Open To Anyone For Anything RP Post 2
Nov. 11th, 2018 03:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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faemused
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Brilliant ideas and clueless flailing all welcome.
AUs and cross-canon, drama and comedy and shipping.
Just throw stuff at me. It's all good.
Watch Crowley and I not object also HELLO I MISSED YOU
Date: 2020-06-21 07:31 pm (UTC)"Isn't it?" he blurts out, his own eyes wide and stricken. He closes them and shakes his head, still breathing too fast. He raises his hands and closes them around Aziraphale's wrists, as though to hold them in place. To give himself some sort of framework. "No, it's not that." He laughs, and it's more a sob. "Not just that. It's Heaven approving of it. Praising it. Again. All those deaths and all that pain to serve some, some, some Great Plan we never see and can't even ask about, what is it for, how--"
He's shaking more violently now, and his head bows, rests against Aziraphale's chest. "How can they sanction this and call it good?" He can't catch his breath. Technically Crowley doesn't need to breathe, but it feels like he does, and he can't. His next words are almost inaudible.
"How can I call myself good while I do their work?"
(Why haven't I Fallen yet, just for asking all this?
Do I want to?)
I HAVE MISSED YOU TOO <3
Date: 2020-06-23 11:26 pm (UTC)Both of them are intimately acquainted with human suffering and death, with the ripples grief leaves in its wake and the wounds that survivors pass on to those who survive them in turn. But Heaven, for all their posturing, don’t see it as real enough to merit concern. (To be fair, Hell don’t really care about the specifics of suffering inflicted on human souls either—they’ve got quotas to meet, not consequences to consider.)
Then five thousand years’ worth of love and familiarity rise up in him, from that well of strength that Crowley’s filled in him where his faith used to be. Like a star, constant in its brightness, this is a knowledge that stands firm against the wave of oncoming dark.
“Because you know it matters,” he whispers, the words raking through Crowley’s cropped hair as surely as fingers. “Because you know it’s not just numbers. Because you do good things that aren’t their work—you have been for as long as I’ve known you. Right back to the beginning.”
His hands find Crowley’s back and stroke, soothing, the firm touch turning to a feather-light glide when it finds his scars.
I know I need to get back to Camelot but no brain
Date: 2020-06-25 12:51 am (UTC)"So do you." He raises his head, cups Aziraphale's face in his hands. "You always have, too. Since the start. And not just for me." He rests their foreheads together again, feels warm breath caress his face. "You're Fallen, even though there's more love and compassion in you than in the whole of Heaven. And I'm not, despite doubting everything, questioning Her will even back when She was around to tell us directly what it was, and none of it makes sense." He laughs a little, not happily. "They seem the same to me, you know? Heaven and Hell. Just opposite sides of the same coin, not much difference between them. Have for centuries. Shouldn't I Fall just for that?"
He breathes in, inhales the scent of grass, of soap and oiled strings, of Aziraphale, and asks. "Would it be better if I did?"
We’ll get to it! Meanwhile, a holiday and tender smut?
Date: 2020-06-25 01:30 pm (UTC)His brain doesn’t have any say in the matter; this response comes directly from his heart. It spills out of him like a clumsy splash of magma, heavy hot truth searing his lips and tongue.
(For a second he feels the weight of sodden burnt wings on his back, the rasp of breath in a throat newly broken.)
“They wouldn’t let you come back up to earth for a long time.” Aziraphale’s voice is strained, tight with hurt. “Maybe not till Armageddon gets started. Partly to interrogate you, and partly just out of spite. You wouldn’t get to spend any time with humans, unless it was to watch them suffering. You wouldn’t be able to affect anything for the better.”
He draws a ragged breath before adding, “I don’t want that for you. I couldn’t bear it.”
Silent between them, unspoken but heavy as storm clouds, is a silent knowledge. I couldn’t bear the pain it would cause you. I can never tell you what it feels like, I can never fully explain, and I don’t want you to know firsthand.
Nghhh yes please.
Date: 2020-06-26 02:38 am (UTC)It's not the words that convince him. They're good points, ones that he's considered, but he's also considered the endless nightmare of waiting and waiting and waiting and the relief of having that question, at least, answered. The axe finally fallen. So they aren't what convinces him.
