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Currently offering: Crowley, angel!Crowley, Haleth. Will update this if that changes. If you want one of those three, have at it.

official dream thread sequel (TM)

Date: 2023-10-01 10:31 pm (UTC)
confoundthemighty: (Bliss.)
From: [personal profile] confoundthemighty
Though they spend quite a lot of time in bed, it does take several months for Aziraphale to actually fall asleep in it. It’s not really that he’s reluctant to keep Crowley from following through on his playful threat to get inside his dreams. He’s just spent such a long time either actively avoiding sleep or spending his nights reading that it’s simply a habit by now to stay awake.

That habit was formed when he spent most of his nights alone, and now nights and days alike are spent in the best of company. Even though they don’t entirely have the world back the way they’d like, even though theatre and restaurants and the symphony and all those sorts of things are still slowly recovering, they have one another. They talk and talk and talk, conversations that go on for literal hours and span the entirety of their shared history; they share little bits of their hobbies, each explaining their own progress and praising the other’s. And they spend a great deal of time exploring in the waking world the things they’ve only dreamed of doing to one another.

The thing is, though, that Crowley does enjoy sleep. He especially seems to love drifting off wrapped around Aziraphale, or with his head in the angel’s lap, or… touching him in any way that he can, really. The first few nights it happens, when Crowley drifts off in his arms, Aziraphale simply watches him. He doesn’t pry, he doesn’t disturb whatever dreams Crowley’s having, he simply watches. Marvels at how beautiful he is, how the little serpent on his face completes the perfection of the whole picture, how all the brilliant elasticity that he adores when Crowley is awake relaxes into something that seems untroubled. And whenever Crowley wakes and discovers he’s still held, still right here by Aziraphale’s side, his smile is ten times more dazzling than the angel he once was.

Eventually, when simple admiring doesn’t quite keep him from wanting to wake Crowley up to talk to him, Aziraphale summons books out of the shelves so he can do some reading. As it turns out, reading is even more enjoyable when he’s got his serpent snuggled up to him. And then, at last, just as it does with humans, sleep catches him off guard one evening as he’s re-reading The Scarlet Pimpernel with Crowley asleep in his arms. Between his demon’s slow deep breathing, his warmth, and the familiarity of the romance, he’s lulled in a way he hasn’t been in a long, long time.

Sleep pulls him down into the comfortable darkness of total rest for a while, with Crowley’s weight serving as an anchor.
confoundthemighty: (Ta-daaa!)
From: [personal profile] confoundthemighty
For a little while there’s only soft velvet dark. But quite quickly he begins to approach a door—more specifically, a stage door; more specifically than that, the stage door of the Windmill Theatre; to be ridiculously specific, the stage door of the Windmill Theatre exactly as it looked in 1941. It’s just slightly open, admitting a sliver of warm light and a gentle hum of noise that grows as he gets closer.

The hum rapidly becomes the excited but unspecific murmurings of a crowd, punctuated by bursts of applause.

Although its real-life counterpart opens into the backstage area of the Windmill, when Crowley steps over the threshold he’s entering where the audience would.

The house is packed. Though the crowd are more like well-done sketches than actual people, they’re delighted by the man-shaped being currently occupying the stage. A pair of large cards on easels at either side of the stage announce the performer whose act they’re framing: FELL THE MARVELLOUS FEATURING SPECTACULAR ACTS OF PRESTIDIGITATION, LEGERDEMAIN, AND WONDERMENT, AND ALSO A TRULY ENCHANTING ASSISTANT.

Aziraphale commands the stage in a cloak woven of actual stars. (It’s a dream, he can be dramatic here in ways the extremely limited budget and human audience of the Windmill in 1941 didn’t permit.) As he moves, the Horsehead Nebula shimmers across his shoulders, little glimpses of the very beginning of the universe.

“…but now, as you can see, all three coins have vanished!” he announces, his excitement and glee filling the theatre. The audience oohs and ahhs, more enthusiastically than any living audience has probably ever done for close-up magic. “Ah, but what good is the power to make things vanish without the power to make them reappear? You may well ask, ladies and gentlemen! And no magician worth his salt simply casts his props into the void without a care. I shall now retrieve all three coins, in the same order they disappeared. Behold!”

