Aziraphale/Crowley Ace Attorney AU
So the thing is.... I couldn't stop myself...? There are two response here, both of which are significantly longer than three sentences, neither of which are like, very good, but! I hope you enjoy them regardless!!!
Take one:
[Book!A and C. This has no direct corollary with a specific PW time period, but would have to take place at least post game one and most likely sometime after the six official cannon games have completed.]
"I go to Germany for FIVE minutes to see my demon of a little sister-anathema says hello by the way - and when I come back you're on trial for MURDER?!? AGAIN!!!"
Aziraphael looks far too calm, sitting there in the same holding cell as the last time they had been in this position. When he sees Crowley, he has the audacity to smile at him.
"Oh dear," he says, pleasantly, as if he wasn't a mere three days from his own potential doomsday. "Now, there's no need for the shouting, really. it's all just a big misunderstanding. Do give Anathema my best by the way, it's been an age since we've been able to get together."
Crowley huffs out a frustrated sigh at the other man's nonchalance. "And I imagine it'll be even longer when you're serving LIFE IN PRISON!!! A misunderstanding?!? They found you with your hands in the victims pockets, Aziraphael. You're a lawyer. Why would you think that that is in anyway a sane idea!!!!!"
The blonde still looks irritatingly unruffled as he primly adjusts his lapels and levels his gaze at Crowley. "Well, forgive me for wanting to know the identity of the poor soul lying dead in my bookshop- right in front of the first editions, I might add !" That is so far the only point that Azirapheal manages to sound actually distressed about.
Unsurprising, Crowley thinks, almost fond if he wasn't so flustered.
"They could well have ruined those priceless works, which is the real crime here, if you ask me." Crowley hadn't asked him, specifically because he'd already known that that's how he would feel about the whole thing. "Can you imagine the audacity?" Crowley can feel a migraine threatening to start in his temples.
" The fact that he's a murderer sort of tempers the disbelief, so yes." He heaves a sigh, resigned, and plops down in the chair positioned across from the other man, on this side of the glass. "Do you have any idea as to who might want to frame you for murder? A second time." He adds, still slightly incredulous over the whole thing.
Aziraphael makes a noncommittal noise, tilting his head to the side in a move that shows he's thinking, but that he doesn't have much hope for an answer. Instead, he simply shakes his head a Crowley slightly, confirming what the defense attorney had already suspected.
They'll need leads then. He's already formulating his next move in the investigation: obviously, the bookshop will be his first priority. Besides, Aziraphael will probably want an update on his home/bookshop/office- the thought of a herd of strangers rooting through it for clues is likely to ALSO cause him some distress.
Attempting to explain himself a little more, Aziraphael continues to describe the situation, hoping to shed some light on things: "Normally, you know I would never touch the crime scene, but I felt that it would be unwise to simply leave the man murdered in my shop without discovering more abput the situation. Not to mention a sure annoyance for me later. I didn't know that I'd be swarmed the minute I touched the body, while i was looking for his identification. " And there was something odd about that timing, wasn't there? Surely he wouldn't be the only one who thought so... he'd have to ask Newt later, when he stopped by the precinct to bully him for details on their side of the investigation.
Aziraphael sighs anxiously, Crowley- having anticipated the source of it already -knows what is likely to come after, and he is not disappointed. It's almost enough to make him laugh. Almost.
"They had best hope they're being careful with everything over there!" He can't hide the irritation in his voice at this point, and the urge to laugh rears its head again. "Everything had better remain in good condition when this whole mess is over, or else I will be having words with the officers in charge. Several of them. Loudly. This whole thing is so incredibly inconvenient for me, Crowley."
He sounds so indignant that this time Crowley does crack a smile. He is ridiculous.
The defense attorney rolls his eyes at the statement, however, "Inconvienient?" he says, to distract Aziraphael's current train of thought and bring him back to the matter at hand. "Yes, because going to trial again is so convenient for the both of us. Shouldn't you be showing more concern than this?!"
Last time someone had tried to frame him, and Crowley had met him here- in the very same positions they were in now! -Aziraphael had been significantly more distraught, having run through and been rejected by all of his other options before Crowley had shown up, stone faced, and flat out told him that he was going to be his lawyer, refusing to take no for an answer and in spite of Aziraphael's hand-wringing objections over what this would mean for both of their legal reputations.
This time, he only looks at Crowley, unfazed, his eyes filled with a trust so soul-shatteringly sincere that it makes Crowley's breathing hitch. Aziraphael continues on, unfazed by his slight reaction: "WeIl, as I do have complete faith in you dear, I can't see the point of worrying when I know you'll free me once again. Go get them, as they say." He chuckles a little at his own joke, as if what he'd just said hadn't completely gut-punched Crowley with the totality of his belief in him.
A groan and Crowley gets up from the detention center chair, avoiding further eye contact with Aziraphael, cheeks heated and glowing red, hopefully beyond the other man's notice behind the glass- entirely too cheerful for a prosecutor with two consecutive false arrest arrests for capitol murder. He knew without ever asking that he was innocent, though. That someone was simply trying to frame him again. For what purpose though, still remained to be seen, but neither of the two of them them had any shortage of enemies with both the capacity and inclination for such a thing.