Instead it's the raw pain in Aziraphale's voice, the weight and silent knowledge of suffering...that arrests Crowley as no words could. He has an idea, and he knows it's only a small awareness of the whole, of what agony Aziraphale went through when he Fell. How could he ask such a blindingly foolish question, knowing that? How could he be so utterly thoughtless?
He makes a low noise and tilts his head, leaning in. It's not much of a kiss, hard and guilt-ridden and grieving. But it's still comforting and meant to comfort. "I'm sorry," he whispers, clutching at Aziraphale's shoulders, rich fabric under his palms. "I'm sorry, love, I shouldn't have asked, shouldn't have--" Shouldn't have hurt you by asking, shouldn't have let myself sink this low, shouldn't have-- He breathes in hard, presses another kiss to Aziraphale's mouth. "Forgive me."
He’ll be very thoroughly taken care of. And spoiled more than a bit.
Date: 2020-06-26 09:55 pm (UTC)But the moment, like all of time measured on earth, is finite. Aziraphale shifts, tilting his head, claiming a gentler kiss from Crowley’s mouth. This kiss is meant to settle them both, and he breathes through it slowly, letting the surge of panic ebb.
(He knows what the main difference is between Heaven and Hell, has known for millennia. Heaven lies. Constantly, ruthlessly, more flagrantly than Hell ever has. They parrot back messages of love sung to them long ago, but add on qualifiers and provisos and conditions. Crowley is the only angel he’s ever met whose heart is as expansive as a human’s, or at least the only one he’s met who’s not afraid to show it. And the idea of Heaven condemning Crowley for his purpose the way Aziraphale had been at the beginning...
It doesn’t bear thinking about.
He can’t let it drag them both down.)
“Of course I do.” His forehead rests against Crowley’s; his palms flatten gently against the angel’s back over his shirt. “We’ll burn the commendation. The letter too, if you’ve got it. Lighten the carriage load before we cross the border into Italy.”
There’s a shade of hope in his tone now, providing a faint harmony to the determination that drives the words.
GOOD also vice versa.
Date: 2020-06-27 02:34 am (UTC)For the first time in years Crowley feels heard and understood, and he could weep just from relief and gratitude.
"Yes," he says at once. "Yes, please. The letter's already gone, it was made if more ordinary stuff, but that thing..." He shudders and pointedly doesn't look at the scroll lying on the grass next to them. "I can't destroy it on my own. Tried. But you--"
Crowley pulls back to see Aziraphale's face more clearly. "Hellfire would do it, I imagine. Would you?"
There's still an apologetic note. He doesn't remember his previous, desperate request of before, not clearly, and now that he's sober he's aware of what a potential mess of pain it is even just to ask.
Hee. Winged idiots in love. <3
Date: 2020-06-27 03:34 am (UTC)He offers Crowley a flicker of a smile, the promise of a beaming grin in their future.
“My pleasure,” he says, and means it. “Just keep well back.”
His sharp blue gaze turns toward the scroll, shimmering on the grass; with a flick of his finger it skitters another few feet away from them, coming to rest on a flat stone that might have been part of a wall once (1). When he’s satisfied that it’s far enough away from Crowley, he lifts his hand slowly, snaps his fingers once.
Gabriel’s signature catches first, the brilliant golden letters turning orange and red and blue before they blacken entirely. Little tongues of flame begin to dance along the edges of the mark; a hole expands in the page like a blossom. A thin trail of white smoke curls idly up from one corner of the paper.
(1) While one might assume that even part-time residence in Hell would provide a comprehensive understanding of fire safety, most of what Aziraphale’s learned about it he’s learned from watching human cock-ups. The major takeaway from those could best be summed up as “you can never be too careful handling any kind of fire, ordinary or otherwise”.
Summary of the show tbh! Also thx for A being careful with fire.
Date: 2020-06-27 06:42 pm (UTC)He holds his breath as the paper begins to burn, and doesn't let it out again until the commendation is entirely gone, leaving not even ashes behind. Then it all comes out in a whoosh. Some dreadful tension leaves him in the same moment, and the lack of it of it is dizzying. It'd weighed so much, that reward. He could vanish it to the far ends of the earth or the deepest part of the ocean, he had done, but it'd still been with him.