A flourish of his cape, a flurry of starstuff, and suddenly Aziraphale’s empty hand holds an egg. There’s a ripple of laughter from the crowd; the angel himself seems unfazed.

“Why, that’s odd. I could have sworn I was bringing back the coins. Perhaps they’re inside here?”

He sweeps off his top hat in a grand gesture and drops the egg into it; there’s a resounding crack. Almost at once a great black-and-red snake with burning yellow eyes rises from the hat, coils spilling past the brim. A few dramatic screams from the audience pierce the air—as one might generally expect in a room full of people not previously established to be snake enthusiasts—but Aziraphale’s smile only sweetens.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please, there’s no need to be alarmed. Remember, after all, that if human traditions hold one truth in common across time and distance, it is that the greatest magic is love.”

And he leans forward and kisses the serpent gently on its forehead.

A burst of light and color like the formation of a galaxy, just enough to dazzle the audience and stir up a furious buzz of confusion… which turns to astonishment as the effect begins to clear. At the angel’s side stands a grinning version of Crowley, looking every inch the magician’s assistant in a red-and-black tuxedo and high heels, with the top hat perched jauntily on his head. Aziraphale beams as the house erupts in applause again.

“Thank you, thank you. But alas, I’m afraid I still seem to have misplaced my coins!”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry, angel.” The duplicate Crowley casually plucks off the top hat and dips long fingers into it, coming away with a shiny red apple. “Can I tempt you?”

Aziraphale sighs melodramatically. “Crowley. My dear fellow. Is now really the best time?”

“Come on. It’ll take your mind off things, at least!”

With the same sort of familiar eyeroll that usually precedes an all right, I suppose for bebop this isn’t so bad or a well, if you really insist, the angel heaves another sigh and reaches over to take the apple. For a moment he looks as if he’s simply going to take a bite out of it; then his mouth quirks into a strange smile.

“You know, Crowley, I don’t think I’ve ever shown you one of the human skills I learned a long time ago.”

“Really? What’s that?”

“Did you know that you can break an apple in half with your hands?”

The crowd makes interested noises.

“There’s a trick to it,” Aziraphale continues. “Here, let me show you.”

He takes the apple in both hands. A flex, and a sharp snap, and his hands come away separately, each holding half of the fruit. And, just as the audience begins to register how impressive this is, he points to something glinting in one half of the apple’s white flesh near the core.

“Why, it’s all three of my coins! The farthing, the shilling, and the half a crown!”

The crowd goes, politely, wild. Aziraphale smiles adoringly at the duplicate Crowley, the smile that only shows when the demon’s come to his rescue yet again, and together they take several bows to the noise of thunderous applause. When someone starts shouting encore!, Crowley’s double leans over and says something in Aziraphale’s ear that turns the angel’s smile indulgent. He nods, and the double slinks offstage as Aziraphale steps forward to address the crowd, assuring them that he has plenty of time for encores.

As he’s nattering on about the history of card tricks, a thin dark figure saunters up beside the real Crowley.

“Can’t say we weren’t warned.”
confoundthemighty: (Excellent!)
From: [personal profile] confoundthemighty
“Thanks. Had a lot more time to study up on the real thing lately.” His double grins right back, bordering on a leer, serpentine eyes fully on display. “Thanks for that too, come to think of it. Usually I only get to do this one as a daydream, and those get interrupted all the time.”

Up on the stage, Aziraphale’s begun shuffling cards with a dexterity he’s never shown in real life. (Not without the help of miracles, anyway.) He’s nearly radiating pride and glee—and why not? His audience here is far more receptive than any real one, and he’s able to handle his props with a far greater ease than he ever has in the waking world.

“Didn’t tell him you’re here yet, by the way. Turnabout being fair play and all. Or it’s in the spirit of playing dirty, take your pick. I’d give you the grand tour, but…” He gestures vaguely with one long hand. “Probably a lot more fun if you just start poking around.”
Edited Date: 2024-01-12 01:50 am (UTC)

and it’s going to get quite silly in here

Date: 2024-01-28 07:54 pm (UTC)
confoundthemighty: (Excellent!)
From: [personal profile] confoundthemighty
Being a fragment of Aziraphale himself as well as a reflection of Crowley, the double is hardly a blank slate of knowledge. Their own smile takes on a slow sly gleam.

