faemused | Open To Anyone For Anything RP Post 2

Crowley closes his eyes at the touch of a fingertip, tilts his face as it traces from forehead down to jaw. It eases the churning of guilt and humiliation, more than a little. It's not the first time Aziraphale's seen him at his lowest, even if this is a lower low than he's fallen to before.

(was he trying to Fall, this time? He might have been. It would have proven something if he'd Fallen now, now of all times. Might have been worth it, even...

No. No, he won't go near that thought. Not yet. Later, when this is real, when he's sobered up somewhat and Aziraphale is holding him in the dark and the quiet, when he knows bone-deep he's not alone. Maybe then.

One step at a time. Aziraphale can't carry him for all of them, Crowley will have to do some of it)

He catches Aziraphale's fingers again and kisses them, rests his lips against them for a moment. "Don't think 've got any miracles in me, just now," he says. "Wouldn't trust 'em, anyway. Think you can do clothes? 'n something to get this taste out of m'mouth so I can kiss you?"

His heart skips a beat in sudden uncertainty. He can't help it, Aziraphale has been nothing but loving, nothing but kind, but...Crowley looks up, bites his lip. "If that's, if you want..." His voice trails off. It's a long time since the last time they've seen each other. It's longer since Camelot, when they were able to share a bed for years on end, those wonderful, strange years of discovery and grief. He wouldn't blame Aziraphale for not wanting someone in the state Crowley's in, at least not right now.

Without a word, Aziraphale leans forward and down, closes the distance between them.

(It makes such a change, leaning down to meet him like this. Crowley’s always been a little taller than Aziraphale—not by much, just a couple of inches. Just enough to fit comfortably together, his softness slinking in beside all Crowley’s sharp angles. It’s strange to be the one whose embrace is a sanctuary, when for so long he’s thought of things the other way around.)

He breathes out slowly against the angel’s lips, a breath that carries the faint sweet taste of apple. It won’t erase the taste already in Crowley’s mouth, not entirely, but it’s a start. As soon as his lungs are ready to fill themselves again, Aziraphale pulls back, just enough that their foreheads rest together and their noses touch.

“You idiot,” he whispers fondly, fingers stirring against Crowley’s cheek. “Of course I do.”

Crowley draws in a sharp breath as their lips meet, returns the kiss carefully, as though it's something that might shatter if he isn't careful with it.

But Aziraphale breathes sweetness into his mouth, the crisp taste of apples, sharp enough with memory to pierce through any doubt. The affectionate assurance afterwards couldn't be any more convincing than the kiss itself.

Crowley gasps in a sob of a breath and grabs Aziraphale's face in his hands, pulling their mouths together again. Tears sting behind his eyelids but he doesn't care. All that matters is this, that they're together again, neither of them lost or alone or judged. Never judgement, not between them. "'ziraphale." It's a helpless whisper between suddenly desperate kisses, not with desire but with a need that goes far, far deeper. "Missed you so much, I love you, I--" Another shuddering breath and another kiss, and he's shaking all over again, his fingers clutching at whatever of Aziraphale he can grasp, utterly heedless of how he must be splashing water on the demon's clothes and Fernand's floor. "Aziraphale."

Just as Crowley did for him fifteen hundred years ago, Aziraphale gathers the angel into his arms, makes soothing shushing noises into his cropped hair and against his skin. It’s all right. I love you, I will always love you, let me help you the way you’ve helped me.

I’m sorry. I’m here. You’re not alone.

(And if Aziraphale is shaking himself, if the relief and sorrow and joy of the moment are so hard to hold that they make his human body shiver, if his own eyes smart with a heat he can’t yet let spill over—it’s a quiet room, and no one is here to watch.)

When Fernand returns from a fruitless several-hour-long search for the gentleman in the silver spectacles and the madman (who seemed to have vanished on the way back to the shop), he finds them, impossibly, in his spare room. The madman, barely recognizable now that he’s clean and dressed in a soft black shirt and trousers, lies asleep on his side on the little cot Fernand keeps in the room; the gentleman in the spectacles sits on the edge of the bed, with the air of a watchful cat.