Not anymore. What it represents is still a burden he'll have to carry, but even so, he feels lighter. It's there in his smile already. "Thank you," he whispers, when he can finally drag his gaze from the rock to Aziraphale. His face shines with relief.
He takes another easier breath, then makes a bit of a face. Hellfire smells dreadful, sulfuric to the nth degree and laced with a sweet rotted smokiness that even a mind as expansive as an angel's struggles to define as anything other than itself. The burned paper leaves behind a smell of ozone and electricity and ice. It's hardly a pleasant combination. Pity they don't just cancel each other out...
Crowley thinks of something then, reaches down for the pouch at his waist with his shorn hair in it, and unhooks it from his belt. "Here. Should do this, too. I want to leave as much of the past year behind me as I can."
He’s been a mom, he gets fire safety. ;)
Date: 2020-07-01 12:18 am (UTC)Still, a measured breath pushes the sting away. He has a keepsake of his own, tucked away in his sleeve, and more than that he has Crowley here with him for a whole three months. And this is important to the angel, a way of pushing off some of the terrible weight Heaven has laid on his shoulders.
He manages a small smile.
“Toss it over,” he says, and when Crowley does Aziraphale waves a hand to change the trajectory of the bag’s arc through the air so that it lands on the stone as well.
This time the smell is a touch worse. There aren’t yet words to describe some of the notes in the awful perfume of hellfire—in centuries to come Aziraphale will realize that it smells like burning tires, like a chainsmoker’s dirty laundry, like a ruined microwave. It’s all of those things and more, and itself in a way no other description can quite articulate, and the smell of burnt hair on top of that does not noticeably improve the sulfurous stink.
But at some point after they’ve left this sunny green space behind them, the wind will shift. Rain will roll in from some other corner of the world and wash away whatever ash or lingering stench might be left behind. The air will forget this moment; so will the land. The memory of this smell will fade from their own minds in time, its edges blunted by time.
If only more people did! Also, bog of eternal stench? ;)
Date: 2020-07-01 12:44 am (UTC)"M'sorry." The circle of his arms tightens. "Ordinary fire would probably have done for that, once it was cut. Just wasn't, wasn't thinking. Haven't been."
Crowley sighs again, nuzzling his nose just above the high collar of Aziraphale's shirt. It's mostly an attempt to comfort and say here, I'm here, that wasn't me, but it's also a little bit to hide from the hellfire reek lingering in the air. "M'sorry." A small kiss, just next to the ear. "Thank you."
Little bit. ;) On to Italy?
Date: 2020-07-01 02:49 am (UTC)(Bruised and scarred and thinner than he ought to be, his soul starved for kindness and healing, but he remains. Some spark of the joy that has lit Aziraphale’s world for millennia still flickers in him. And for a little eternity they can be here together on earth; Aziraphale’s softness can be a shelter for Crowley.)
Aziraphale exhales slowly. His eyes flutter shut; his hands rise to curl around Crowley’s forearms.
“I love you,” he breathes—you’re welcome, I forgive you, I’m glad you’re here.
On to Italy!
Date: 2020-07-01 11:37 pm (UTC)They stay there for a time, entwined as closely as ivy around a tree. Even when they finally stand to walk back they keep arms around shoulders and waists, and their embrace lasts long past the point where their carriage crosses the border between countries.
Sorry this took a while but HERE WE GO
Date: 2020-07-12 03:47 am (UTC)Less than a week (record time, as the coachman will brag for the rest of his life) and they’re in northern Italy. The hills of Tuscany unfurl before them, long rumpled folds in the fabric of the earth, green on every side.
He and Crowley talk more often now, with the worst of the hangover behind them. They sit close more often than not, holding hands or leaning into one another’s sides. Sometimes they kiss, but when they do it’s with the warmth of comfort or reassurance or tenderness, not the heat of desire.
(Which is not to say that Aziraphale doesn’t feel its pull. Sometimes, watching Crowley sleep when they’ve stopped the carriage to wait out an overcast night or stopped at an inn, he lets his hungry gaze linger on the parts of his angel he longs to kiss: shoulder, neck, wrists. The waiting only makes each pang keener, makes the anticipation sweeter.)
