Casey pauses, staring down into their cup. "at least better than me thinking they would never speak to me again. We have written letters since then--more often than in the past. Mother has tried at least in calling me by my name, but father had a more difficult time coming around to that. The subject of my life here and who I am now is tread not at all."

"Which isn't better," Mary says darkly.

Rashida looks between the two of them, and Mary sighs. "When we reconnected here in London years ago, I felt... not really shocked by how Casey appeared to me, but there is always a surprise when someone you remember as one way presents differently daily." Mary says. Casey leans back and takes a sip of tea. "As a child, they used to try to get into their brother's old wardrobe and play dress-up. That's what we all thought, anyway. Children and their imaginations... Casey was not satisfied expecting to be a princess in stories, or to play mother with their dolls, not at first."

"Oh, I liked dolls plenty as a kid," They say. "I wouldn't pretend they were my children, but I did enjoy trying to make clothes for them."

"Sure," Mary says. "And then you got older. The young men in our church and community took notice."

Rashida nods, gently picking up a jar of honey to spoon in her tea. Casey's expression darkened. "It only took one of them though... just the one," They say, their voice quiet. "That was enough for me to learn what love isn't."

"You have Roland now," Cynthia says quietly, her eyes bright. "Not that it erases what has already happened, but it's a far stretch better than what you had."

To save the absolute best for last, my closing statements cannot go unsaid without mentioning my beloved husband. Without him, this would not have been possible and I would appear to you all a very different and much less pleasant individual...

Casey, though on the outside appearing to be relaxing into their chair, feels a stab of nervousness as Roland reads the article quietly to himself. As he reaches the last page, he glance up to Casey with a warm expression. "It's a complete work." He finally says.

"You think so?"

"Risky enough to where there will some inevitable push-back of course... not so much that you'll be exiled immediately. It's a good balance." He straightens out the pages and sets them aside on the table, standing up from his seat. He offers his hand to Casey and they stand up, retrieving their periodical from the table. "My editor is going to go over it with me tomorrow," They say, flipping through it as if to look for any last minute changes that could be made. "It's not going to be published in our usual periodical, but he's got a list of names lined up that I could try instead. Now that the Feast of the Rose has died down, it's not going to get lost in a sea of poetry or other works..."

Casey's voice trails off as they stare down at the papers. They crinkle lightly in their fingers, and Roland tries to catch their gaze. "What's wrong?" He asks.

"It's possible this isn't going to work," They reply. "The only time anyone ever really sees her or talks about her is during the Feast and that's all passed now. Who knows what other activities she's up to the rest of the year?"

"If this doesn't work, then this will still be considered your published work and it adds to your career as a writer," Roland says and smiles. "And if it does work, well... you're a step closer."

"Either option would be great," Casey says with a tired sigh and rubs their eye. "Nothing more happening tonight though--it's as completed as it can be until Carlise gets his hands on it."

Roland hums, pursing his lips in an exaggerated expression of thought. "Nothing more tonight?" He asks. Casey gives him a wry smile.

"Is there an idea you think maybe I can add?"

"Oh, always," He says, reaching to brush a bit of Casey's hair away from their face. "Nothing you could publish without getting exiled though."

"Do tell me more." Casey smiles, leaning up toward him for a kiss.

Actors are seen reading it between practices, giggling amongst themselves as they thumb through the periodical and swap their favorite quotes. The subject of love comes up in Amos's sermon the first Sunday after it's published. The Ministry of Public Decency doesn't waste much time in snatching up as many copies as they could over some of the more choice passages, citing security concerns and non-taxed stories. The few remaining copies are hidden away in reading rooms and personal libraries.

Casey lies in wait the whole time, keeping their eyes peeled as they traverse London--not a hint of that distinct, irrigo-soaked silhouette to be seen yet.

The night came in quietly, almost unseen just as the clock was chiming nine. Casey, distantly thinking of a steaming cup of tea and a book to close out their evening, pulls out a small ring of keys to the front of their residence and inserts one. The small pattering of footsteps coming closer could be heard just over their shoulder and they pause, their key still stuck in the lock, and they turn to face the source of the noise.

A cloaked figure is approaching them, a copy of Casey's periodical clutched in her hands. As she walks closer, the scent of her perfume sweeps over the porch and Casey staggers back, trying to reach blindly behind them to push the door open. They blink once, twice, rapidly--irrigo starts swirling in their vision--

#fallen london #ambition: nemesis spoillers #words words words

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