“Ahh, you want the Wicked Sorcerer scenario.” Yes, in a dream the capital letters are every bit as clear as they would be if Aziraphale himself were saying them out loud. “Been keeping that one in reserve since… the 1480s, probably? Hold on. Think I remember how to get there from here.”

The not-Crowley turns to regard the wall nearest them. Unlike the real-life Windmill, this one is lit by candles as well as electric light, with plenty of large dramatic-looking candelabras mounted on the walls. A quiet hum, a hesitation, then a noise of triumph as the double considers their options before reaching out to pull one of the candlesticks towards them. With a soft ka-chunk! a section of the wall pops open, revealing a secret door straight from a Gothic romance.

“C’mon, then.” Without waiting for the genuine article, the double slithers into the newly-revealed corridor. The walls are painted a warm and familiar yellow, interrupted every so often by doors on either side. “The scenic route.”

I REGRET NOTHING.

Date: 2024-02-04 12:10 am (UTC)
confoundthemighty: (Ta-daaa!)
From: [personal profile] confoundthemighty
Not-Crowley hoots a laugh. “Oh, I could definitely make myself useful. Couple of things you should know, though, since I know he hasn’t told you about it. Oop—hold on, is this…”

They stop at a door, turn the knob and peer inside. The landscape beyond is one that suggests an idealized American West—desert buttes in the bright yellows and oranges of an oil painting, with the occasional tumbleweed, and a railroad track shining somewhere in the not-too-distant distance. Even as the doppelganger theatrically cups a hand around their ear, a quiet but distinct sound begins to build: chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga.

Following it, there’s an affronted cry.

“Oh! I say! Some very bad angels have tied me to the railroad tracks, and the 3:10 to Yuma is coming down the line! If only someone were here to cut me loose! I wouldn’t care what sort of ruffian might come along, I’d do anything for someone to set me free!”

Crowley’s double flashes him one of their wickedest smiles as they pull the door shut again.

“Figured you’d want to know that one was there.”

tee hee happy vamlumtimes

Date: 2024-02-14 08:53 pm (UTC)
confoundthemighty: (Confidentially…)
From: [personal profile] confoundthemighty
“Oh, yeah. Bastille’s in here all right, frills and all.” For a brief moment, the double’s face reflects something very like what one of Aziraphale’s indulgent smiles would look like on Crowley’s features—but only briefly, immediately becoming something sharper. “But the Wicked Sorcerer’s the one you want, all right. And you wanna know why? Because he keeps the door to that one hidden. There’s not a straightforward entrance, you have to get into it sideways.”

This being a dreamscape, the double’s words bring with them a faint frisson of emotion. The sensation registers like a sort of bodiless version of the earth shifting subtly beneath one’s feet: it hints at the presence of something powerful and hidden.

“Course, we can leave that for another time if you prefer. But as the closest he can get to imagining you? I’ll always recommend the thing you’re not supposed to find.”

WHAT TYPOS NO TYPOS HERE

Date: 2024-02-18 12:30 am (UTC)
confoundthemighty: (Confidentially…)
From: [personal profile] confoundthemighty
“Thought so.” The doppelganger claps him (intangibly) on the shoulder, even as they help Crowley steady himself. “Like I was saying, there’s things you should know about that one. We always make a speech—long have we loved him from a distance, we’ve been wooing him with displays of magic, and now we can’t stand it anymore and we’re here to make him admit we’ve captured his heart and he wants to be our dark consort.”

Again there’s that faint near-rumbling sensation, around and beneath them. None of the doors either side of them have clear labels, but the shape of each is slightly different, the knobs and doorframes distinct from one another. It’s not unlike making one’s way through the back rooms of a museum designed by an eccentric.

“There’ll be some back-and-forth, he’ll protest a little but he won’t really mean it. Mostly he just likes to struggle and be held down and make a lot of noise.” The double stops again, hesitating between two choices. “If I remember right from last time… yeah, this one, I think.”

Having made a decision, the dream-Crowley reaches out and turns one of the doorknobs. It swings inwards, and instantly a dream-echo of scent rolls out to meet them: grass and wet earth, and a suggestion of something green as only Sherwood Forest could be to a creature who’d spent as much time in England as they had.