Fernand mutely accepts the little leather purse that slides from the gentleman’s well-manicured hand into his own and goes back downstairs. He’s sharp enough to know he’s being paid not to ask questions, and kind enough to know that his own curiosity doesn’t mean as much as letting an unfortunate beggar have a little peace and quiet.

(That night, in cantinas throughout the city, proprietors and bartenders will reach into their pockets or coats or into their cashboxes and discover gold coins that weren’t there before. A rumor roils through Seville over the next week, as people notice the conspicuous absence of a certain madman. Long, long after Torquemada and his Inquisitors are all dust, there will still be souls who pass on a folk song about the night the Angel of Seville paid his bar tab.)

Crowley wakes up after a few hours and regrets it immediately, because his head very much wants to kill him and trade him in for a new owner. He groans and buries his face in his pillow. That registers as something odd, but his head is pounding too furiously for him to put his fingers on why just yet.

It's a nice pillow, though. Cushiony. Soft. Smells nice. Everything smells nice at the moment, clean linen and soap, paper, and...

Crowley breathes out slowly. "Aziraphale." He feels the weight on the end of the bed now, recognizes the whiff of cologne and oil and wood smoke. The name is as much a croak as a word, but it still sounds like a prayer. To Crowley's mind it is one.

At the sound of his name, Aziraphale shifts, his weight relocating closer to Crowley’s head and shoulders. Soft fingers stroke across Crowley’s forehead. What light there is in the room is a hazy blue—the sun has set, but not yet faded entirely. Somewhere distant, a nightingale’s thin call rises into the evening.

“Shh. I’m here, angel.” The words are pitched at a whisper, to avoid the hangover pounding them into the insides of Crowley’s skull. “What do you need?”

"Nghhh. New head would be nice." The words are muffled against the pillow. The fact that Crowley only has himself to blame for this particular agony isn't lost on him. Whoever invented hangovers really understood suffering.

But the only way out is through. He rolls onto his back, sighs as gentle fingers stroke along his face, light and soft as feathers. "Water?"

Edited 2020-05-21 20:42 (UTC)

Almost at once the rim of a cup brushes against Crowley’s chin, and a hand coaxes its way between his head and the pillow, encouraging him just a little further upright.

The water in the cup is cool but not cold. There’s a faint taste of something else in it—lime and mint leaf, and just the slightest touch of honey.

“There...” His fingers curl gently into Crowley’s hair. “There you go. Drink up. Plenty more where that came from.”

He’s had Fernand fetch some simple food as well—bread, cheese, fruit—but for now they’ll take things one step at a time.

Crowley drinks the entire cupful, slowly and carefully, with Aziraphale's guidance. It's delicious, like a cool breeze running through him, both sharp and soothing against the dull ache of his sore head.

Belatedly he realizes the rest of him isn't in great shape either, drained and bruised, to say nothing of the only sort of healed scars on his back. He's an angel, his body isn't exactly like a true human's, but there are still limits to what a corporation can withstand and he's hit a number of them. Nothing that can't be fixed with some time and a few miraculous efforts. He just...wasn't motivated, before.

Crowley looks up at Aziraphale, sitting so nearby and watching him so closely, and smiles with a sweetness no one else ever sees. "You're really here. I didn't dream it." His hand is trembling a little as he reaches up to caress Aziraphale's face, but only with exhaustion, not fear or any other riotous emotion. "You lovely fiend. However did you find me?"

Now that Fernand has gone out for the evening, Aziraphale has taken off the spectacles, so the full scope of his smile is on display as it blooms. He recognizes the look on Crowley’s face: it’s the way the angel looked before kissing him for the first time. Even in the half-darkness, it’s a beautiful sight.

“I came in for a haircut and some gossip, and heard a story about an angel,” he says, turning his head to kiss Crowley’s fingers. “Several stories, in fact. So I decided to see for myself, and there you were.”

His feline eyes are soft, their gaze caressing as he takes in the familiar contours of Crowley’s face. As weary as Crowley looks, there’s some shadow that’s cleared away, a weight easing.