The night before they’re due to come within sight of Florence, Aziraphale waits till the carriage driver and Crowley (and everyone else at the inn where they’ve stopped, just to be safe) are asleep. Then he closes his own eyes, and though his human corporation remains breathing and functioning, Aziraphale slips out of it a while to survey the countryside. It’s a touch disorienting, to be a consciousness without the sensory input of a body, but also sort of refreshing.
Unseen, formless, he moves like a gust of wind across the drowsing countryside. Little flashes of sin illuminate his way in the night as he passes by human habitation, lanterns in the dark. But after some searching he finds a place human hands have built and human souls have vacated. It’s a small, cozy stone villa nestled up against the side of a hill, with a crumbling mossy wall marking out the borders of the estate.
In the light of day they’ll be able to see the farms and homes outside of the city; the walls of Florence are probably a half day’s carriage ride away. The furniture inside is half rotted, and the place has endured a century’s worth of weather without human maintenance; from the after-echoes of death Aziraphale can sense, the inhabitants mostly fell to the plague. Whoever survived left in a hurry, and their descendants haven’t returned.
It’s perfect. Granted, there will be some fixing-up to do, but Hell is far more liberal about the ways its agents bend reality than Heaven’s ever been.
Aziraphale inhales deeply as he returns to his body, the path ahead of them clear as a melody in his mind. He gives the driver an extra purse of coins and clear directions over breakfast, and spends that day’s ride in a state of happy anticipation, his heart jolting slightly every time they pass a landmark he recognizes.
I did leave all the scene-setting to you! But you had clearer ideas about what A wanted =)
Date: 2020-07-12 11:10 pm (UTC)In all honesty he wouldn't mind if the journey were longer, boring roads and limited coach space or not. When the journey ends he'll have to wake up, in more than one sense, and part of him cringes from the idea. So much easier for now to the motion of travel lull him, to feel Aziraphale's affection covering him like the warmest of blankets. So much easier to not think.
He rests more easily now with the weight of Heaven's approval burned, and smiles or sighs in his sleep whenever Aziraphale strokes his new-shorn hair or caresses his face.
But miles pass and the journey draws towards its destination, and if Crowley is reluctant to drag himself back to greater awareness it doesn't show overmuch. He knows when it's the last day; Aziraphale's pleasure is obvious, his excitement contagious, and Crowley lets himself be swept up in it, rouses himself to ask questions and notice things.
(So strange, for noticing and questioning to now take effort, when they've been integral to his being for as long as he's existed. But that's too close to other more painful thoughts, so he doesn't think about it. Not yet. Not while they're still travelling)
"Half a day from Florence," he muses, looking out at the rolling hills beyond the tall thin trees that line the road they travel. He glances at Aziraphale and smiles, small and teasing. "Just far enough to not be convienent. Something tells me we'll have to cheat if we want that bed with a soft coverlet on our first night there." He squeezes Aziraphale's fingers with his own. A week has done nothing to reduce his amazed gratitude that Aziraphale's fingers are there to be squeezed. "Do you want to make our own furnishings, or shall we stay a night or two and then visit the city for a few days to buy things the human way?"
Hello from cat ownership! Benedict slept on my pillow all night <3
Date: 2020-07-19 10:11 pm (UTC)The clasp of Crowley’s fingers around his own, however, has always been cause for something dangerously close to giddiness. This moment in particular is no exception.
“I think I can handle a bed and an appropriately soft coverlet,” Aziraphale smiles. “We’ll make a project of it, along with the gardens. Florence can wait a while.”
(Even if all they do in this new bed is hold one another, it means being close to Crowley, helping him with the weight Heaven has tried to shift onto his thin shoulders. That by itself is more than Aziraphale’s ever thought he would have of love. It’s a feast for his eternally hungry soul.)
Yaaaaaay hello Benedict!! Congrats on gaining a nifty person!
Date: 2020-07-21 12:40 am (UTC)Even so, the relief, great as it is, pales next to the joy of seeing Aziraphale smile at any given moment, feeling the warmth of his skin and breath, feeling the love that all but radiates from him. He can feel himself uncurling like a leaf in the sun, the roots of him drinking in all that love like water.
Crowley's smile grows and softens. "I like the idea of it, you know. Making it together. Arguing about the colour of the bedclothes or where to put the rosebushes or how many cushions to have. I've never gotten to do that before."