“Through here. C’mon.”
Edited Date: 2024-02-18 12:31 am (UTC)

Found it, and it’s actually my go!

Date: 2024-03-14 07:49 pm (UTC)
confoundthemighty: (Confidentially…)
From: [personal profile] confoundthemighty
“Heh. Depends on what kind of mood he’s in. Lot of daydreams here, though, mostly about dramatic rescues from the Sheriff of Nottingham and his bumbling enforcing angels.”

As they step over the threshold, the double’s outfit shimmers and changes: instead of the magician’s assistant getup, they’re suddenly wearing a slightly gaudier version of the red getup that earned Crowley the nickname of Will Scarlet.

“Sometimes he stands in for Maid Marian and we’re Robin. Or vice versa, rarely. Sometimes it’s just revisiting the good times, but taking opportunities we missed. Once in a while there’s a clandestine meeting at the Great Saturday Fair. Anyway. You were saying?”
confoundthemighty: (Confidentially…)
From: [personal profile] confoundthemighty
“Definitely the tempting. The whole point of the scenario is having an excuse to give in. Or maybe something that cuts through all the excuses not to give in. You get the idea.”

The sound of the revelry grows a little louder and more cheerful. A more traditionally feminine version of Aziraphale’s voice rises over the noise: “Well, I suppose if you insist, I shall be your May Queen. Come! To the maypole, and the feasting tables!”

A raucous (but not too raucous) cheer goes up. Crowley’s double glances towards the source of the sound, and a look comes across their face that the real Crowley has probably never seen on his own: the unshadowed, happy smile that he’s worn so often lately now that he and Aziraphale are finally together.

“She does love to go a-maying,” the doppelgänger says, voice warm with affection. “Drinking, dancing, being told she’s pretty. Most of the time we show up during the games to win a kiss, or under the maypole to steal one.”

Of course, during their time in the real Sherwood, Aziraphale had indulged far more in the feasting side of spring and summer celebrations. He’d blessed young lovers, children, lambs and milk cows, sharing in their laughter and delighting in how much simple goodness there was to go around. But every once in a while there had been a look in his eye as if he might be curious about the equally simple human joys they reveled in.

The double chuckles quietly before continuing along their way towards a strangely familiar glade. There’s no telling what’s happened to it in the intervening centuries, but at the time it had been a favorite location for them to sit and drink and argue.
confoundthemighty: (Up to something.)
From: [personal profile] confoundthemighty
“We’re almost there. This is as close to a shortcut as it gets—you know what he’s like.”

The crowd noise drifts away from them as they head into the well-remembered glade; once there the double walks straight up to a sturdy oak and simply presses a knot on the front. Slowly the texture of the tree ripples and changes, revealing a very tall and stylish grandfather clock with no pendulum.

With a flourish, Crowley’s double opens the door and gestures inward.

The landscape beyond is none they’ve ever visited—or perhaps an amalgam of places, stitched together to create a new picture. It’s a forest of some sort, between spring and summer, with the very last of what might be crumbling stone walls poking up through the greenery. [footnote: For some reason, despite the abundant foliage, the place still somehow looks like a rock quarry in Wales.] In a little clearing, quite obviously visible, an apple and a cherry tree have twined together into a mess of foliage and blossom, impossibly heavy with fruit and flowers at the same time. Their bountiful branches have grown into the shape of a sort of platform, on which rests a soft bed, decked in silks and velvets.

In that bed lies Aziraphale as he’s never let Crowley see him in waking life.

He looks for all the world like a pre-Raphaelite painting, eyes shut and hair tumbling in long curls across the pillows—longer than he’s ever worn it around Crowley. To complete the picture he wears only a very light, diaphanous robe—a single translucent layer over the soft curves of his body. The robe is loose, baring his pale skin from shoulder to breast on one side; though he’s covered to the thigh the outline of his cock is just visible through the fabric. A few drifting petals catch in the folds of the robe and on his skin.

All at once he stirs, languid and deliberate, a movement that mirrors a cat stretching out in a patch of sunlight.

“What a perfect day,” he sighs, his eyes fluttering open to glance up into the branches of his bower. “Utterly idyllic weather, my kingdom is at peace, and absolutely no sign of the wicked sorcerer whose courtship has plagued me these past years.”

At Crowley’s side, his double shimmers and blurs, turning back into the enormous black-and-red snake. Though in a dream the sensation is weightless and thus more a suggestion than anything else, the snake’s body slithers up and across his shoulders to drape like a great reptilian stole.

“Have at it, ssssssssorcerer,” they purr. “Let me know if you need some help ressssstraining him. There’s even a ssssinissster tower we could whisk him off to.”
Edited (shh you saw no pronoun fail + added a bit) Date: 2024-05-07 10:06 pm (UTC)

CACKLING. LOVE THESE DORKS

Date: 2024-05-15 11:00 pm (UTC)
confoundthemighty: (Excellent!)
From: [personal profile] confoundthemighty

Somewhere beneath the thunder, the roaring wind and the dragon’s laughter, Aziraphale’s voice still rings out in distress.

“Oh! Ruffian! Fiend! Wickedest of sorcerers! Oh, how dastardly—!”

He flails enthusiastically but ineffectually against the dragon’s grip, making loud noises that aren’t really protests at all. In the process his thin soft robe tears in several places, giving appealingly under Crowley’s claws; he’s flushed, long hair fetchingly tousled by the rough wind. And just as he’s held not too gently and not too harshly, any blows he manages to land in his struggle have force behind them but no intent to hurt.

As travel always is in dreams, the journey to the dark stone tower is somehow lengthy and compressed. It’s a properly wicked-looking building, rising up into a bank of churning clouds laced through with lightning and the occasional flock of bats. A wide window in the side of the tower opens itself up wider, like a snake’s jaw unhinging, to admit the dragon and his passengers into what is unquestionably an Evil Lair. It’s all black marble and red velvet, elegant and shadowy, with grimoires of dark magic on ebony shelves and leering gargoyles peeking over the arches of doorways. [footnote: Though it has a great deal more friendly clutter and less black mold than true Evil Lairs, and a distinct lack of any shark-based security, as some James Bond devices are a touch too modern for Aziraphale’s tastes.]

“Villain,” Aziraphale says, with all the fierceness of a melodrama heroine, the instant his feet touch the floor. “I knew you hadn’t given up your evil courtship, serpent!”
confoundthemighty: (Excellent!)
From: [personal profile] confoundthemighty

At the first sight of him, Aziraphale pauses a moment, as if briefly stunned by the power of (what he believes is) his own imagination. It makes him an even prettier picture: the extravagantly desirable damsel momentarily waylaid by his own surprise at how much he enjoys the engineer of his distress. But for a fantasy he’s kept so deeply buried, even that spark of unexpectedly strong desire feels in keeping with the entire situation.

As soon as Crowley’s words register, he’s snapped right back into his own role, tossing his snowy curls with all the haughty authority of a fairy tale princess.

“Our wedding night?” he echoes, indignant, belatedly remembering to clutch at his somewhat shredded robes for modesty. (This does very little in the way of actually keeping him covered, but arguably, actually being covered isn’t really the point here.) The snake lets out its own hissing cackle, lifting its head to leer at Aziraphale with brilliant gold eyes. “You presume too much, foul fiend!”
confoundthemighty: (Up to something.)
From: [personal profile] confoundthemighty
Aziraphale makes a haughty little sound, and accidentally-on-purpose lets a fold of shimmering silk slip off one shoulder. He’s not exactly hiding how he’s tracking Crowley’s gaze—or how he follows the back-and-forth weave of the demon’s hips as he struts. There’s a flush on his cheeks and throat that takes on a near-golden hue in the ruddy flickering light.

“So you’ve said time and time again. And every time my answer has been the same. No matter what sort of wonders you may conjure with your dark magic, no matter how handsome you may make yourself seem with your terrible powers, I shall never be yours, in name or in deed!” It sounds like a well-rehearsed speech—performed with great gusto, but rehearsed nonetheless. “Perhaps,” he continues, with the air of someone who won’t follow through but knows the effectiveness of the threat, “I shall throw myself from the window to flee your advances.”

The sly glance from beneath his eyelashes says, and I expect you to show me exactly why we both know I’m not going anywhere.
Edited (decided this needed a little more melodrama & horniness.) Date: 2024-06-01 01:25 am (UTC)

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