#nanomutt prompt challenge

[rcreveal]

Bath Research

Summary:

Nanomutt Prompt a Day Challenge Day 22: How you said I love you-Muffled, from the other side of the door. Muriel is continuing their research on things humans love. This time it's long baths.

Work Text:

Aziraphale knocked on the bathroom door hesitantly, “Muriel? Are you alright?” He had Maggie behind him for support.  When he’d asked Eric where Muriel had gotten to, the demon said that Muriel had gone upstairs for some more research.

They heard splashing, “Everything's fine Mr. Fell!”  

Trying to figure out a way to phrase the question delicately, “Eric said you were doing some research?”  

“Yes, Mr Fell!”  the smell of eucalyptus wafted from under the door.

Looking at Maggie, who shrugs, he asks, “And what are you researching?  Only, you’ve been in the bathroom for six hours.”

“Oh, humans love long baths, so I was researching long baths.  I’ve got bath salts, bubble bath, bath oils, shampoo, conditioner, hair oil, a loofah, a flannel, a sponge, a pumice stone, candles…”

“In the water with you, all at the same time?” asks Aziraphale.

“Yes, Mr Fell!” replies Muriel.

Maggie asked, “And is that water warm?”

“It reached the ambient temperature of the bathroom 3 hours ago!” calls Muriel.

Maggie and Aziraphale look at each other.

“As your research advisors, Maggie and I think it’s time for you to finish your research in the bath for now, so you can write up your findings,” suggests Aziraphale.

A loud sloshing noise, with pings and bongs erupts from the other side of the door.

“Um, how do I dry off my clothes with just the one towel?” calls Muriel from the other side of the door as a puddle starts to creep towards Maggie and Aziraphale.

“Did you have all your clothes on in the bath, Muriel?” Maggie calls.

“Yes?! Was that wrong?” replies Muriel.

“Well,” interjects Aziraphale, “Humans generally take their clothing off to bathe.”

“All of them?!” asks Muriel. “Why?”

Maggie and Aziraphale turned to each other.

“I’ll get the bathrobe,” Aziraphale said.

“I’ll get the towels,” said Maggie.

They meet back in front of the bathroom door, Aziraphale holds a huge cream bathrobe that says ‘Jim’ on the left breast pocket.

“Who’s going in?” whispers Maggie.  “They're an angel. You're an angel!”

“Do you need help to change?” Aziraphale called.

“Change what?” Muriel asked.

“Don’t worry, I did this with Jim,” Aziraphale says to Maggie.

Aziraphale opened the door a crack, and held a large towel into the bathroom without looking.

“Take off the wet clothes, dry your corporation with this towel.”

“And my shoes?” asks Muriel.

“And your shoes,” replies Aziraphale, shaking his head and smiling fondly.

Wet slapping as a sodden jumper and skirt hit the floor.

Aziraphale reaches into the bathroom with the bathrobe, “Now, put on this bathrobe and give me your wet clothing and shoes.” 

Muriel, wrapped in Jim’s gigantic bathrobe with at least a foot of the material on the floor, opens the door with a pile of sodden clothing and shoes in their arms.

Also with bath salts, shampoo, bubble bath, and bath oil still in their hair.

“O-kay,” says Maggie, passing the wet clothing to Aziraphale, “It’ll take a miracle for these to be wearable any time soon,”

“Oh, certainly!” says Aziraphale, as he looks at the mess of clothing, “Oh, you mean me .”

“And you need a shower to rinse all that off.”  Maggie enters the bathroom and turns on the shower, gets the temperature pleasant, and directs Muriel, “Stand under the warm water without any clothes or shoes on until the suds are washed off, then dry yourself off with the towel and put the bathrobe back on.  Aziraphale will have gotten your clothes fixed up by then.”

Waiting outside the bathroom, Aziraphale and Maggie hear some happy humming, the water turning off, towel swishing.  Muffled through the door Muriel says, “Thank you!  I think I like showers better than baths!”

Maggie and Aziraphale smile, “Let’s talk about your bath research methods before you give up on them completely!” calls Aziraphale.

[rcreveal]

Soggy Bread

NanoMutt Prompt a day challenge Day 5: How you said I love you over a bottle of beer.

Good Omens

Beelzebub/Gabriel

Crossposted to AO3

Day 5 of the prompt challenge in Sendarya’s Discussion Server.

“Where are we?” Beelzebub looked around at the pub.  No, it called itself a brewery.  The inhabitants were wearing a wide assortment of dark hooded sweatshirts, with or without midriff-baring undershirts and an impressive collection of tattoos. Outside a light rain was falling from an overcast sky.

“We’re in,” Gabriel smiles and nods while he gestures to his hooded sweatshirt and a thick and luxurious beard.  “The Pacific Northwest!”

“Oh. That explains why I just saw a man ride by transporting four children on a single bicycle and an 80 year old woman drove by in a three wheeled vehicle without doors.  In the rain." Beelzebub continues to look around.

“But why here?”  Beelzebub’s gesture encompasses the brewery, the town, the rain, and the hoodies.

"Now hear me out,” Gabriel said with both hands pointed towards the six little half pints of beer lined up in front of them, “Aziraphale and Crowley…”

“The traitor,” Beelzebub said with a smiling sneer.

“Yes, lucky for us he is a nice traitor, uh, nice demon,” Beelzebub is wincing and looking at Gabriel with open disbelief. "Those words, together, just feel weird, in my mouth," Gabriel gestures a hand around his mouth.

“The two words ‘nice’ and ‘demon’ just don’t go together,” explains Beelzebub.

“They do in this case.  Which is why,” Gabriel takes one of their hands and kisses it, “I’m still here to talk with you.” 

“Fine. But why beer? You like to drink hot cocoa,”  Beelzebub points out.

“But, I could like beer!” Gabriel still smiles,  “Crowley and Aziraphale like to drink intoxicating substances.  Many humans like to drink intoxicating substances, so we ,” Gabriel is indicating them both, “could like intoxicating substances!”

“Furthermore, we’re at basically the same latitude as Aziraphale and Crowley, but on the other side of the globe, so we balance them out by being here .” Gabriel points down.  He has been explaining all this like he might have a slide presentation and Beelzebub has been giving him the kind of disbelieving look many a demon presenter has come to fear.

“I still don’t see the point.” Beelzebub gestures to the beer sampler.

Gabriel, who is immune to the disbelieving stares of his presentation audiences continues, “ And , I asked my little friend here to taste all the intoxicating substances to tell me which one you’d like best.” Gabriel holds up his finger and a fly alights on it.

Finally, Beelzebub smiles, both at the fly and Gabriel, “You two did that for me?” they hold up their finger next to Gabriel’s and the fly tipsily walks onto it.

“The fly said that you’d like beer better because you’d like soggy rotted bread,” and Gabriel holds up one of the small half pints of beer and looks at it, “Better than rotted grape juice.”

Beelzebub, eyes shining, lifts another half pint and sips it under the expectant gaze of Gabriel and the fly.  Their face contorts through several configurations before settling on an eyebrow raised towards the drink.

“Ye-es, I think I could get to like the soggy rotted bread drink.   But this one has too much of the antibacterial hops in it for my taste.  Which one doesn’t have that in?” they lift the fly to their ear and select a different glass, this time smiling appreciatively.

"Oh, he says we should try the rotted sweetened tea.  They call it kombucha.  But to be careful with the ones with CBD in." Beelzebub says tasting another beer.

Gabriel purses his lips in a thoughtful face and nods while holding up his half pint to clink against Beelzebub's.  "They call it a toast"

"But, the liquid is cold." Beelzebub points out, perplexed.

"Humans," says Gabriel and they both shrug and sip their beer.

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Punting

Summary:

Crowley and Aziraphale are courting and a people watcher observes them on a pleasant afternoon.

Work Text:

Day 6 Prompt How you say I love you on a sunny Tuesday with sunshine in your hair

The water of the river below is smooth and dark, with silken ripples where mayflies alight and trout rise.  The warm summer breeze is cooling your back and rustling in the willows on the bank as you look downriver from your perch on the old stone bridge. 

From upriver come the sounds of laughing voices that seem to blend in with the birdsong and the breeze.  There's something in their voices, that lets you know these people really care for each other.

As the prow of the punt boat comes into view, you look down eagerly to see the party below.  Two men sit comfortably in the prow, one wiry and lanky, but whose only concession to the heat of the day seems to have been to take off a tailored black suit jacket.  He’s still wearing black slacks and a black dress shirt tucked in but with the sleeves rolled up.  His arm is companionably draped over the shoulders of a fellow all in cream and tartan, wearing more seasonal linen, but in shirtsleeves and a waistcoat.

As they pass through a band of sunshine, the red, sinuous hair of the darkly clothed man catches fire at the same time as his companion’s white blond curls become blindingly white.  You hear the man in the dark clothing inviting his partner to “Try the pâté” and the look he gives him over a sip of white wine as his companion’s face breaks into a delighted smile is love and satisfaction at a food love language well sorted.

As they drift further down the river, their red and blonde tresses blazing out in each sunbeam, you turn to walk back to your car.  It’s almost time to pick up your sweetheart for a surprise punt boat ride on a sunny Tuesday afternoon.

[rcreveal]

Courting in the Stars

Summary:

This takes place after the Second Coming has been averted. Heaven and Hell cannot meddle any longer. Crowley and Aziraphale have professed and accepted their love for each other. And now, they are courting, as Aziraphale would say, (though Crowley is quick to counter that nobody calls it courting any longer-even though he likes it, too). They are still living separately while planning a world trip to see all the places they couldn’t visit while on assignment all these years.

Notes:

NaNo Mutt prompt a day challenge How you say I love you Day 3-with a scream

Work Text:

Crowley burst into the book shop shouting, “I know what we can do today!” startling Muriel into dropping the books they'd been shelving. “Oh, sorry,” he came over to pick up the books, “Where’s Aziraphale?” Muriel pointed up, “He’s getting some more books for the poetry section,” looking up again as Aziraphale came down the circular stairs with another stack. “Crowley! Whatever are you so excited about?” Aziraphale smiled warmly, setting down his books and thanking Muriel for continuing with the poetry display, he turned back to Crowley. Who is practically vibrating with impatience while waiting to share his idea.

“I know what we can do today! For the courting thing. But do you want it to be a surprise or not?” Crowley asks. Noting the particularly frenetic gleam in Crowley’s eye, Aziraphale considers that he’s survived all the other surprises. “May I ask if this is a day trip or will I need an overnight bag?” “Day trip, day trip, and I brought everything you’ll need.” Crowley held out a pair of aviator goggles to Aziraphale. Aziraphale asks, “Won’t we need transport? To wherever the plane is?” Slipping his goggles on hesitantly while Crowley dons his pair. “We won’t need transport, this is a wings-out affair,” Crowley holds his hand out to Aziraphale as he unfurls his wings carefully in the atrium of the bookshop. “Oh!” Aziraphale smiles and stretches his own wings. “Those trips are always fun,” he grasps Crowley’s hand. “Your lead?” Grinning, Crowley nods, “On the count of three. One. Two. Three!” and the two disappear from the bookshop.

Luckily, Crowley didn’t let go of his hand, because Aziraphale is completely disoriented within a coruscating river of multicolored light. Fiery streams of particles seem to be the source of the beautiful display and there’s a strange low sound that’s almost like a song. Aziraphale has to listen quite some bit lower than human ears could pick up. “This is beautiful! Where are we!?” shouts Aziraphale. “We’re in the tail of Comet 67P! The ‘singing’ comet! Isn’t it gorgeous!” Now with a huge smile on his face, Crowley is looking around with such evident joy that it melts Aziraphale’s heart.

“I love you!” shouts Aziraphale in reply, as the light of the comet plays over the angles of Crowley’s shining face. And Aziraphale’s face is also shining, with love and joy, as he gently cups Crowley’s cheek with his free hand to kiss his friend, his love, protected by their celestial bodies in the heart of a comet’s tail.

[rcreveal]

Muffled

RCReveal

Summary:

NanoMutt Prompt a Day Challenge:Day 30 How you said I love you-muffled in your scarf Crowley notices that Eric needs to get something off his chest.

Work Text:

Crowley was draped across his favorite chair in the bookshop reading his Hubble telescope book.  Muriel had recently bustled into the front of the shop.  The bell rang and Crowley looked up to see the demon Eric drift in, a long charcoal scarf around his neck.  His leathers, and chains creaking and jingling. 

Crowley went back to his book.  Muriel bustled across the shop, Eric drifted after, both seemingly doing their own individual tasks.  Crowley set down his book and leaned back to watch.

Bustle

Drift

Bustle

Drift

Bustle

Drift just close enough that Muriel's path was impeded just enough that they had to stop bustling to look up and say, “Hi, Eric! Nice day?”

“Um, yeah. Yours?” Eric replies.

“Oh! The books are nearly back in order from ‘Jim’s,’ I mean, Gabriel's, unusual shelving system!  I put the new shipment upstairs for you to inventory?  Where it's quiet?” says Muriel smiling and furrowing their brow in turn.

“Oh, um, yeah, thanks,” Eric says looking rather deflated, “I'll just go and, um…” he points up the stairs.

Muriel smiles and nods, face perplexed, before bustling off.

Crowley, having watched this exchange closely, poured himself upright and sauntered over to where Eric was alternately indecisively moving a bit towards Muriel and moving towards going upstairs to inventory.  Laying an arm over Eric's thin shoulders, he announced, “I'm bored, think I'll watch Eric here inventory books,” and led the jittery Eric to the stairs.

When they got to the inventory room, Crowley swung Eric towards the stairs to the roof, “Nah, I was lying about the inventorying.  You and I need to have a chat somewhere a bit more private.”

Up on the roof Crowley reclines on a chair. Eric starts pacing the roof while Crowley watches.

“The lighting rods are right over there on Brown's World of Carpets if you need to get something off your chest,” Crowley points languidly over to the lighting rods Aziraphale had installed on the other business’s roof.

“S alright, I'm fine,” mumbled Eric, pacing getting more urgent.

“Uh huh,” Crowley leaned back in the chair with an eyebrow raised.

“I mean, this is fine, this is good. It's better than I've ever had before, innit?” Eric continued to mumble.

“Mmm,” Crowley replied.

Eric's pacing got shorter and shorter, so he was swinging around every two steps.

“Not gettin’ discorporated all the time, an’ gettin' to ask questions without gettin' discorporated is good, ‘s great,” explains Eric.

“Mmm,” agrees Crowley, 

“An’ another being wot likes to do things together in the same space.  It's like the opposite of crap, you know?”

“Mmm,” Crowley agrees.

Eric stops pacing and looks desperately at Crowley, spidery lashes wide, “So why does it hurt here?” hand to his chest. “An’ why do I want more!!?”

Crowley looks rather pityingly at a creature young in love.

Little demonic lightnings are playing through Eric’s hair, sparking on his chains.

He holds a hand over his heart, “An', an’ I, I  jus’ need to be where they are?!” Eric's voice cracks. Now he looks slightly blurred.

“But, what if I tell them and they won’t let me be near them anymore?! You and Mr Fell were near each other for 6000 years and he still left when you told him how you felt!  I-I-I don’t th-think I could handle that as well as you d-did,”

Crowley blows out his cheeks in an oof and looks at Eric skeptically.  Eric is vibrating and sparking.

“Um, Crowley?!” Eric looks rather panicked, and Crowley wonders if it’s possible there are any demons that don’t know how…

“I don’t know how to…!!”

But Crowley is already leaping over the planters, scooping the junior demon to his chest, grabbing Eric’s free hand, fingers entwined, pointing them to the lightning rods.

“Like this,” Crowley says confidently, while thinking, ‘I’d never hear the end of it if I let Eric blow himself up.’

Lightning arcs off their clasped hands towards the lightning rods on Brown's World of Carpets. Leaving Eric panting chest to chest and cheek to cheek with Crowley as they are both looking along their one stretched arm at the lightning rods.

Muriel’s voice behind Crowley’s back says, “Eric? You weren’t inventorying when I came to check…” Eric freezes in Crowley’s arms.  Crowley tries to see through the back of his own head, this could look…awkward.

“Oh! Are you learning to dance? I asked Aziraphale to teach me how to dance, but he only knows the gavotte and that ballroom dance he made up, and he said we didn’t have enough people for it?”

Crowley catches Eric’s eye, grins and winks, whispering in his ear before turning, “Good talk. I think you’ll be fine.”

Poised like a contestant from Dancing with the Stars, Crowley spins out, pulling Eric in front of him a step, as if presenting him to Muriel, “Well, you came to the right place, I know a few dances. Eric wants to learn, too,” grins Crowley.

Muriel smiles at Eric and asks him, shyly, “Would you be my dance partner?”

Eric, ducking his head into his scarf to nod, mumbles, “Love tmmoumm.”

[rcreveal]

The Quest

Summary:

This is a combination of the NaNo Mutt Prompt a Day challenge: How you say I love you, combining Day 2 under a blanket with a hoarse voice and Day 7 as a thank you. Aziraphale has a strange notion of a quest.

Work Text:

AZ Fell and Co Books remained dark and shuttered. It had been dark and shuttered for over a week. Always quixotic in its openings, this was either a new level in aggressive bookshop stock retention by Aziraphale, or something was seriously wrong.

The street lights or lack of them on Wickber street tended towards dark corners and the wind scratching around the buildings made the shadows shudder unnaturally. Something in the darkness about the front door shifted and the most perceptive of ears might have heard a soft rasp, as of skillfully employed lock picks.

As the shadows slithered around the street, the door eased open and closed again without a sound.

Inside the shop, hooded, slitted eyes carefully tested the depths of every shadow, and a lean frame gradually detached itself from the pool of gloom beside the front door. The shop was cold, almost dank smelling, as if the furnace had been out for some time. Sinuously ascending the stairs, the shadowy figure left the empty main floor behind.

A passing lorry trundled in the street below as the figure advanced up the hallway. The light moving in broken rays before disappearing, lit something red for the briefest moment before the hallway fell back into shadow.

The bedroom door is ajar and the figure pauses on the threshold, tense, and alert, an old fashioned car hand crank held at its side. Easing into the cold, dark room, it insinuates itself next to the bed, just as a form rolls under piles of eiderdown and lets out a tremendous sneeze that degenerates into a wet, chest-rattling cough.