The past however-long has been filled with hot days, the sort where the sun is an oppressive ever-watchful presence, and nights are restless and itchy. This room is small and sparse, but it's cool and comfortable. And Aziraphale's smile is like starlight, brightening everything, but gently. Crowley sighs a little as his fingers are kissed.

"Lucky you were in the area, then." For the first time in a long time Crowley does feel lucky, even blessed. He touches Aziraphale's lips and face, then lowers his hand back to rest on his own chest.

“I suppose you were.”

One of Aziraphale’s hands moves to cover Crowley’s, his thumb stroking along the backs of the angel’s knuckles. I’m here. I’ll be here.

“I’ve been thinking,” he murmurs, almost idly. “About where we could spend the next three months. Have you been to Italy lately?”

Crowley immediately (for a value of immediately that equals slowly because the banging in his head is distracting but nonetheless still with determination) covers Aziraphale's hand with his other one, sandwiching it between his. "Not for years." Not since the 14th century, fuck, that'd been horrible. Though at least the plague years hadn't been people doing it to each other on purpose. Mostly.

Not thinking about that. He tangles his fingers with Aziraphale, enjoying the easy intimacy of it. "'d like to go back there. See how it's doing." He trusts Aziraphale has an idea of what's going on in Italy and that it's nothing like as sickening as what's here. He smiles a little again, looking at their joined hands. "Rent a house. Florence, maybe. Or Milan. Somewhere with trees." There's beautiful countryside in Spain, of course, but he hasn't seen it for a while and now he's suddenly longing for green things. Living things, beautiful things, not made of blood and dust and ash. "Think we could find a place?"

Even in the fading light, Aziraphale’s eyes glitter.

“Mmm... Florence, I think. There are some exquisite gardens in the city, and the countryside is gorgeous.” For several hundred years it’s also been steadily producing brilliant writers and artists; human curiosity and creativity flourish there. “A little villa out on a hillside, I think. Someplace with gardens.”

There may even be an abandoned place they can make their own, the way he had with his Lake nearly a thousand years ago. The thought of watching Crowley coax a garden into life does something strange and tender to his heart, something so sweet it’s perilously close to painful.

"That sounds..." Crowley stops and breathes in, squeezes Aziraphale's hands. "Perfect. Idyllic, even. You could have a harp, a proper full size one. I'd love to hear you play that." Every day, please. That's what he wants, wants desperately, growing things and Aziraphale making music by day and holding him by night and Heaven and Hell just leaving them alone. Even if it's only for a while.

Crowley lifts Aziraphale's hand to his mouth and kisses his fingers, then tugs at them harder. "Lie next to me?"

Though in a human body it’s far less graceful than it would be in his feline form (or nearly any other form, for that matter), Aziraphale moves as he’s tugged, shifting his weight so they both fit on the cot side by side. It’s always been wickedly easy to coax his arms around the angel’s thin waist and shoulders, and that’s exactly what he does now, gathering Crowley in close.

“They’ve got a lovely stringed instrument here called a vihuela,”(1) he murmurs. “Could bring one of those too. Just for variety’s sake.”

Truthfully, if the angel wants an entire orchestra, Aziraphale will find some way to make it happen. Even if there’s still a tiny smoldering ember, somewhere deep in his patched-together heart, that wants to blast Heaven with the force of his rage on Crowley’s behalf... it’ll keep. There are things he can do here, to deprive the Lord of the suffering She seems to love so much.

(1) On the family tree of stringed instruments, a vihuela is somewhere between a guitar and a lute. With one of the main differences being that the lute holds less beer than the vihuela, which in turn holds far less beer than the average acoustic guitar.

Edited (As I meant to say: sorry not sorry for the music joke) 2020-05-23 02:42 (UTC)

Crowley is an Angel of the Lord, traditionally supposed to be fearsome warriors of the faith, inspiring awe and divine terror. The thing is he's a pretty lousy angel (literally lousy, until Aziraphale cursed them all off), and knows it. Never is he more relieved about the fact that when he snuggles up against Aziraphale, wrapping an arm around him and letting himself be bound and return. Fearsome warriors of the Lord are definitely not supposed to snuggle. Their loss.

