#🐍You're one microscopic cog In his catastrophic plan (ch: Crowley)

[existentialflirt]

@v0litioncheck said: ‘ i made coffee. ’ ( aziraphale to crowley )

"Wot?"

Of the many combinations of three little words he liked hearing from Aziraphale 'I made coffee' was not one of them. The last time he'd tried to make coffee at Crowley's flat, it was only a literal miracle that had stopped him from blowing up his sleek, complicated espresso machine.

He rubbed his eyes. Honestly, he was relieved to have the distraction after staring at a computer monitor for the past half hour. Crowley wasn't sure how real teachers did it. He supposed he could just miracle teaching materials out of thin air, but to be honest, he was having a rather good time playing tutor. Anyway, when it came to creative or intellectual endeavors production from miracles could be a bit of a mixed bag.

"Define made." Crowley's tone conveyed suspicion. He didn't smell anything burning so that was a good sign at least.

[existentialflirt]

@v0litioncheck prompted: [ TOUCH ] az to crowley <3

[TOUCH ]:          while touching the receiver’s waist, the sender’s hand briefly dips beneath the hem of their shirt, skimming briefly across the bare skin of their waist.

Aziraphale didn’t bother opening his store on Sundays. Not that the bookshop had ever turned much of a profit. It was a miracle that he kept such prime real estate in Soho. Literally. He had probably been burning miracles by the year just to avoid the nastier bits of being a business owner. The demon didn’t begrudge him. It meant the angel lingered in bed without Crowley doing any extra convincing.

Even after being introduced to the wonders of sleeping (Crowley still didn’t understand how its charm had been lost on his hedonistic angel), Aziraphale was usually up at least five hours before the demon even started to stir. Lately he’d been disturbed by how little reading he’d been getting done since the antichrist had been sent to Earth and all the ensuing chaos. As things had settled down, Aziraphale had taken to bringing books back to his flat. Never anything too terribly valuable. Those stayed at the bookstore, but Crowley was starting to worry he might have to actually install a bookshelf to keep them in some kind of order. He didn’t like the clutter, even if it was Aziraphale’s clutter.

As he drowsed comfortably beside the angel, he became starkly aware of his wandering touch. Only one hand was being occupied keeping his book open, after all, and the other had strayed to Crowley’s waist and slipped under the impossibly soft tee shirt he was wearing. Aziraphale’s touch burned, it always had. The first few times they’d been intimate, he’d been convinced the angel’s touch would brand him indelibly. Crowley had secretly been disappointed when it hadn’t. He sighed as the soft touch left fire in its wake, making him squirm under Aziraphale’s fingertips.

“You readin’ or teasin’?” Crowley grumbled as he shifted to his side. The angel’s caress followed the motion, making him shiver as it ghosted just below his navel. “Cos y’can’t do both, angel.” His voice was still muzzy with sleep, ever so slightly heavier and darker than usual.

[existentialflirt]

London, 1860

A revenant rose out of the ground in a cemetery not far outside of London. He was tall and moved like someone fresh off a miner’s shift. His clothes were just as filthy too. Once upon a time, they would have been stylish, trendy even, but now they were tattered and torn. Tangled red curls framed his narrow face, both just as filthy as his clothing.

Dark clouds gathered in his wake, as though the weather was reflecting his mood. As he neared the metropolis, his countenance became more determined and he began to move more quickly. If anyone noticed him, they would have simply imagined he was trying to escape the rain that had started to pelt the sidewalk. They also might have noticed that his clothes ceased to be in poor disrepair and he began to look, while no less tired, considerably less like a shambling corpse. Not even the downpour touched him. Then again it was a misty, foggy night in London, a city in no way foreign to high strangeness. 

Perhaps he was just an avid reader eager to reach an eccentric shop and its owner.

He stood on the stoop and slapped the front door so hard the glass in the window cutouts shivered. The lights were still on at A.Z. Fell and Co.’s. They usually were as the proprietor appeared to live there and partake in his wares more than he sold them. The man outside hit the door again, this time with a bit less force. His exhausted expression began to edge on desperation. It looked like he wanted to scream but instead his voice came out as a low growl, rusty from years of disuse.

“Angel.”

@v0litioncheck // for Aziraphale

[existentialflirt]

@v0litioncheck prompted: ❛ i’d be home with you. ❜ ( az to crowley; accepting the offer to stay at crowley's place after his bookshop burnt down but the rest happened like in the book—no swap, just a sweet, happy ending )

Crowley found himself a little surprised by the answer. He didn't know why, but things felt different now. In a good way. They were unencumbered on a bus stop bench. Still an angel; still a demon, but no longer on opposite sides. Granted they hadn't been for a very long time, but standing together against God's Grand Plan, in defiance of their bosses, it was just a whole different scene. Not a bad one, either, even if he had no idea what would happen tomorrow.

Well — He was reasonably certain he'd wake up with Aziraphale next to him. Probably reading some obscure book from the seventeenth century, wearing those ridiculous glasses. Crowley was so happy he felt like something disastrous might happen, as though sheer joy was too bright an emotion for him to contain.

So he kissed him, because desire was much more familiar and easier to parse. Crowley rested his hand against the side of his neck, gently tilting Aziraphale's face up. They stayed that way for quite some time, absorbed in each other like they hadn't been in far too long. The apocalypse had been many things, but most of all it had been quite the mood killer, replacing quiet nights spent in each other's company with existential dread.