“Angel! What the bloody heaven are you playing at?!” Crowley snarls irritably.

“SMMNGGFFF!” the eiderdown mass manages to levitate a couple of feet across the bed away from Crowley while the flailing form emerges from a whirlwind of flying pillows and used handkerchiefs.

Crowley snaps and a bedside lamp lights to reveal an Aziraphale strangely changed. His nose swollen and dripping, eyes glassy, face sickly pale, hair flattened on one side of his head. Another coughing fit shakes him as Crowley stares at him in disbelief.

“Good lord, Crowley! What are you doing here?” croaks Aziraphale. Pointing the hand crank at Aziraphale, Crowley accuses, “You haven’t moved in 10 days! And tonight you missed the opening of Hamlet. You never miss the opening of any production of Hamlet when you’re in Town, ever.” “I’m sick. I’ll come out when I’m better. Go away,” and blowing his nose on a slightly stiff handkerchief, the angel rolls over and pulls the eiderdown over his head again.

“Sick? How can you be sick! We don’t get sick!” Crowley stares at the mass of coverlets the angel has retreated under.

“Miracled it,” a muffled reply emerges from under a pillow with another sneeze. “You what?” Crowley is standing over the bed looking down in stunned disbelief. “I miracled a cold because I felt so bad for all the humans that have been sick this year. It seemed like the sporting thing to do at the time…” he breaks off as another coughing fit catches him. “Lockdown clearly addled your brain, Angel! It’s not like you ever miracled up the Black Death when that was going around! Why don’t you miracle this away already?” “That wouldn’t be… chivalrous,” came the congested reply. “What do the vows of knighthood, which we both took, let me remind you, have to do with this?” “Must see the quest through…” Aziraphale mumbles, “Anyways, can’t…” Crowley is testing the miracle the angel put on himself and frowning. “Why the Heaven would you block yourself from miracling this illness away? Let me take it off,” A hand shot out from under the covers and pulled Crowley down to Aziraphale’s eye level, “I swore..” Frowning at the hot hand on his wrist, Crowley touches Aziraphale’s sweating forehead. “You gave yourself a fever, too!” he says in disbelief. “Go away! I’ll see you when I’m better.” and the angel slides back under the covers.

Standing in the cold bedroom with an exasperated look on his face, Crowley shakes his head in disbelief. Only this angel would think of something so ridiculous. He starts to miracle the sickness away and pauses, demonic lightnings crackling across his shoulders, thinking, “What the Heaven… “ and stalks out the door.

*** The next day dawns. The shop has a new sign on the front door, “Closed for illness.” The furnace has been restarted and the kettle is singing on the hob. Aziraphale’s bedroom is empty of used hankies, as Crowley enters with a pot of tea and a steaming bowl of chicken noodle soup on a tray. “Come on, Angel, you’ve got to keep your strength up on your ‘quest’,” the demon remarks sarcastically. “You stayed,” a hoarse voice emerges from under the blankets followed by the angel sitting up. Roughly plumping a pillow behind the angel, Crowley grumbles, “Yes, I stayed, you idiot. Couldn’t let you discorporate yourself in solidarity,” his brusque tone belied by the gentleness he uses to lay the tray across the invalid’s lap. “Thank you,” Aziraphale lays a hand on Crowley’s wrist, looking warmly up at the demon, as he is wont to do. “That was very n-” “NNgh, not nice, we’ve talked about that word!” Crowley grumps. “Novel,” with a bit of a mischievous twinkle, “That illness was very novel, not nice at all.” replies Aziraphale, taking a spoonful of the soup. “Oh, divine.”

And Crowley threw up his hands and stomped out of the room scowling while Aziraphale chuckled and ate his excellent soup.

[rcreveal]

Mindfulness Practice

Summary:

NaNoMutt Prompt a Day Challenge: Day 14 How you say I love you: in a whisper in the ear Crowley is trying to un-demon himself. By which I mean that he has held onto labeling himself a demon and post season 3 is exploring letting go of that label and trying to figure out what he wants to be. Tangentially, exploring how he might relate to his Creator.

Work Text:

Crowley walked along the Embankment with his hands in his pockets trying not to be demonic.  Ever since the monk had said that he didn’t have to go “down that destructive dark path again” during the Second Coming business, he’d been trying to undo the protective reflexes of millenia.

Long ago he’d discovered that if he were around places where bad things were happening, that Hell would give him credit.  But, if there wasn’t much on in the human evil department or he was just sick to death of hanging around war and other centers of casual brutality, he’d had to do something to keep Home Office off his back.  Random acts of low level evil and misfortune could cause a fug of distress that had been evil enough for him not to have to engage in anything much worse for ages .  

So when he felt the almost unconscious urge to change the timing on the street lights so that the maximum number of motorists would hit the maximum number of red lights, he growled an imprecation at himself, slouched over to a bench, and threw himself down on it, groaning when he realized that he’d sat down near a play area for very small humans.  Well, it would be a very good place to practice mindfulness, because it would be nigh all impossible! 

Very small humans were a menace to mental equilibrium.  Having been a nanny to one for several years, he considered that this was well-researched fact.  Between the unending vigilance to keep them from maiming and killing themselves, the constant sleep deprivation, the ear-piercing cries triggered by lack of food, lack of clean nappies, lack of a nap, over-stimulation, under-stimulation, any sort of boundary setting, and, God’s truth, the procession of the equinoxes sometimes, it was a wonder their caregivers saw it through so often. 

Luckily his bench faced away from the play area, so said caregivers wouldn’t come over and club him to discorporation for hanging out near the little tykes without one of his own. Holding the little holy relic he used to let him know he was drifting into demonic territory, (it burned only when he drifted) he took off his sunglasses, closed his eyes, settled into a meditative pose and tried to clear his mind.

Breathing in: I’m sitting on a bench.  Breathing out: I’m clearing my mind.

Breathing in: I feel the sunshine on my back. Breathing out: hah, that shriek deafened 3 people by 3%, ouch, damn. I’m clearing my mind.

Breathing in: I smell popcorn. Breathing out: Oops, that wail means the popcorn was spilled and there’ll be a 15 minute temper tantrum that will tarnish the souls of, ouch, really , I’m clearing my mind.

Not wanting to have to explain to Aziraphale why his fingers were blistered, because at this rate they still would be by the time they met up for lunch, he tried looking past all the flustered, frustrated, tired, desperate caregiver feelings.

Breathing in: I’m still sitting on a bench.  Breathing out: that’s a rather infectious giggle, I’m clearing my mind.

Breathing in: the sun is still shining on me.  Breathing out: someone is enjoying the feeling of sand between their toes, I’m clearing my mind.

Breathing in: I smell good coffee: Breathing out: coffee is a pleasure even a tiny sip at a time, I’m clearing my mind.

Breathe in: Breathe out

Breathe in: Breathe out

Breathe in: it’s getting quieter: Breathe out: someone feels love.

Letting his eyes open in a soft focus, Crowley notices that some of the littles are being packaged into prams, and strollers, strapped onto parents with backpacks or yards of fabric.  And over and over, he notices that parents are kissing foreheads and murmuring something to the drowsy and sleeping infants and toddlers.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After an excellent lunch with Aziraphale, he headed back to Grandmother Alvita’s garden and settled onto his favorite folding lounge chair for a nap in the sun.  The bees were buzzing about the garden, a breeze rustled the leaves of the plants.  As he drifted off he thought he felt the feet of a bee like the lightest kiss on his temple, a breeze brushing his hair like a hand, and a whisper.

He felt love.

[rcreveal]

Come at once [stop] I found it [stop] inspired by IngweBlu

Summary:

NanoMutt prompt a day challenge Day 11: How you said I love you, with a shuddering gasp. Aziraphale looks for a very special gift for Crowley to replace a cherished lost possession. Mildly suggestive.

Notes:

Inspired by Da Vinci’s Demon(?) -Fan Art and fic prompt by IngweBlu

https://www.tumblr.com/ingweblu/732739835910111232/a-few-revisions-on-the-first-nose-hand-with?source=share

(See the end of the work for other works inspired by this one.)

Work Text:

NanoMutt Prompt a Day Challenge: Day 11 How you say I love you-with a shuddering gasp

Inspired by Ingweblu’s amazing fanart.

Aziraphale looked up from his desk as the shop door bell jingled, an international courier was just entering.

“Mr. A. Z. Fell?” asked the courier getting a slim envelope from her bag and an electronic tablet out for the signature.

“Yes?” replied Aziraphale, pleasant but not yet engaged.  The angel got up from his desk reaching for the electric pen to sign for the letter.

Unusually, the courier waited for a signature authentication to run, before handing over the letter.

“Thank you,” Aziraphale says to the courier, interest piqued, before turning his attention to the letter.  He pulls the long tab on the cardboard envelope and pulls out an urgent telegram.  Eyebrows raised towards his hairline, he lets out a little gasp as he reads:

COME AT ONCE STOP I FOUND IT STOP

A handwritten address card is also included.

Trembling slightly, still studying the address, his hand finds the catches for the secret compartment in his desk.  A section of the desk opens with a soft click and he removes a sheaf of official looking documents, slipping them into a locking valaise.  From behind the desk he pulls a large leather art portfolio.  