"All of them," he murmurs. His headache is feeling better already, which might be Aziraphale's influence or might be Crowley's own divine nature healing his corporation a bit now that he's not too discombobulated to attend to it, or most likely is just the water. He should have more of that. In a minute. "One of every instrument in the world. We'll need a pretty large villa for that but it'd be worth it."

They've ended up face to face, so he can feel Aziraphale's breath every few seconds, and it's wonderful. They don't need to breathe but it definitely has its pleasures, like so many human things. Crowley strokes his fingers down the demon's spine. "When shall we go? And how?"

At the declaration that he intends for them to have a collection of instruments, Aziraphale smiles fondly. Truthfully he does have a collection, kept back at the castle where he raised Lancelot, safely tucked out of human perception. Humans just keep inventing new ways to make music, and he’s fascinated by all of them.

“Sundown tomorrow,” he purrs, relishing the gentle press of Crowley’s hand on his back. “When the sun’s gone down, we’ll hire a carriage. Ride through the night till we get to Florence.”

(Granted, there will likely be a touch of demonic magic involved so the journey doesn’t take them days on end. It’ll attract less attention and take less energy out of Crowley than if he were to suggest the two of them fly.)

“And then we’ll find a house, and a harp, and a bed with a soft coverlet. First order of business.”

Crowley sighs happily at the gentle vibration that emerges from Aziraphale's throat. His purring isn't as pronounced in this form as it is when he's a cat, but it's still a happy noise, and he welcomes it. "Sounds good. In a diabolical 'You tempting fiend, how dare you offer me my heart's desire' way, of course."

Crowley has made it clear on any number of occasions that Aziraphale is welcome to tempt him. Also that he will very willingly give in. It does help that Aziraphale never tempts him with anything Crowley truly doesn't want or would be conflicted about, granted.

Aziraphale laughs softly.

“I’d hardly offer anything less. I do have standards when it comes to temptations.”

One of Aziraphale’s hands wanders to Crowley’s hair again. It feels so strange, this short, tickling between his fingers in an entirely new way. Not unpleasant at all, just different.

“But we can pretend you put up a valiant fight.” He noses a touch closer to brush a kiss against the ridge of Crowley’s eyebrow. “Loads of virtuous resistance. Terribly noble of you.”

Crowley makes a rude noise. "No one would believe it. I've never been able to resist you. I've never even tried to resist you."

Aziraphale's mouth is right there, and it's so very easy to just take a kiss, soft and sweet. "So, nope. 'm not valiant or virtuous--not by angelic standards, anyway--and I'm certainly not noble. Just a winged idiot in love." He nuzzles against Aziraphale's cheek, chuckling a little. "Albeit now with a haircut and slightly better breath."

He yawns a little at the end of this. More sleep would probably be smart, and more water (and a new head and probably a new liver, but those still aren't on offer). But not just yet. His arm tightens around Aziraphale's waist instead.

As much as Aziraphale would like to declare great pustulent mangled bollocks to angelic standards, the night is drawing closer around them, wrapping them in a safe, soft darkness. This is one of those precious temporary places where he can give in to his un-demonic softness, where he can give and receive comfort. Very little else matters right now.

“I love you too,” he murmurs. The words always feel like an exquisite blasphemy in his mouth: demons aren’t supposed to love, aren’t supposed to be capable, but he’s always been terrible at being a demon in the ways that really count. Loving Crowley feels like getting away with something, in the best possible way.

Another kiss—gentle, slow, as if he’s using it to tell a secret—and then he finally lets a question fall into the warm little space between them.

“How long have you been in Seville?”

Crowley goes completely still.

He'd been able to...not to forget, for a little while, but to push it aside. The world outside of this spare, this safe little room. As though he was able to leave...certain things...at the door.