The head lights of a bus that shouldn't have been coming round at this hour drew them apart. It was also miraculously going exactly where they needed to go. Crowley didn't know who he should be thanking and wasn't exactly the grateful sort anyway.

"I'm famished," Crowley sighed , not too interested in getting up until the bus rolled to a stop in front of them. He realized that he hadn't been this exhausted since...ever, really. "Hopefully that Chinese takeaway a block up from mine is still open, eh?"

[existentialflirt]

Head Canons Crowley

Just a small list to get them out there. Some devised with @v0litioncheck.

** Crowley does eat but very rarely. It falls under a fairly common theme in some of my head canons for him as "snake tendencies". He tends toward larger meals, after which he will take a lengthy nap. Usually around two days otherwise he's extremely cranky.

** In continuing with that theme, Crowley runs fairly cold. He greatly enjoys summer and may be found on top of high buildings in London basking in the sun (beaches are too crowded and people stare too much).

** Modern times (the 20th and 21th century) have been kind for Crowley, who really isn't too interested in doing his job. At least in the way Hell likes it done. He prefers a bit of chaos and bad vibes to murder and mayhem. Oh he'll inadvertently cause a death without too much of a twinge of guilt, but being directly involved just isn't his style. Anyway, humans do quite enough atrocities on their own, and all it takes is for a clever demon to keep abreast of the news and take the credit for inspiring the nastier bits.

** When Crowley was cast from heaven, his original name was stripped from him and he had to rename himself. Astonishingly, he was very bad at this. (Sorry, it never ceases to amaze me that in the same book/tv series we have a demon creative and with a powerful enough will to keep a burning car running to his destination yet calls himself Crawley and later changes it to Crowley which is barely more than an intonation change. That's just so funny to me. Definitely from Terry ahem.)

** A large portion of classical paintings and statues of Lucifer are actually modeled off Crowley, who did it all for a laugh after frequently being mistaken for him. Obviously he got in very big trouble down below when the big boss found out, but Lucifer let him off with a warning when Crowley explained how they sewed the seed of doubt and/or lust in the hearts of the devout (because you see, many paintings and statues of Lucifer, even ones in churches, are very sexy and very nude).

** While both demons and angels have the ability to shapeshift, there is some bureaucratic nonsense involved dependent on rank and severity of the change. When Aziraphale and Crowley posed as Brother Francis and Nanny Ashtoreth they were trying to fly under the radar of both Heaven and Hell and instead fashioned costumes (mostly Aziraphale's idea and design because he's dabbled in a bit of stagecraft). During that time, they co-habitate in a boathouse on the Dowlings' property aside from on days off, when they go to London to be themselves for awhile.

** After long consideration and a careful bit of picking through Christian study, secular, and woo (New Age) pages (not fun! I swear Google has gotten fucking worse when it comes to research), and having been given one last clue in a late episode in series two, I've settled on Crowley having been a Seraph before he fell. Most of this decision is to due to snake imagery used in how they're described and it's a pretty good reason why he's stupid powerful. Seraphs are the highest rank in the angelic hierarchy and depending on who you ask, Lucifer was a Seraph before he fell (other sources claim him as Cherub, so idek. Judeo-Christian mythology is a fucking mess). Also a very good theory about why Hell lets him fuck around and do whatever he pleases for the most part. He has been punished for doing too ostentatious acts of kindness, but apparently not so much that he is ever demoted out of temptations. Perhaps having been the snake to corrupt Eve is too big of a gold star in his file to truly justify a demotion. Or he's just such a massive, willful pain in the ass that no one likes to deal with him for much more than a decade or two.

** So...Crowley's human identity appears to be vaguely criminal and definitely dodgy hard bastard. Because all roads lead me to Hellblazer eventually, yes Crowley does know John Constantine and they DO NOT like each other. Generally the idea is that they're bullshit artists that can smell the shit on one another. However they do have an understanding not to fuck around in each other's business.

** Crowley is single handedly keeping several record shops open around London because sometimes he needs to listen to something other than Queen.

[existentialflirt]

@v0litioncheck said: "We were wearing togas, so having sex was really easy to do without taking any clothes off." [ az to crowley. it's not text because az doesn't have a smartphone. also he's probably very, very drunk ]

"Have you been...drinking?"

Not that the angel never drank without him. He usually polished off a couple glasses of wine over dinner, but it was exceedingly rare that he'd get near to rat-arsed. His brow furrowed, thinking he'd only been gone for a couple days. It usually took a fortnight before they truly started missing each other like the ache of a phantom limb.

He couldn't help but worry that it was something worse. It had been a year since they'd aided in the diversion of Armageddon, and for as much as he'd been enjoying the silence, he was on pins and needles, too. When either side finally decided to deal with them, what was that going to look like? He only hoped their overall incompetence was taken into account.

"Are you okay? Nothin' interesting gone down since I've been away, hassit?"

[existentialflirt]

This one did the highly dire transgression of talking too much in his general vicinity. Granted, when it came to whatever shady business he often ended up tangled in, sometimes a conversation had to be involved. In those cases, Crowley was used to being the one leading it, however, and this just wasn't working. Behind his dark shades he closed his eyes as he rubbed his temple in a vain attempt to assuage a building migraine. He wondered if he dozed off at the table, would she even notice? Crowley considered it seriously until she abruptly stopped talking and looked at him expectantly. He blinked slowly, a rarity hidden behind black lenses.

"Hmm, wot?" His irritation was thinly veiled by a disinterested grumble. "I missed that last bit."

for @astremourante (he's your problem now)