He sighed again, already tired. It felt like his friend was being divinely punished for something particularly heinous, at least, with the way their luck was going. His mouth thinned into a stern line, contemplating his next moves in order of priority- Well, he supposed if that were true, heaven would have to go through him first. Nothing would keep him from defending Aziraphael, no matter the circumstances.
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Alternate take- v.2
[TV!A and C, takes place in the PW cannon period right after Rise from the Ashes and right before Justice for All. Think, "Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth chooses death"]
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Crowley stares at the note in his hands, trembling. Through the choking veil of his shock, he wills his eyes to stop burning at the corners as he clenches the paper in his grasp, as if it was the only thing anchoring him to the spot. He re-reads it, trying to understand.
He reads it a third time, and then a fourth, always hoping the message will change. It doesn't.
Prosecutor A. Z. Fell chooses the path of Heaven.
The type-face on the letter glares up at him. This alone, these words and what they mean for his friend, would be enough to destroy him he thinks. It would be enough without--
Scrawled beneath the type-face, in Aziraphael's own handwriting, the most decimating part of the whole thing:
I forgive you...
Blinking rapidly at the sudden blur of his vision and silently glad for the dark glasses he always wears, Crowley looks up at the person behind the counter who'd handed him the envelope with Azirapheal's final note to him. They are smiling beatifically at him, as if nothing in the world is wrong, as if this is normal. Apparently they'd been hired to run the shop, now that.... well, he supposes the arrangements had to have been made beforehand, to ensure the sanctity and protection of his beloved books without him. And that is a secondary knife in his guts, the knowledge that- at least in certain aspects of this -it had to have been thoroughly considered in advance. There had been PLANS. Contingencies. He had put real time and thought into the circumstances surrounding his-- but he cannot think the word, won't let himself.
a sob escapes Crowley's throat, harsh and desperate, then another one as he feels himself disconnecting from his own body and his surroundings appear to fade slightly around him. He notes distantly that his shoulders appear to be shaking, and that it is hard to catch his breath, and he can't even bring himself to be ashamed of such a flagrant display of emotion in front of this stranger, this person who was NOT Aziraphael. Who would never BE Aziraphael, because Aziraphael was GONE. He had left him behind.
Coward. He thinks, the word forming dark and bitter and still an arms length away from his own sense of overwhelming grief as his mind seeks to separate itself from the reality of the situation.
Crowley wonders- still in that foggy, detatched, sort of way -if he should have checked in with him sooner, after the SL-9 trial. Aziraphael had taken it hard, the corruption and the betrayal the two of them had discovered and exposed from within the City's legal system, sending the entirety of the police force and prosecutorial offices into a rioutus recovery spiral as they tried to mediate the damage done by the revelations of forged evidence and falsified records that were now surfacing with increasing frequency, as more and more of the heinous details Micheal and the others in charge had attempted to cover-up of the case begain resurfacing. It had opened the door to questions on every case Aziraphael had ever worked in conjunction with them. But surely he would have said something, if he was this desperate. He would have-
I forgive you...
And Crowley feels himself pushing down the overwhelming sense of LOSS, of WRONG, of INCOMPLETE, as he feels a rising tide of hot, bitter, anger bubbling up within him to take their place. It's only reinforced and twisted back in on itself as he comes to grips with the fact that the person he is angry at is not here, can't ever be again, and so his anger is largely useless in the face of that reality. An ugly thing clawing his insides and squeezing his heart, and serving no purpose but to color his memories with bile and spite and the thick, dripping ichor of his own devistation. Still, he let's that rage wash over him, because it feels better- is better -than the alternatives. Easier.
Aziraphael had always been so willing to believe in the illusion of truth and justice the prosecutor's office purported to uphold. He had the NERVE to forgive CROWLEY? Because, what, he'd chosen to be a defense attorney instead? because, according to Aziraphael, he protected the guilty, and brought himself misfortune because of it? As if it wasn't his client's given the short shrift 98% of the time. As if it was some kind of moral judgement on Crowley's character that he tried to make sure people didn't have to suffer for things they weren't responsible for. He'd had enough of that to last a lifetime.
It was fine, he told himself. Who needed that kind of self-righteousness on their side, anyway. Better that he was gone really, if he couldn't handle the truth of what it actually meant to uphold the law, and not just Aziraphael's own fairytale notions of it.
Crowley's hands were shaking as they held tight to the note. His breathing coming hard and fast, and unsteady. The person at the counter was staring at him more openly now, looking slightly anxious. They opened their mouth- probably to ask after his well-being, since he'd been crying and almost-hyperventilating while staring into space for the better part of the last five minutes -but before they could give voice to their concerns, Crowley scowled up at them and straightened up, crumpleling the last communication he'd ever have from his Ang- his former legal associate in his fist before shoving it deeply into his inner-coat pocket. He turned sharply and, without another word, walked out of the familiar comfort of the bookshop, and into a world that Aziraphael was no longer a part of, that he never would be a part of again.
He tries to hold on to the anger, reaches for it inside himself once again, almost desperately, but the only thing that comes to him is a deep, bone-weary emptiness that labors his breathing and seems to settle on him with a solid, almost-tangible weight. He takes a breath, deeply and with careful attention, and he sighs. He would be fine. Aziraphael had made his choice, but Crowley was now the one who'd have to live with it. He would manage fine without him.
He had no choice in the matter, anymore.
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