He hasn't. It's still with him. He feels it. Even barrels of wine could only dull his awareness, even twelve bleeding lashes on his back only amounted to a distraction, and while a hangover and Aziraphale's words and arms do an impressive job of catching his focus he can still feel it, even if he tries to ignore it. Like a glaring light seen from the corner of the eye. Well done thou good and faithful servant...

No, no, no, no, no, no. No. He won't. Just the thought of it makes him ache for the oblivion he could find at the bottom of enough bottles of alcohol, but...

But Aziraphale is here, holding him on this cot in this quiet room, and Crowley can't...can't. Can't do that to him. Won't.

He takes a deep breath, releases it. Does it again. Tries to make muscles now rock-hard with tension relax, even a little. "...don't know," Crowley says finally. It's only barely audible and buried against Aziraphale's shoulder to boot, but a demon's hearing will catch it. "Not sure...what month it is." He laughs without humor. "Not sure what year it is, I don't--"

He shudders all over, buries his face in Aziraphale's chest. "I'll--I will tell you about it. I will. But not yet. Before...before we leave Iberia, I will. But please--"

Please not now. Please let this room stay a sanctuary for a bit longer, please. He's so tired.

Aziraphale feels Crowley tense, and his heart twists hard. Though he can make an educated guess about part of what’s happened before today, there’s some vital piece of the puzzle missing, and it’s the thing the angel is trying to hide from in his embrace.

His arms tighten around Crowley, folding him in close. Slowly, avoiding the half-healed lash marks beneath the shirt he’s conjured, Aziraphale strokes a long path up and down the length of the angel’s trembling back. His hands have had a thousand years of stolen moments to learn his lover’s body; now he brings that knowledge to bear as he tempts the taut cords of muscle in Crowley’s back to relax a little.

“Shh...” His touch coaxes tenderly up from the small of Crowley’s back to the bases of his sharp shoulderblades, petting. “Of course, darling.”

I’m sorry, he adds wordlessly as he presses a kiss to the top of Crowley’s head.

Crowley sighs and relaxes a little more as Aziraphale gently caresses his back, the movements slow and soothing, a balm on a wound. The release of tension again is such a relief that combined with Aziraphale's warmth and the sense of being protected, being cared for, it lulls him back to sleep before long.

When he wakes again, hours later, there's daylight shining through the small windows, and Aziraphale is gone. Crowley lays there in silence for a while, listening to the noises of Seville outside, the chatter of the barber and his customers downstairs. His head is still aching and his body is still sore and tired, he feels parched and stretched too thin. But his heart is a bit lighter than it was.

He drinks as much water as he can stand and falls asleep again to wait for his demon's return, curled up under blankets that still smell like Aziraphale, and dreams of grass-covered hills and a ivy growing up the wall of a villa.

They haven't, or Crowley would've been holding his. Happy for them to do it later. Also A is SO good

They could! And yeah he’s eternally soft, especially for his snek.

Auuughh Crowley and I have both melted now.

Your demon adores you, C! <3

It's mutual! Thanks for putting tired angel to bed and I LOVE the bar tab folk song

I’ll be honest, I’ve invented quite a few folk song ideas for this verse. ;D

Toss lyrics my way and I'll BS a melody for them! ;)

OH LORD NOW I MIGHT. <3

BRING IT ON <3

God if we end up writing actual songs for this fic. I never thought I had it in me.

Give it a try! Could be fun!

We’re all going to emerge from lockdown unstoppable creative titans of weirdness

GOOD. Best outcome. I vote for that future timeline.

Btw up to you whether they rent a place or find one. ;D

No opinion tbh. Crowley doesn't care either. A have an opinion?

i think he’d probably like to rehab an abandoned one. Inspire fairy tales.

Sounds good. It'll give Crowley something to focus on..and they can do it together.

Exactly! A shared project. <3

That will be fun.

Already have some ideas. And relishing googling Tuscan countryside.

Auughhh yes. So beautiful.

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I keep changing my mind about the year aaaaiiighh. Maybe 1495ish.

If we want historical accuracy to a degree, Leo was away from Florence till 1500

Torquemada dies 1498 though. Let's aim earlier, C can stay in Italy a few years after C leaves.