Visibly pulling himself together and trying to still his trembling excitement, Aziraphale flexes his neck and settles his shoulders before picking up the headset and dialing a most familiar number.

In a calm voice not betraying his excitement, Aziraphale says, “Hello, Crowley.  I just wanted to let you know that I’ll be out of town the next couple of days and I didn’t want you to feel like you need to check in on me.”  He listens attentively, “Oh, very dull.  I’m going to Berlin.”  He holds the phone away from his ear a bit due to the volume of Crowley’s reply.  “Yes, I know you don’t like Berlin, that’s why I wanted to assure you that you don’t have to come over,”  he nods again, and looks at his watch.  “Yes, dear boy, I really must dash.  I’ll call you when I come back.”  He gently puts down the handset and smiles.

“Muriel?” calls Aziraphale.

The junior scrivenor pops around the corner of a bookshelf.

“Yes, boss!?” they reply.

Aziraphale grimaced very slightly and said kindly, “Muriel, you know I don't care for it when you call me ‘boss’.”

Forehead wrinkling with concern at offending Aziraphale, Muriel bobs a partial curtsey.  “Um, yes, Supreme Archangel?”

That makes Aziraphale close his eyes while his face falls. “Oh.  I see.  You are seeking an honorific to denote that I am your senior in rank or more knowledgeable?”

Muriel nodded earnestly, their face radiating relief that he understood. “How about you just call me Mr Fell.  ‘Mr’ is a term of deference to which I am accustomed,” suggested Aziraphale.

“Now Muriel, I’m just going to pop over to Germany for a special piece.  I’d like you watch the shop while I’m gone and…”

“Don’t sell any of the rare books, but I can sell the popular books from my sections, ‘Mr’ Fell!” burbles Muriel.

“Exactly!” encourages Aziraphale.

“But are you getting a quarto?  Only, that’s a rather large case to carry a book in,”  says Muriel curiously.  

“I’m afraid I’ll have to be mysterious and only say, ‘Wait and see,’” smiles Aziraphale.  “Now I really must go. I’ll be back in a day or two.”

For this, Aziraphale would move with celestial speed to Germany.  He would take no chances about human transportation snarl ups.  As he walked the streets of Berlin, making for the art dealer’s offices, he considered the reason for his search.

Crowley had always been hard to give gifts to.  His peripatetic lifestyle had made him much less attached to things…with a few notable exceptions.  But, lately, he was on an even more austere minimalist streak.  Aziraphale had only recently learned that Crowley had been essentially homeless and living out of the Bentley for the last several years.  Immediately, he’d invited Crowley to live with him and bring over his beautiful Da Vinci study of the Mona Lisa.  Crowley had finally admitted that Hell had confiscated all his possessions from the flat.  The houseplants survived because he’d rescued them from the dumpster.  For a collector like Aziraphale, it was a little challenging to be with a lover who constantly talked about detachment from material things.  For heaven’s sake, they’d both nearly just died protecting material things!  Aziraphale suspected that Crowley was still hurt about the loss of his few cherished possessions from his flat.  

So Aziraphale had been on a special search for Da Vinci studies.  He knew that Crowley had befriended the genius.  Through the years, the demon would let slip interesting bits of information about the amazing gentleman.  Sometimes they were of the types of trivialities that good friends would share, like how DaVinci might delight in a local pastry.  Aziraphale had wondered if the amiable artist had ever tempted Crowley to sit for him.  

It turned out that being a purveyor of and searcher for rare books gave Aziraphale a pretty good start for the more cut-throat and dramatic world of rare art.  

And sure enough, his inquiries started to bear fruit.

This was the most exciting lead yet!  Two pieces, possibly of the same young man.  Well, if they were real DaVinci’s and of good quality, Aziraphale might get them anyway, but if they were what he hoped… 

An extremely discrete sign on the building at the address he’d received with the confidential telegram led him through a more thorough security search than he’d experienced on their recent little airplane trip.  Finally, he was in the sanctum sanctorum with the art dealer.

“Herr Fell, danke for coming on such short notice, but I think these pieces are exactly what you have been searching for!  Already, myself and several other experts have examined them and we do believe that they are indeed authentic Da Vinci and not incredibly well crafted pieces in his style.  Please. Come.  Let me show you.”

Together they stepped from the office space to a room with careful humidity controls.  The art dealer brought out white cotton gloves for them both.

“The first piece is very much like DaVinci’s studies for rich paying customers, very nice, he captures a mercurial spirit in his subject,” and the art dealer uncovers the first piece.  A drawing of a forceful man, looking directly out of the piece while cutting an apple with his dagger.  Aziraphale was still, the likeness was magnificent.

“I see that you respect this piece, but it is the second study that we think the superior.  It seems that Da Vinci was able to capture the same subject in repose,” and uncovers the second piece with something of a flourish.

An involuntary gasp escapes Aziraphale.  His stomach tightens and his mouth goes dry as he stares at the second drawing of the same subject.  

“It is an arresting work, is it not?  I have been able to secure first refusal for you, but already, the word is out and I can only give you this interview today to make your choice before I open the bidding,” and Aziraphale, the part of his brain that can still ponder such things, thinks that art dealers and demons know a lot about temptation.

“That won’t be necessary, I’m perfectly prepared to take them both home today,” Aziraphale pulls out the sheaf of documents and rare works that were the reason for the art dealer’s willingness to give the unknown collector first refusal.  Aziraphale has no doubt that the art dealer believes the works to be authentic with all the care and double checking that his prestige and standing in the field command and that he’s entirely truthful when he says that there are many patrons that would happily pay much more for such works.

“Ah, excellent, I’ll get these pieces ready for transport,” and the man deftly packaged the precious pieces while Aziraphale hungrily observed.  He wouldn’t feel comfortable until he got them home.

____________________________________________________________________________

“I don’t know why you insisted on all this mystery tonight, Angel,” Crowley is reluctantly being dragged into the book shop by his angel.  “The gleam in your eye is about as bad as that ball business.  What are you scheming at.”

Aziraphale positions Crowley in the atrium, “Stay right there.” Crowley tips his head to the side and raises his eyebrow.

Aziraphale steps away and miracles the blinds down and dims the light to a perfect archival setting on the two covered easels.

“Did you take up landscape painting and want my opinion or something?”  Crowley asks suspiciously.

“Not quite,” the angel can’t contain his excitement, “I got you a gift, well us a gift for our first home that we make together.  And don’t say anything about austerity and detachment and the benefits thereof until you see them!” Aziraphale shakes a finger at Crowley, who is taken aback.  The angel has never looked like he might smite him for bad behavior before.

Holding his hands up in a placating gesture, Crowley capitulates, “Alright, alright!  Let me get in the proper important-gift-receiving mode.  You know I’m very bad at this, right?”  Crowley is getting unnerved, this is getting into deep relationship waters hitherto unfloundered in.  Aziraphale, looking properly mollified by this acknowledgement, reverts back to his equally unnerving giddiness.

“Thank you for taking this with the seriousness it deserves,” accedes Aziraphale, “Now if you don’t look at them soon, I am going to pop!” and making sure that Crowley’s attention is on the easels, he lifts the coverings simultaneously.

Crowley’s gasp shudders into the room and he looks boneless for a moment, then he steps forward to the studies, both of the same subject, both of him .  The first a piece of excellently crafted workmanship that captured the mischief and powerful personality of the demon, but the second… 

“They were stolen in Paris, years and years ago!  How the heaven did you find them!”  he looks truly touched for a moment, then a hunted look of panic starts to cloud his happiness.

“Ah. Um, you’re not jealous, angel?  You believe me? That I never loved anyone before you?”

“Of course I believe you! Especially when we were recently nearly terminally incompetent at expressing our love.  Gracious, no, I’m not jealous!  Not when he’s captured you so beautifully!” the angel comes over and shoulder bumps Crowley, before putting an arm around his waist while they both gaze at the pieces.

It’s magnificent.  The second piece captures Crowley in the unguarded abandon of sleep, nude to the waist with an arm thrown over his head, as ringlets of long hair spread across his pillow.  Somehow conveying both powerful innocence and sensuality.

“How can I thank you? It means so much…” Crowley chokes up, and Aziraphale takes this as a thank you for the gift, for honoring an important friendship, for not being jealous, and for returning a precious material thing that he’d thought was lost.

“Well,” and the angel reaches up and runs his fingers through Crowley’s hair, tumbling deep red curls over Crowley’s shoulders, “How about we recreate it…after I get you properly tired out.”

Crowley smiles and replies huskily, “Oh, I can definitely agree to that.”

Please visit the inspiration for this piece- Ingweblu’s art, studies of Crowley in the style of Leonardo Da Vinci https://archiveofourown.org/works/30983144

And this delightfully different take on the same prompt “DaVinci’s Demon (after Ingweblu) by Big_Edies_Sun_Hat from the same art prompt https://archiveofourown.org/works/31484021  

Works inspired by this one:

The Last Time by theriverspath

[rcreveal]

Hurricane Warning

Summary:

NanoMutt Prompt a Day Challenge Day 20: How you said I love you-while we huddled sheltering from the storm. I just love Anansi Boys and thought that the four of them, Spider, Fat Charlie, Crowley and Aziraphale would be just too much fun together. Of course, Crowley and Aziraphale would vacation in the Caribbean, right?