They lived together before, yes, for decades in Aziraphale's palace by the lake. But it was Aziraphale's. Crowley was been granted space in it, had loved it and been loved there, but it wasn't the same as a home they both make together from the start. Crowley can't imagine wanting anything more.
<3 <3 My mental & physical health are already improving.
Date: 2020-07-22 03:50 pm (UTC)Now they’ll have another place, one that will belong to them equally. Even if only for three months.
“I won’t argue with you on the rosebushes, unless you want them in the middle of the sitting room,” he teases. But with the press of his fingers and the softness of his smile he adds, I’m glad to be doing this with you.
The carriage begins to make its way up the slightly overgrown road that leads to their villa, the wheels jostling a little over grass and stones. In the afternoon sunlight the mossy patches on the wall around their new home nearly glow, Eden-green.
YAY. also A whole week late ack what is time accck
Date: 2020-07-29 11:54 pm (UTC)He abandons the debate to look up as the villa comes into view. It's a largeish place; smaller than Aziraphale's palace by the lake, but still a few stories tall. But to call it run down is understating things. Some of the roof has fallen in, for one, and much of the border wall. Most of the windows are broken or open, which means weather damage and animal infestations and Lord knows what else. There will be a lot to do.
(Good, his traitorous mind thinks. Something to keep busy with, to get distracted by. So he won't have to think about other things...)
The sun's light is kind on the old stones, and the moss and ivy are welcoming. The house might not be in the best shape, but it still has hope to offer. Crowley lets himself be comforted by the metaphor, obvious as it is. "It's beautiful," he says quietly, leaning his head on Aziraphale's shoulder. "Thank you."
It’s quarantine! Time is meaningless! Have a taco!
Date: 2020-08-08 05:36 pm (UTC)Aziraphale slips his arm around Crowley’s waist, basks in his nearness and the no-longer-tense set of his shoulders.
“I hoped you’d enjoy it,” he murmurs, squeezing gently. “Though I think our first order of business will have to be finding a spot with adequate roofing for the bed to go under.”
(The driver, meanwhile, finds his initial suspicions about his passengers’ ownership of the house sliding out of his thoughts entirely as they approach. Certainly it’s very run-down for a family home, as the gentleman in white claims, but the place gives off such a sense of peace that he merely finds himself approving of the decision to spend a summer here.)
Time suddenly has meaning again this week and it's WEIRD mmm tacos though
Date: 2020-08-11 12:50 am (UTC)He does not think of the past year, of dirt for bedding and his own elbow as a cushion and the open air as a blanket. He does lean in and kiss Aziraphale's cheek. "At worst we'll have the stars for our ceiling and each other as a coverlet. I'll be content with that, I promise." He grins, his expression turning a bit sly. "Well...mostly content. Wouldn't say no to a mattress. Or pillows."
OKAY SO I assume we fast forward a couple weeks after this?
Date: 2023-08-01 12:05 am (UTC)*
With the coachman paid and on his way back to Florence, they spend an hour or so wandering through the remains of the house, assessing the state of the place. They walk the length of the border wall, piecing together what the layout of the original garden might have looked like from the ruins. The plants here are all running riot; there’s a patch of wall near one of the bedrooms on the ground floor where honeysuckle spills through the window and over the remains of a stone bench nearby.
It takes them a while to pick their bedroom—several of the rooms with enough roof to qualify on the first night are occupied by sparrows, and Aziraphale hasn’t the heart to evict them today. But eventually they find a room that’s mostly intact and has a view onto the garden [footnote: And, by extension, a view onto the nearby road. Aziraphale may be confident, but he’s not naive.]. There’s a half-rotted bed frame in another room that can be easily convinced that it remembers what it was like in its glory days, so that’s where Aziraphale starts.
The mattress is a bit trickier. Anything that humans might have brought here is long since rotted or repurposed as nests. But there’s an abundance of moss in the garden, which is easy enough to miracle into the proper shape and cover with a sheet. And, just for the added comfort, he summons a coverlet from one of the rooms at the Lake—one that lay across their shared bed, once upon a time.