Work Text:

“I thought this was supposed to be a tropical paradise!” yelled Crowley while leaning into Aziraphale as they supported each other through the gusting winds and sideways rain.

“It is!” replied Aziraphale, “I guess this is why the tickets were cheaper!” Banana trees and palms, their fronds shredded by the unrelenting storm, rattled.

“Why’s that?” Crowley caught a piece of tin roofing that was scything towards the angel.

“Apparently, they have something called a hurricane season?” replied Aziraphale as they made their way to the boarded up restaurant.

The proprietor didn’t seem too surprised to see two tourists out in hurricane force weather and let them in.

“It’s my two favorite customers! How come you aren’t sheltering at your hotel?” asked Spider Nancy.

“Well, if you must know, we greatly prefer your cooking, if we are going to hunker down for twelve hours,” replied Aziraphale.

“And your liquor selection is far superior.  Where can I put this?” asked Crowley, referring to the 4x6 foot twisted piece of corrugated tin he was casually holding.

Spider considered and said, “Over by the front, I’m sure someone will need it after,” while making their favorite cocktails.

“You know, it’s fortuitous that you two would show up today,” Spider said flashing them the bright smile of a trickster who’s about to propose a real corker.

“You’re up to something!” Crowley pointed at him with the hand still holding the cocktail.

“Nuthin’ an angel and a demon like you can’t handle,” replied Spider casually, “You two were really impressive at the Second Coming,” Spider replied, leaving Crowley and Aziraphale to gawp at him.

Aziraphale recovers first, “You were at the Second Coming and you remember what went on?”

“Let’s just say that my brother and I weren’t willing to let your pantheon’s world-ending business take out our home without a fight,” and the grin he leveled at them was much sharper than the softness of his usual form as the best chef on the island.

A door opened against the wind and a rich voice called out from the kitchen, “Spider! They weren’t at the hotel!”  Fat Charlie Nancy came into the main room of the restaurant, somehow still wearing a fedora.

“That’s cuz they already dropped by, my brother,” smiled Spider.

Crowley was pointing at the men one at a time, “So what pantheon are you from?”

“That’s really beside the point when we’ve got a Class 5 hurricane headed straight for us, don’t you think?” replied Spider smoothly.

Fat Charlie continues, “We’ve been able to deflect or weaken the other hurricanes that have come this way, but I’m afraid we just don’t have the power for this one, so we were going to ask you to give us a boost.” 

“You make us sound like a car battery!” Crowley replied.

“Nah, more like a top notch, arena-level, concert sound system.  We’ll steer, but we need more power.  Are you game to give a go?” asked Fat Charlie.

“You mean right now?” blustered Aziraphale.

“Well, yeah, the hurricane isn’t getting any weaker, “ said Spider.

“Sure, why not,” said Crowley, “Arena-level sound system, huh?”

“State of the art,” replied Fat Charlie, with the smile that graced most of his album covers.

“Tell us what you need,” said Aziraphale.

The four men, two men and…four male-identifying beings, Crowley wasn’t sure what they all were and didn’t care at this point, stood in a circle holding hands.  Fat Charlie sang, his rich voice creating a reality where the hurricane wasn’t as bad as predicted, and didn’t hit this island or any other as predicted, and dropped a lot of its power before hitting the mainland.  His brother Spider, well Crowley couldn’t really tell what that trickster was doing, and he and Aziraphale were boosting the whole thing as much as they could…

~~~~~~~~~

The sand crunched behind Aziraphale’s beach chair as Crowley walked up to bring them another iced soda from the cooler.  They looked out at the two happy families: Fat Charlie with a pregnant Daisy both playing with their little boy and Spider and Rosy strolling hand in hand while a wizened, yet somehow animate, mummy glared at everyone from her own beach chair.

“Thank you, Crowley,” Aziraphale said, accepting the drink as Crowley stretched out on his beach lounger. “Well it’s been a lovely trip to the Caribbean, hasn’t it?”

“Yeah, but we need to work on what we think of as a restful vacation, Angel,” retorted Crowley with a grin.

[rcreveal]

1941: a New Beginning

Summary:

NanoMutt Prompt a Day Challenge Day 32: How you said I love you_ In a way I can't return. I've been wondering what happened the eventful evening in 1941.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:

1941-later that night after the magic show, Soho, England

“Well, guess I’ll be off to my place, angel,” Crowley got up a little unsteadily from where he’d been sitting in Aziraphale’s shop.  Centuries of carefully hidden contact had been blown all to hell tonight but the reflexes of hiding their contact were still kicking him to move.

“Go? Now? You couldn’t possibly!” replied Aziraphale, surprised,“Furfur and those zombies are most likely at your flat waiting to do you a mischief!  And you’re drunk!”

“I can get… undrunk,” replied Crowley, making no move to do so and swaying gently on the spot.  Aziraphale had a point about there likely being something unpleasant waiting for him at the flat.  And Crowley was tired.  Tired of pretending he didn’t enjoy the angel’s company.  Tired of putting up with the angel’s continued distrust which had unbent considerably tonight.  Tired of the petty machinations of Hell when the humans were going for full bore annihilation up here.  And he hadn’t slept for a week, what with one thing and another, so he was just plain tired.

Collapsing back into the seat, Crowley reversed course, “All right, I’ll stay.”

Aziraphale immediately started to bustle about.  “I’ve got cots and blankets and things for those times when people need to shelter here during the bombing,” he says, setting up a cot under the soaring atrium.

This is probably a bad idea, Crowley thinks, but I’ll blame it on the drink tomorrow. Weaving as much from the wine as from holding the suddenly insistent exhaustion at bay, he falls into the open cot and barely registers the blankets going over his shoulders as he falls asleep.  He wishes oblivion would take him for a bit. But he’s just not that lucky.

Aziraphale finished tucking his fiendish adversary into the cot and studied Crowley’s face in repose.  There were care lines around the eyes and mouth and the loose suit hid that he was more gaunt than lean.  What had the demon been up to to make him so…worn?

After blowing out the candles and turning off any lights, Aziraphale paused with his foot on the stairs leading up to his own bedroom looking over at the figure on the cot, his fingers playing with his ring, 'Crowley might be alarmed waking in the night in someplace unfamiliar.  I’m only being a good host keeping an eye on him.’  It took a small miracle to open another cot quietly, since it was wont to try and viciously pinch fingers and if thwarted in that, collapse loudly when first sat upon.  Still, he managed to get the cot set up and himself bedded down near the demon.  Just in case Crowley needed directing to the loo or something in the night, he told himself as he drifted off, buoyed up by the great success of this remarkable night both on and off the stage!

Aziraphale woke completely from a sound sleep, senses on alert, like he’d learned to do on the front in the Great War.  With an automatic internal checklist on high speed, he knew the shop was safe, the bombing was done for the night, so why was he thinking of the Great War?  Then the sounds from the nearby cot answered him.

Crowley’s thin shoulders were hunched and his restless shifting was making the cot groan which blended with his quiet moans and grumbles.  Aziraphale was struck with how much he sounded like the poor country lads trying to catch some sleep in the trenches, poor souls.  Without thinking about it, because he just couldn’t stop himself from trying to ease suffering right in front of him, Aziraphale laid a comforting hand on the demon’s shoulder.  He wasn’t prepared for what he felt.

*****

Vertiginously spinning, caught in a horrific fall, no up, the ability to fly suddenly stripped from him…

Pounding artillery falling on top of him, destroying the gun nest he’s huddled in, leaving him untouched, but not unscathed by what he’s witnessing…

Slithering down tunnels, trying to escape a relentless pursuer until the sharp teeth meet in his neck over and over again, reincorporating only to do it again and again.

Darkness, pain, hopelessness…

*****

Aziraphale had been nominally caught up in human memories, but this was more intense and harder to navigate.  Poor soul…

Aziraphale finds his center and thinks of something hopeful that had helped the lads on the front: new mornings after a storm, the promise of the rainbow after the Flood…it isn’t working. 

*****

Under Homer’s ‘rosy finger’d dawn’ the horrors of battle fields are only more apparent, looting happening while others can only give the succor of the gentle knife.  Under the painful light of the first rainbow he's desperately trying to save just one life from the Flood, but every person or beast he tries to drag to safety is just pulled under the water faster.  Always he arrives too late, for everyone.

*****

‘Not for me’, thinks Aziraphale, ‘You always arrive in time to help me.’

The maelstrom of pain and memory and despair drops a bit. Aziraphale thinks of the times Crowley has arrived in time to help him, like tonight.  He thinks about how he admires Crowley’s audacity and willingness to fake it until he succeeds, like with the bullet catch trick.  How much he values Crowley’s trust in him.  How they’ve been able to save some lives working together along the way, like Job’s children and Wee Morag. 

There’s a little seed of optimism still in there, Aziraphale can sense it, like an internal shrug of “Yeah, I guess. Alright.”  Aziraphale thinks of that new song he’s heard lately, the one about the nightingale.  He’s always liked nightingales.  Apparently, nothing horribly traumatic has happened to Crowley about them. Aziraphale miracles the song onto the phonograph.  It doesn’t overpromise.  There are no forever afters, just good enough for now.  With the nightingale song playing quietly, the demon’s moans and memories subside and true rest slips over Crowley.

Aziraphale drifts off himself, wondering what would happen if Crowley got the chance to ‘help him out’ more often…

The next morning Crowley woke to the smell of coffee, real coffee , feeling more rested than he had in a long time.  

“I thought you didn’t hold with the black market, angel,” remarked Crowley sitting up in his lone cot under the atrium.  In the daytime, he notices that the black paper taped to the inside of the atrium to prevent any light from escaping is traced with constellations.

“I don’t.  But I do enjoy substituting the Fuhrer’s coffee with our ersatz stuff from time to time.  This morning seemed appropriate. Did you rest well?” asks Aziraphale in what sounds to Crowley like solicitous host mode.

“Best nights sleep I’ve gotten in a while.  You certainly have the most comfortable cot I’ve ever slept on,” Crowley says as he folds up the blanket and out-wiles the cot’s attempts to take his fingers off. “Wish I could stay,” he throws the coffee back in one shot, “But I need to see to whatever little presents Furfur has left for me, and I’ll probably have to stay rather scarce for a bit.  You know how it is,”  He tilts his head at the phonograph, “Didn’t know you liked modern songs, angel.”

Aziraphale looks into Crowley’s eyes saying, “I’m rather fond of this one, for some reason.”

“Nightingales, yeah, ‘ve always been fond of them, too,” Crowley says, smoothing the wrinkles out of his suit and the muss out of his hair. “Well I’m off.  Thanks for the help last night, but try to stay out of trouble for a little bit?  I mean, taken in by Nazi spies, angel?  See you around,” and he starts to saunter towards the door.

“Crowley,” calls Aziraphale, and the demon pauses with his hand on the door knob.

“Yeah, angel?” Crowley looks back.

“I grant you, the demon Crowley, free and unfettered access to this Book Shop in perpetuity,” Aziraphale says formally.  A little chord is felt more than heard around the space. “Don’t want you to have to lurk in the doorway if I’m out for some reason,” he says to the surprised ‘oh’ that is Crowley’s face right now.

“Uh…thanks, angel.  You’re welcome in purple-tooey, uh, anytime in the Bentley should you need to pop in for a word.  But, why the change of heart? I always thought you rather enjoyed having to give me permission to be in here every time, the ultimate show of how I'm forever unwelcome even in a little embassy of Heaven,” the demon ended on a growly hiss.

“I can't do much about your standing with Heaven or Hell, Crowley, but I do have the power to make you welcome in my home.  So I did.  After what you did for me last night, it seems silly to strictly follow embassy protocol in this case.  And if you need to duck in, the demons and zombies won't be able to follow you,” explains Aziraphale calmly, thinking ‘and, dear boy, maybe I think you need a refuge, too.’

Crowley grins, “If I'd known that all it would take to have unlimited access to your drinks cabinet would be barely managing not to shoot you, I'd’ve done it years ago!” he drops the grin under the angel's continued gentle regard, “But, honestly angel, you helped me out a fair bit, too, with the picture sleight of hand and such, and I am grateful for that,” still slightly bemused, Crowley puts his hat on at a rakish angle and slips on his glasses, “See you around when things cool off, angel!” he calls as he saunters out the door.

Aziraphale’s eyes follow Crowley across the street until he drives away, only then saying, “Go well, my…friend.”

Notes:

There were so many sweet hurt/comfort pieces at Sendarya's Good Omen's Discord server Holiday party, that I finally was able to get the mood for a try at a later that night 1941 piece. Camapuri's "The Longest Night" https://archiveofourown.org/collections/2023GoodOmensHolidayFic/works/52154056 and Aziraphale's comments while defending the Bookshop in S2 sparked the idea of Aziraphale intentionally getting himself in trouble and letting Crowley help him, but he didn't seem to always do this intentionally and I wondered when that sort of intentional behavior started and why. Greenathena's "Under the Watchful Eyes of an Angel" https://archiveofourown.org/collections/2023GoodOmensHolidayFic/works/52169752 has such a sweet scene of Aziraphale watching over Crowley, that I wanted to write another one, too. And I just like writing scenes where Crowley is getting looked after by other characters, he sure needs it, and I hope he gets his safe place in season 3, until then I'll keep imagining it for him...

[rcreveal]

Research of the Heart

Summary:

NanoMutt Prompt a Day Challenge: the way you said I love you Day 17-with broken glass on the floor, and Day 18 from far away. Muriel is doing more relationship research, but they didn't tell their research subject, Eric, what was going on. Aziraphale has been nominated to "step in."

Work Text:

Aziraphale was sitting at his desk keeping up with his correspondence while Muriel was working on another display of books ‘to be sold’ when the door to the shop opened.  The demon Eric slouched in and Aziraphale noted that Muriel was suddenly notable only by their absence.  Sighing morosely, the demon slouched back out again and the miasma of distress that wafted off of him made Aziraphale brush his arms as though brushing off sticky cobwebs.  Well that confirmed what everyone else was telling him.  He would have to take…steps.

A pot of excellent tea and a selection of biscuits was laid out when Aziraphale called, “Muriel, could you join me?”  

The scrivener ducked around a nearby stack of books and said, “Yes, Mr. Fell?!”

“Oh, you startled me Muriel! Please, do sit and have a cup of tea with me,” invited Aziraphale, pouring them both a cup.

“I was wondering, Muriel,” he asked delicately, while passing them a cup of tea,”If you’d had a ‘falling out’ with Eric?”

Muriel looked up, obviously surprised, “No, Mr. Fell, we haven’t fallen out of anything, yet!  I’ll have to add that to my list…”

Aziraphale tried again, “No, I meant, did you and he have a fight, disagreement, or some other interaction which would make you not want to spend time with him or talk to him?  Only, we’ve all noticed that you have been leaving whenever he enters.  Like just now,” and wiping the last bit of demonic misery off his cheek, he continues, “and I’m afraid that Eric is getting despondent about it.”

“Oh, no! I’m happy with Eric! Eric is helping me with my research!  After our picnic, he told me that he’d be happy to help me with any research I wanted to do,” says Muriel with their usual burbling good cheer.

“And what sort of research are you doing now?” Aziraphale asked while part of him was feeling the sudden unease of a parent who’s just noticed that their child is growing up and finding other people fascinating in a whole new way.

“I’m researching the saying, ‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder,’” says Muriel brightly.

“Ah, and how are you conducting this research?  Are you reading literary or psychological texts or watching human television shows?  Are you interviewing your human and non-human friends and acquaintances?” Aziraphale asks delicately while having a pretty good idea of the answer.

“Noooo, gosh, those are good ideas!  No, I’m not associating with Eric verbally or non-verbally for this week,” explains Muriel.

Aziraphale looks a little stern, “Did Eric know that was the research he was engaging in?”

“No! I was reading about blinded studies and didn’t tell him,” says Muriel looking a little uneasy, “Did I do the research incorrectly?”

Aziraphale remains stern,  “Muriel, most human students and researchers have to get permission before doing ‘human trials’ and they have a research advisor, someone who helps them do research humanely.  Maybe you should think about who could be your research advisors going forward.”

Muriel nods hurriedly while Aziraphale softens his tone, “Muriel, I think you’ve hurt Eric’s feelings.  If I or Maggie or Nina suddenly stopped associating with you verbally and non-verbally, without an explanation, how would you feel?”

“OH! I would feel sad, very, very sad !" and Muriel jumped up and ran to open the front of the book shop.

Across the way, Eric was just clearing up some glasses and cups from a couple of new outdoor tables at Give me Coffee or Give me Death.  

“ERIC!” Muriel bellowed, causing the demon to drop all the crockery, which shattered around his feet.

“I’M SORRY I DIDN’T TELL YOU I WAS RESEARCHING ‘ABSENCE MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER’!  IT REALLY DOES,TOO!”

Eric yelled back, “THEN YOU’RE NOT MAD AT ME?”

“NO!” replied Muriel.

Smiling hugely, for the first time in days, Eric said, “Well that’s alright, then.”

“THEN GET OVER HERE AND HELP CLEAN UP THIS MESS!” Nina yelled, brandishing a dustpan and broom at Muriel. 

Aziraphale, smiled fondly, as the scrivener trotted across the street (after looking both ways) to rescue the demon from his moat of glass.  Maggie was looking out her door and smiled at Aziraphale.

Well, we all have to start somewhere, thought Aziraphale, wondering about how he’d explain to Crowley, Nina and Maggie, how they would all need to work out how to be Muriel and Eric’s "research" advisors.

[rcreveal]

Spring Picnic

Summary:

NaNo Mutt Prompt a Day Challenge: Day 12 How you say I love you: on the spring grass. Muriel invites Eric on a spring picnic, but didn't check the weather first.

Work Text:

“Um, what are we doin’, again?” Demon Eric asked as Muriel handed him another parcel.  Muriel had recovered from CCO (Complete Choice Overload) after the chocolate chip cookie experiment and as a scrivener, they were back to the weighty and serious work of research.

“We are going on a ‘picnic’ on a spring day!” Muriel announced.  “I brought beverages to imbibe and you brought foods to eat,” Muriel handed over another flask and looked at the little package that Eric had brought.  

Muriel had three different baskets on the counter and after looking at the parcels and flasks, chose the middle one, packing everything in.  Muriel tried to lift it.   The handle came off, but the basket stayed on the counter.

Eric tilted his head to the side and speculated, “The liquids have a lotta mass in this gravity.  Mebbe we don't bring so many of them?” he took out his food packet and put it in the smallest basket, which an angler would have recognized as a wicker trout basket and Eric thought smelled nicely of ancient decomposed fish.  Muriel took two of the smallest containers and fitted them into the basket before snapping the lid shut and experimentally hefting the basket.  Muriel smiled as they were able to sling the strap over their shoulder.  Smiling brightly they led the way out of the shop.

By the time they made it to Hyde Park, Muriel was soaked to the skin but still smiling.  A gust of wind plastered their vest and skirt to their side.  Eric’s leathers glistened with moisture rather more than they normally glistened with darkness.  Water dribbled off his chains and his eye makeup had run down his cheeks.

Muriel walked out in the middle of a lawn and sat down.  Eric sat across from them.  Muriel opened the wicker trout basket and handed the demon one of the individually wrapped meals that he had contributed along with a spoon.  Screwing the lid off the insulated container, a shower of hail bounced off his horns and a few fell into the deliciously scented steaming bowl.  Some of the hail also fell into the lemonade Muriel was pouring into cups as they handed one over to Eric.  

Looking up at the weather, Muriel remarked, “The wind must be going really quickly up there!  Look at how fast the clouds are moving.”

“Yeah, an’ the the air’s really jumbly to create the hail.  It's good hail.” A gust of wind pushed them both over to the side a bit.

Water dripping off their nose, Muriel asks, “Did you make this?  It's very good!”

Eric shrugs, “Nah, Grandmother Alvita insisted on making goat curry when I told her you'd invited me onna picnic,” Eric hands back the empty cup.

“Her human food is always so good!” Muriel finishes the curry and pours iced tea into the cups. 

Eric tastes the tea, now water is running over his jacket, while also managing to run over his shirt underneath the jacket and over his feet. “You researched picnic drinks?  They're nice and cold.”

“Eric-c-c, wh-why are your lips b-blue?” Muriel asks.

“Dunno, are they?  Yours are, too.” Eric replies.

“Eric-c-c?” asks Muriel.

“Yeah?” he replies.

“My c-c-corporation is c-c-cold” Eric looks at the wet, dripping, shivering, blue-lipped angel and opened his bag pulling out meters of waterproof material.

“Um, Grandmother Alvita thought we might be, so she sent me with this. Tho’ it seems kindof unlikely how this is supposed to warm us up.” Standing up, he slips an extra large poncho over his head unzipped at the neck.  The wind is whipping and tugging at the material and Muriel has the brief confusing feeling of being slapped by cold wet curtains as he sits down behind them, letting their face peek out the neck of the poncho and trapping it under them.  

Getting out of the wind helped, but the angel was still cold and shivering in his arms. When Grandmother Alvita had insisted he take the poncho, he’d asked how it was supposed to help.  Giving him one of her little smiles she had replied, “I tink you'll figure it out,” with a twinkle in her eye.

Blissful warmth blossomed around Muriel and they felt themselves surrounded by hot, dry feathers.  With a little sigh, they leaned back into Eric's lean chest as his wings surrounded them both under the cover of the poncho.

Eric was unaccustomed to the feeling he had in his chest when Muriel sighed.  It was a little bit painful and a little bit intoxicating. And he didn't want it to stop.

As they watched the storm clouds race by overhead, Eric knew one thing.  He would definitely agree to help Muriel with their research, any time.

[rcreveal]

Complete Choice Overload

Summary:

NaNoMutt Prompt a Day Challenge How you say I love you: Day 8 an apology, Day 9 with chocolate chip cookies. Muriel gets stuck researching food love languages and Eric comes by to help her out.

Work Text:

Wickber Street in Soho, London was bustling with pedestrians and cars as the door of Give Me Coffee or Give Me Death opened and the Demon Eric slipped out of the shop.  Shaking himself all over, he took off his employee name tag “Hi, my name is: Demon Eric” and looked hopefully across the street.   But, his hopes for a quiet afternoon at Maggie’s record shop were disappointed.  He could see her in animated conversation with her new hire, Geoffrey.  Well, there was always shelving to be done at A Z Fell’s Book shop and if he really needed to hide out, he could start to index books in the upper rooms.

As he entered the book shop his finely honed demon senses detected a throbbing concentration of distress coming from the kitchen.  Giving the rug-covered portal to Heaven a wide berth, he went to see what was going on.

“OH!” Muriel looked up to see one of Eric’s “horns” and one kohl blackened eye peeking around the kitchen door.  Eric ducked behind the door again mumbling, “Sorry, sorry, but, um, what’re you doing?’  Muriel was standing in front of a tablet with rapidly scrolling text flashing down it with their hands clasped under their chin and worriedly biting on their lip.

“Oh, hi! Eric! You can come into the kitchen.  I’m still researching love miracles.  Did you know that people have different love languages?”

Eric appeared carefully around the door and eased into the kitchen with his line of escape still clear.

“Cor, I didn’t know that.  Love languages include being really anxious and stressed?” he asked.

“No! Love languages don’t.  I’m sorry, am I all anxious and stressed again?  Do you need to go inventory?”  Muriel’s brow wrinkled, they knew how the demon needed his peace and quiet sometimes.  Earth was amazing , but Muriel needed some solitude to recharge sometimes themselves.

“I’m ok. Nina was getting tetchy and she saw that her being tetchy was getting me nervous and that made her more tetchy, so I came to work over here,”  he said bashfully.

“Nina can get very tetchy,” the demon and angel shared a look.  “That’s why I didn’t go over to ask her about this love language, and Maggie was busy, too.”  Muriel said.

“What love language? French?” asked the demon.

“No!  Humans have ‘love languages’ that can be gifts, words of praise, touch, acts of service, quality time and things like that.  I’ve been researching food love languages!  And one of the traditional ways to share a food love language is with,” Muriel looked around conspiratorially, stage whispering,  “chocolate chip cookies!”

Eric nodded confused and leaned over to look over their shoulder.  “An' all those writin’s are chocolate chip cookies?” he pointed.

Muriel’s shoulders sagged and they bit their fingernail.  “No!  Those are recipes for chocolate chip cookies!  I’ve been trying to find the most perfect recipe.  But, I can’t!” 

Eric eased a little closer to the tablet.  Neither of them had been able to pick up the habit of reading the internet slowly like humans and he had no trouble keeping up with the stream of information.  Then he looked up at the kitchen, noticing that all the pantry doors were open to display the contents that Muriel had neatly labeled and organized.

“Does it have to be a perfect recipe?  This looks like putting together a curse or summat, with directions for how to put the material things together,” he points out.

“But I want it to be perfect for my friends!” wailed Muriel and sat down at the kitchen table shivering, locked in CCO: complete choice overload.

Eric walked over to the electric kettle (a gift from Maggie since there were so many people drinking hot beverages at the Book Shop these days) and casually turned it on while his hands busied themselves with putting together one of Nina’s Grandmother’s famous calming teas.  He brought over the tablet and the tea,  leaning to the side and looking at Muriel until they started drinking, then turned back to the pantry.  He had perfect memory, too, and the relative proportions of hundreds of recipes were humming through his mind as he pulled out Aziraphale’s baking sheets, parchment, mixing bowls, and turned the oven on to pre-heat.  Baking journals that debated the amount of leavening based on elevation, humidity, and incoming weather patterns sparkled across his vision as he weighed and measured the dry ingredients.  The angel had quite a collection of different vanillas and chocolates.  Between the vast data on the possible recipes and the many choices of materials, it was no wonder that Muriel was in CCO. 

He slipped the batter bowl in front of Muriel while he licked the remaining spoon, all senses on alert for the optimal time of caramelization of the sugars to create a chewy but textured cookie.  Muriel was looking at him in wonder as they wrinkled their nose up in preparation of tasting their first raw cookie dough (despite all the admonitions in their research NOT to eat raw cookie dough).  

Eric pulled the cookies from the oven at the absolute perfect moment and set them to cool on cookie racks.  He’d cleaned up the kitchen as he went and when he offered Muriel a warm chocolate chip cookie on a little plate, there was nothing but the cookies and the tea adorning the kitchen.

Muriel looked up at Eric as they tasted the cookie, their eyes closing in delight, “It’s perfect!” they sighed.

Eric briefly shared a warm smile with the angel.

“Can we have some?” and looked up to see Maggie, Crowley, Aziraphale, Nina, Geoffrey, Mrs Sandwich, and what looked like half of Wickber street coming into the shop following the scent of perfect chocolate chip cookies.

Muriel smiled at the startled Eric, tugging his sleeve, “It worked!”

[rcreveal]

Movie Night

Day 16

Summary:

NanoMutt Prompt a day Challenge: How you said I love you: over and over again until it became babble. Aziraphale hosts a movie night with an adaptation of a favorite Jane Austen book.

Work Text:

“Mr. Fell, they delivered one of your packages to the record shop,” Maggie calls as she comes into A. Z. Fell book shop.

Crowley is lounging in the atrium, and rolls his head over towards Maggie to say, “He’s upstairs.  Bustling.  You can just put the package down over…”  Crowley waves a languid hand indicating the floor, the desk, and several piles on side tables, “anywhere it won’t fall over.”

Maggie is turning to go, when Nina comes in rolling a movie popcorn maker, “Hey, Mr Fell, another delivery turned up at my shop!” she looks over at Maggie and Crowley, “What’s he up to now?” she asks somewhat suspiciously.  Crowley shrugs and Maggie says, “I haven’t seen him to ask...”

When Aziraphale sails into view at the top of the stairs, looking down delighted at having three people to tell about his wonderful plan.

“Marvelous! I wanted to invite you all to a cinema movie showing tonight!” Aziraphale beams around at them all.

Maggie looks sweetly supportive. Nina looks skeptical, and Crowley looks pleasantly blank.

“What movie?” asks Maggie while Nina tries to give her meaningful eye contact, while mouthing,”no”, and Crowley still looks pleasantly blank.

“Pride and Prejudice!  The Keira Knightley and Matthew Madfadyen version!  I’ve got popcorn and fountain drinks laid in for the full ‘theater’ experience, ” he burbles on, taking the package Maggie hands him and opening it eagerly.  Looking a little perplexed, he opens a clear case and unfolds yard upon yard of Egyptian cotton.  “That’s not my movie screen…”

Crowley has poured himself upright and padded over to feel the material, “Nah, it’s the new sheets.”  

Nina tips her head, “Mr Fell’s bed was already huge before, how much more space do you need?” 

“Well, sometimes I like to sleep with my wings out and Crowley’s gotten into the habit, too.  It’s so nice not to have to keep them winched in all the time, if that makes any sense.  I imagine it’s rather like taking off your corsets after a long day,” replies Aziraphale a little self-consciously.

Nina and Maggie, women for whom underwires and intense amounts of elastic had been a part of their lives for a long time, look at him thoughtfully. “Mmm, wrong era, but, yes, I do think we have a notion of what you mean, “ replies Maggie before Nina can say something sarcastic.

“I like all those period pieces, sounds fun!” says Maggie, and steps over to ask Azriaphale where the screen will go.  While Nina whispers to Crowley “Is that where he got the idea for the ball? Pride and Prejudice? All that sappy Jane Austen stuff?” asks Nina.

“That Jane Austen was living a double life!  The mastermind double agent and diamond thief” said Crowley overly jovially.  More quietly he makes an appeal to Nina, “Don’t leave me.  Plus, I’ll bring rum and at least we can have rum and coke and popcorn, please?”  He sticks out his hand and they shake on it.

“See you tonight at 8!” cries Aziraphale.

During the movie, Crowley surprises himself by having quite an enjoyable time, mostly due to his strongly held belief that he can talk all during this showing since it’s not actually in a theater.  He gets shushed several times for yelling things like, “Do you have any idea how uncomfortable those clothes are !” and, “Thank God for milled jersey knit fabric, am I right, angel!”  But as the movie progressed he was drawn in and yelling at the characters that they were only fooling themselves and to get on with it, and “Ger off, you git!” with one piece of popcorn sailing over and hitting Mr Collins square on the forehead when he was trying to propose to Elizabeth Bennett.  Nina is also having much more fun than she expected.  

By the time of the happy resolution, they are in a rather silly, giddy mood, partially because it was Nina pouring the rum and cokes, so it’s no wonder that Crowley takes Aziraphale’s hand, looks mock seriously into his eyes and intones, “Mrs Darcy, Mrs Darcy, Mrs Darcy,” over and over again until it becomes unintelligible in both their chuckles.

Maggie’s giggling and Nina can only shake her head at the hopeless romantics.  Next time, she would choose the movie.

[rcreveal]

All Creatures Great and Small...

Summary:

Nano mutt prompt a day challenge: how you said I love you - Day 15 out loud so everyone can hear This is a mirror to "Mindfulness Practice" Aziraphale finds that being a bit devilish is what's needed.

Work Text:

Aziraphale's bookshop was particularly cozy this winter afternoon. Crowley sat in a leather armchair with a coffee mug at his elbow that said 'Six shots of espresso' on one side and had the 'Give me coffee or Give me death' logo on the other.  He was reading a horticultural magazine about bonsai.

Nearby, Aziraphale was pouring over a website that shared new discoveries of rare books. Looking up from his work, Aziraphale commented, “Crowley, I'm so pleased with how you've been treating your plants lately!”

“Well,” Crowley sneered,”I still think they grew better when I threatened them.”

“We must cherish all creatures great and small, my dear boy,” remarked Aziraphale.

Turning the page on his magazine, Crowley raised an eyebrow without looking up and commented, “All creatures?”

“All creatures,” replied Aziraphale confidently.

“Even those bookworms that are headed towards your French philosopher's section?” Crowley responded blandly.

“WHAT?!!” shouted Aziraphale, nostrils flared, head up, eyes wide and glaring, ears tuned to the suddenly audible sound of munching from all over the store.

“AVAUNT! the angel cried, racing from stack to stack, picking up cherished volumes and looking in horror at the holes.

Crowley casually picked up his sunglasses and continued reading while shafts of fiery celestial light shone forth around the bookshop.

“They're not responding to cleansing with celestial light!” Aziraphale wailed.

Crowley turned another page in his magazine and called out, “ Selective pressure and thingumie, Angel.  They've grown tolerant of celestial light, having evolved here.” 

With a sudden look of terror, Aziraphale murmured, “Have they found the vellum?” and raced up the stairs.

“Oh, you better believe they found the vellum,” Crowley commented to himself, just waiting for the angel to request his demonic assistance, since Aziraphale was ‘the Good One.’

What happened next started with a low rumble that shook the entire bookshop while reality seemed to stretch in and out, mixed with horrible nightmares. Somehow, the scent of brimstone permeated the entire shop. 

Crowley looked around in alarm wondering where the hellish invasion was coming from.  When the floor stopped shaking, Crowley jumped to his feet and dashed to the bottom of the spiral stairs shouting up, “Angel! Aziraphale! Are you okay!?”

Aziraphale came to the top of the stairs looking very smug. 

“But they were completely susceptible to demonic purging!” he called down.

Crowley whooped, grinned, and yelled up, “Enough of a bastard to be worth knowing!” Just as Nina and Maggie opened the door to see what was going on. The humans looked between the two, confused, while Aziraphale beamed down at Crowley like this was the sweetest compliment.

“Inside partner speak, come on, it doesn't look like they're going to keep scaring off my customers.” said Nina.

“No, dear Nina, but I doubt you'll have any trouble with vermin for a bit,” said Aziraphale happily and proceeded down the stairs to where Crowley was still cackling and holding his sides with laughter.

[rcreveal]

Night Terrors

Summary:

NanoMutt Prompt a Day Challenge Day 19: How you said I love you: from so close together there wasn’t any space between us. The events of the Second Coming were hard on both Aziraphale and Crowley. Both are experiencing PTSD. Right now, one of them has developed night terrors. No graphic depictions of violence or trauma. Depiction of a night terror.

Ngk.

Crowley woke up in mid air with the strong arms of the angel clamped around his chest, feet dangling as Aziraphale’s wings mantled over them both.  The angel’s heart was racing, he was panting, and a little whine could be felt through the contact of their chests more than heard with every exhale, as though the angel had been racing at the limits of his endurance.

Crowley cautiously brought up the bedside lights and looked up and back.  Aziraphale’s face was a rictus of terror, eyes wide.

A quick glance at the bedside clock showed that Crowley had, indeed, missed the alarm to gently wake the angel.  And another glance at Aziraphale’s side of the bed showed that the new smartwatch with the app to wake him in case his heart rate was speeding up in his sleep was carefully laid out on the bed stand and not on the angel’s wrist.

Crowley sighed.  At least Aziraphale hadn’t manifested a flaming sword this time.  He doesn’t have his sword for thousands of years and something like three days as Supreme Archangel and he can suddenly manifest one on Earth, really?

Not trying to wake the angel or break free from his grip, Crowley starts to talk to him gently.

“Angel, you’re safe here.  We’re safe here.  You did it, you broke free and saved me already.  You really did.  I love you, angel.  I’m not going anywhere. We’re together and we’re safer than we’ve ever been before.  I know you love me.  You show me every day.”

Crowley loses track of time.  Murmuring to the angel, he remembers their good times together, trying to share a bit of the good memories.  Eventually, their feet touch down on the bed and they lay spooned on their sides.  Eventually, the angel’s grip loosens and his breathing slows back to sleep.

Crowley dims the lights, and gently kisses Aziraphale’s hand before holding it over his own heart.  The night terrors had been bad this week and Crowley knew the angel rarely remembered anything of them in the morning, which just added to his embarrassment.

Crowley was going to have to bring up therapy again, if he suggested they go to couples trauma focused therapy, ( was there couples trauma focused therapy?), maybe the angel would go with him ‘to support’ him.  And, he was going to have to cut back on the drinking, especially now when he needed to wake the angel before the night terror was due.  But, for his angel, he’d do almost anything.