As the sun sets, he sits on the edge of this new bed with Crowley, plays his vihuela for a while. Just improvising little themes, occasionally mixing in a snatch of the millennia-old song he’s played for Crowley on a dozen other instruments by now. When the angel’s recovering stamina wears down, Aziraphale slips into bed beside him, gathers Crowley into his arms.
He doesn’t let go until Crowley’s awake again.
Yep that's a plan!
Date: 2023-08-04 10:16 pm (UTC)Crowley isn't usually passive by nature, but for those first few weeks he lets Aziraphale take charge. He helps, of course, offers opinions when asked, does his own miracles to make a safe place for the sparrows to roost in the chimney, starts fixing the holes in the walls and broken tiles on the floors when Aziraphale points them out. But mostly he just enjoys Aziraphale's company. He spends hours dozing, secure in the knowledge that his fiend is nearby; he spends more hours happily watching Aziraphale learn his new instrument. Sometimes he requests songs from the past, harmless happy things, nothing too associated with pain or loss. He knows Aziraphale is...not worried, but watching him closely, protective. And while he doesn't look closely at the past year, he knows it's not unwarranted.
Neither of them suggests stocking the wine cellar. Someday, perhaps. Not yet.
Every night Aziraphale holds him close in their bed, and Crowley's last thought before he sleeps and first thought when he wakes is to wonder what he ever did to be so blessed as this.
The turning point comes after about a month, when of his own initative Crowley begins working in the garden during the day while Aziraphale keeps improving the house. To say the weeds have taken over is to drastically understate the matter, but he gradually begins clearing them out. There are bulbs that might be irises or lilies, and he carefully replants those in a more organized fashion as he goes. One side of the house is lined with dormant roses. They'll look magnificent when they bloom.
He's been at it for a few days and is happily absorbed in the work when clouds gradually crowd the sky, and a drop of rain lands on the back of his hand. He laughs and looks up, covering his face to see the rain start to fall.
Loved this too much to let it go so how about some rainy healing
Date: 2025-01-22 04:42 pm (UTC)He’s lighter and easier when he talks to Aziraphale as well. Mostly they just discuss what they’re each doing as far as improvements to the house go, though Aziraphale also fills Crowley in on some of the other books he’s read while they were apart, and occasionally one or the other of them will remark on something they might like to do when they eventually make their way into the city.
The circumstances of their meeting no longer feel like a terrible shared tension. There’s no place for the horrors of Heaven’s crusade here, not in the softly breathing quiet where the air smells like grass and sunlight and wet earth.
On the day things truly change, it seems like a day like the short measure of those that have come before, except for how heavy the sky is. They’re sitting in the garden, Aziraphale picking at his vihuela and Crowley busy over a patch of earth.
The wind stirs; rain spatters against the backs of Aziraphale’s fingers on the strings. He looks over just in time to see Crowley glance up, to hear the wondering laugh break free of his lips.
Aziraphale’s heart swoops with a tender free-falling feeling. He’s loved that laugh from the very beginning of time, loved the hope and happiness it gives voice to and makes possible. And even after so much suffering, so many human disasters and tragedies and horrors and so much callousness by both their respective offices, Crowley can still laugh at an innocent thing like rain.
A searing wave of love rushes through Aziraphale’s whole being, body and soul. No matter what else may have changed, no matter what else still needs to heal, the shining capacity for happiness in Crowley’s heart hasn’t been fully broken by the Inquisition. It’s always been the single most beautiful thing about him, suffusing every other part of him with its light and rendering the world around him more fascinating for his presence.
Helpless, as struck with tender awe as any human discovering a beautiful and unexpected sight, he watches his angel laughing.
bring on the vavoom!
Date: 2025-02-11 01:02 am (UTC)The rush of love that flows over Crowley in that moment, however, is unmissable: deep and vast, warm and rich, layered and textured and decadent.
He doesn't have to wonder, and merely turns to Aziraphale with a grin. "Really?" he calls out over the stacatto of rapidly increasing raindrops. "Me not having enough sense to come in out of the rain, that's what does it for you?"
INITIATING VAVOOMING
From:BRING IT ON and I'll edit for Gardening Implements whatever later
From:same, idk how much metal is actually in a vihuela but WHO CARE
From:btw it's not my fault your tags are irresistible and I have to pounce on them like desserts
From:awww shucks. have some wings!
From:What I said last time, and yay wings!!
From: