#judgey!crowley | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

yuri-is-online · 9 months

Text

There's Mud in Your Eye (Leona and Deuce x Yuu)

"Oh can I help you? You seem to be lost." You attempt to cheerfully ask the vaguely familiar looking person in front of you. As if he is deliberately trying to rub salt in your wounds, Crowley ignored your request to leave campus for NRC parents day and is instead making you and Grim run errands. The person in front of you, blissfully ignorant to your inner turmoil perks up at your attention.

"Forgive me for asking, but are you the magicless prefect?" You and Grim exchange a confused glance. "You've got to be right?" They're practically glowing with how happy they are to see you. " Oh I'm sorry, I've just heard so much about you!" Wait, what?

notes: they/them pronouns used for Yuu, i am out of creative ways to describe these: it's Cheka and Mamma Spade. Slight references to the White Rabbit event. If you liked this please check out the previous parts on my master list here.

Leona

A very confused, very important looking little lion is standing in front of you, attempting to mimic Leona's judgey thinking face. Five year olds lack the smarmy bitterness required to truly pull off the look, but you have to admit, it is pretty cute.

"Um, do you think he ran away from his guards again?" Grim whispers, painfully loud and without nearly enough concern. "Do you think we'll get in trouble if we can't get him back to his retainers?" The scenario feels completely unreal, but then again so does standing in front of royalty. Who are you again anyway? Just some weirdo who is going to have to apologize to their loved ones for taking so long to come home because you couldn't sneeze in another world without bumping into royalty. While you are busy considering whether or not it would be considered child neglect to sprint away from the little guy, Cheka finally finishes his thought process, letting out a contented "hmmm" as he points decisively at you.

"You," he says with all the authority of an extra on a children's tv show "are not Unca."

Well.

That was not what you were expecting. Your mind draws a lengthy blank as Cheka grins up at you in a surprisingly catlike manner seemingly very pleased with himself.

"How did it take ya so long to figure that out?" It has to be a truly stupid question to get Grim's voice to crack.

"Well I decided I was gonna sneak up on Unca." A terrible idea really but who are you to refute royalty. "So instead of running around and askin I decided to just focus on his scent! But I found two places he could be so I just decided to go to the closer one."

"Whatdya mean?" Grim takes a deep breath and interrupts his train of thought with a hard gag you really hope is dramatic. "Oh wow he ain't wrong, you really smell like that lazy bi-" You manage to muzzle him before he can teach Checka too many bad words. You wonder if it would be rude to sniff yourself in front of a literal prince, Cheka's pleased little tail swish doesn't help.

"Can you please take me to Unca?" he asks, so very sweetly looking up at you like you're the shiniest star in the night sky. It hurts to disappoint him.

"Uh I'd love to little guy but I'm not too sure where he is..." you really hope Cheka can't tell just how nervous you are. Crowley did give you a schedule, but it wasn't super detailed, just a vague set of notes about the various events going on.

"Then I'll just stay here with you!" He says, with a surprising degree of authority. "Unca's scent is really strong so I'm sure he'll show up soon!"

''I don't think that's a good idea little guy." You just called the Crown Prince of the Sunset Savannah a little guy. Which he is but you are pretty sure there's a time period where that would have gotten you executed, and you can only pray it's not now. The intense look of what you assume are Cheka's guards running up the main street is not helping with that.

"Your highness! Please don't run off like that." The man seems wary of scolding the prince, but he has no qualms about staring you down. "You! What is your name and who do you think you are to be speaking so casually to-" He cuts himself off, bluster fading as he takes a deep breath and starts staggering away from you. Well not you per se, you realize as you turn around and see an extremely intense looking Leona behind you.

"Stop blamin' your inability to do your job on other people." Leona's voice is slow, authoritative enough that you almost forget he's supposed to be the second prince. The guards do too, until Cheka jumps away from them onto Leona's shoulders and shatters the illusion just a bit.

"Unca! Unca! You're gonna show me the spelldive fields right?" Cheka nuzzles his Uncle's cheek while Leona tries his best to get away.

"I thought you were gonna stay with Prefect." He grumbles.

"We can come with." You say before you fully realize what you're saying surprised at how ok you are with the offer. Cheka lights up, jumping away from his Uncle to nuzzle up to you. Leona's gaze softens ever so slightly, even if he immediately breaks eye contact and starts walking away from you.

"You're welcome to come if you can keep up." You try to convince yourself you follow him just to get away from the guards, but there's a spring in both your steps no one is brave enough to act like they notice.

Deuce

"Yuu! And Grim too! Lucky me I thought I was going to be stuck looking for my kids for at least another hour." Dilla Spade cheerfully says, her decision to refer to you as her child momentarily distracting you from the fact Deuce is nowhere to be seen. She seems to have been granted a day off from work, her usual delivery uniform ditched in favor of a very mom like set of old sweatpants and an old athletic jacket with a logo you assumed belonged to Deuce's middle school.

"Mama Spade!" Strange feelings aside you are extremely happy to see Dilla, and happier still when she perks up just a bit at your calling her mom. "Did Deuce forget to text you again?"

"Not exactly," she says with an affectionate sigh "I caught up with him a bit earlier but he ran off to find his Housewarden. He really wanted to introduce us but said it might be a bit difficult to make that happen."

"Yeah..." Grim says as you exchange a look "Riddle's a really busy guy."

"Well never mind then." She says with a shrug. "What's up with you? Deucey tells me all sorts of things, but it's never the full truth." You shouldn't be surprised Dilla knows something is up. Honestly it's a wonder any of the students with a half way decent relationship with their parents hasn't been yanked out of this school already.

"Nothing too bad I hope?" You say, hopeful that Dilla will give you something to work with so you don't confess to something too wild. She laughs.

"I'm a mom, worrying's part of the territory." You breathe a sigh of relief, though you can't help but wonder just what Dilla's reaction would be to knowing Deuce had fought four overblot phantoms. Would she be proud? You hope so, he deserves it. "I keep telling Deuce to invite you to spend summer with us but he's really hung up on doing things the 'honorable way.'" You try your best not to fluster.

"What's that even mean?" Whines Grim, probably thinking more about the donuts you had while visiting Clock Town more than the implications kicking around in your mind. "offerin' to help me and my hench human out is honorable enough!"

"It really is," you try not to come off as too eager, it would be really nice to spend the Summer somewhere that wasn't Ramshackle, even if it would hurt the ghost's feelin-

"Is Deuce waitin' till he can afford a ring or somethin'?" Grim says, crossing his little paws and sticking your words in your throat. Dilla winking at the little monster with a conspiratorial grin makes you choke. "He is isn't he! Hmph, figures. Well he knows he won't get the Great Grim's permission!"

"Grim!" You squeak.

"Well you are a bit young," Dilla says "but you have my blessing prefect."

"I- I think there's been a bit of a misunderstanding-" you don't want to get anyone's hopes up, you aren't even dating Deuce, you want to say that you don't like him that way, but the lie dies on your lips as a familiar duo comes into view just behind Dilla.

"MOM! oh and PREFECT!!!" The overwhelming joy in Deuce's eyes contrasting with the smug amusement of Ace makes you feel just a bit more at home, despite the awkwardness of the situation. You can almost convince yourself that he's running up the road on the double just to see you.

"Think of it this way," whispers Dilla, firmly placing a hand on your shoulder in a comforting and not forceful way "you're family, and you always will be no matter what label gets slapped on things. Though I am pretty sure you can guess Deuce's preference."

You can, or at least you can hope.

#twisted wonderland x reader #twst x reader #leona kingsholar x reader #deuce spade x reader #i am so sorry this took forever i have been playing baldur's gate #i had one for epel but i didn't like it so it's getting re written

746 notes · View notes

gildalilli · 7 months

Note

It appears your "nice is a four letter word" tiktok commentary post was deleted shortly after it appeared on my dash, but as a non-native speaker who missed the actual meaning of how Crowley meant it, I wanted to thank you for the post! Makes much more sense now. Like, I knew there was something about it I was missing (because it indeed makes no sense to dislike four-letter words on the basis of them having 4 letters when you're millennia old and have probably been exposed to hundreds of different languages in which the equivalent word for "nice" definitely didn't always have 4 letters, or even letters to begin with pre-invention of writing, and also you have used other words with 4 letters just fine multiple times in the whole rest of the show) but I couldn't figure out what it was. Now I know!!

I got worried that the people I was talking about would see it think that I was being harsh so I got rid of it lol but I am so glad to have helped!!!

I hope you don't mind me posting this ask publicly. since you found it useful I will use this ask to repost my explanation in a way that I think avoids the judgey tone i was concerned about lol

The phrase "four letter word" is another way to say "curse word" in English, because a majority of English offensive words are four letters long: Fuck, Shit, Arse, Dick, Cunt, Cock, Slut. Even many "lower modality" cuss/vulgar words are four letters: crap, damn, twat, wank, etc.

Crowley isn't afraid of word length, he is calling the word "nice" a highly offensive word, on par with "cunt" and other offensive words I listed above. He, a demon, is offended by "nice" the same way a human would be offended if you called them the C word.

15 notes · View notes

katabaesis · 8 months

Text

tag game

tagged by @basuralindo — it seems that I post a section of WIP and tag people to also do the same? I'm not sure if anyone else is writing fic on my TL right now hahaha but! If you see this consider yourself tagged :)

Thanks for tagging me! Er, dunno why this got weirdly long for an excerpt... anyway... a small excerpt from 'heir apparent' the next bit of 'long live the king' series...

There isn't a body to bury.

STYX takes Leona Kingscholar's body away. Idia Shroud knows that it doesn't matter. There isn't a body because no one will remember Leona was even ever at Night Raven College. There's so much work for STYX to do. Idia's father even comes to school — for work, he says, but the first thing he does is check on Idia and Ortho — and then goes to Sunset Savanna. It turns out easiest to say that Leona Kingscholar had died in childhood, Overblotted after he found his sick mother hidden away as the family secret. It's an odd lie, Idia thinks when he reads the report but it turns out that Leona's birth had been difficult on the queen and some part of her had never recovered. When Leona had died apparently Lethe's memory wiping hadn't worked on her so spinning the lie around her insistence her son had gone to Night Raven College was necessary. It leaves a bad taste in Idia's mouth. He thinks about Ortho and really the entire Shroud family, doomed to be forgotten and also to drag whoever had the bad luck to get involved with them or too stained with blot down to hell with them. But inevitably, as he always does, Idia settles into resignation.

They make Ruggie the Housewarden. Headmaster Crowley hems and haws about it clearly unsure what to do with a Housewarden who doesn't come with prestige, power or money. All the students though know that Ruggie is — was — Leona's right hand. Even if he wasn't technically Vice Housewarden Ruggie was the heart and Leona the brain. If asked Ruggie would have declined but there's no asking when it comes to Overblot cleanup. They simply make it happen. Replacing that many memories is difficult and it's obvious that Ruggie can tell something is missing. Idia is glad he attends Housewarden meetings via tablet because he wouldn't be able to hide his expression, not with the stumbles over things Ruggie should know — if he is truly Housewarden — or the blanks in memory that everyone seems to share.

"And, on the topic of academic eligibility. . ." Vil Schoenheit intones. There is the barely veiled something in his voice. Idia would call it judgey. Riddle called it leadership. Azul only ever commented on it if he wanted something from either the party under scrutiny or Vil himself. Scarabia had no horse in the race and Kalim couldn't read Vil's tone anyway.

"Hm? What about it?" Ruggie asks.

"Test scores are posted publicly." Vil points out.

"Yeah? An' so what? Savanaclaw's meeting what we need to." Ruggie is defensive and Idia can't see his expression but imagines Ruggie must look trapped. Leona had been able to field scrutiny with the swagger of any jock alpha male but Ruggie had never been the type.

"There are academic standards to uphold." Riddle breaks in. "While bare minimum is something students can achieve as Housewarden you should be — "

"Should be this? Should be that? Who're you all to say that? I never asked for this. This ain't my job. It's — " Ruggie snaps and then his words come to a halt.

"Ahhh. Right. Right. Let's all just remember every dorm has its strength, right? Here at Ignihyde we're technomantic specialists. Pomefiore's being super bijin and Savanaclaw is meatheads good at throwing rocks. All this arguing is cutting into my game time. Hurry it up." Idia mutters. it successfully derails everyone from whatever Ruggie was going to say. ("Meatheads? I'll show you meathead." "Bijin? Please, Idia use normal language that doesn't reduce my students to just looks." "I notice you said nothing of Octavinelle." "Let's all get along like Idia-senpai said!")

#wip #meme

9 notes · View notes

hurtslikeyourmouth · 3 years

Link

Chapters: 6/? 

Fandom: Good Omens (TV) 

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences 

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply 

Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens) 

Characters: Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale (Good Omens) 

Additional Tags: Human AU, tattoo artist crowley, grumpy bookshopman

Aziraphale, Nonbinary Crowley (Good Omens) 

Summary:

Crowley’s life is pretty shit. They have to start their studio all over again,

their living situation is terrible, and somehow that judgey guy in the

bookshop across the street is making it all worse.

chapter 6: Consultation

#good omens #good omens au #aziraphale #crowley #aziraphale x crowley #sierrabravo #indiasierrabravo

12 notes · View notes

malereader-inserts · 5 years

Text

Shifting Eyes

Fandom: Good Omens Pairing: Crowley x Male!Reader Summary: He only ever sees you when you’re being a pain, but the only thing he stares is your eyes. Word Count: 1,586 Request: What about a shapeshifter male reader x Crowley? Maybe they get in trouble with hell and Crowley deals with it but the reader just really gets on his nerves but then he realizes he’s falling for him. (Maybe Aziraphale getting dragged into it too??) Thanks, love! A/n: What century did Crowley sleep through? I can’t find it, was it the 19th century?

“Stupid little shapeshifter,” Crowley sneered to himself.

“What was that, dear boy?” Aziraphale asked, amused at his best friend sneering at everything possible, as the angel cradles a small black kitten.

“(Y/n),” Crowley says as if it clears everything up.

“What’s up with the young (Y/n)? He’s lovely,” Arizaphale replies, scratching the back on the kitten’s ear, to which the kitten purrs.

“He’s immature!” Crowley complains, throwing his arms in the air before settling down, his snake tongue appearing for a moment, “A few hundred years old and you’d think he’d learn to be mature, now Hell has a bone to pick with him and tasked me to take care of him!”

“I’m sure, if you asked nicely he’d make amends with Hell,” Aziraphale says, pushing the cat towards Crowley, who grumbles and tries to swat it away, “It’s not a fly, Crowley, it’s a cat.”

“I don’t like cats,” Crowley says standing up but the kitten grips his shoulder, pushing its head into his cheek, “Fuck off.”

The green eyes stare at him, the pupils growing as Aziraphale grimace, knowing what will come about.

“Oh dear.”

Next thing Crowley knew is that weight upon his shoulder grew heavier and dragging him down onto the grass, in the middle of St James Park. A shadow looms over him, Crowley looks up to see you looking at him disapprovingly.

“You-!”

You tilt your head, knitted eyebrows as you crossed your arms over your chest, “Crowley? What are you doing on the floor?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” The demon spat, sarcastically as he pulls himself up, you looked at him with cat-like eyes before they slowly shifted back into your (e/c) eyes, “What did you do now?”

You rolled your eyes, crossing your arms over your chest as the demon glares at you behind his sunglasses, whilst Aziraphale was busy being amused by the exchange.

“Nothing bad, just,” You shrugged your shoulders, “Stopped Hastur from his temptation, by accident!”

Crowley huffed, “That’s it?”

“I’ve been doing it for a month now.”

Crowley lets out an exhausted sigh, of course, you would do that. You just did it just piss off hell and now they can’t recruit any more souls into damnation. You shrugged your shoulders again, you were just being neutral and it’s just because you love annoying demons it got out of hand.

“This is the sixth time this decade!” Crowley hisses as you rolled your eyes, “Ngkh, ‘By Accident’, you bastard!”

“And whatcha gonna do about it, boy?” You asked smugly before turning into a dog and running away as Crowley attempted to catch you, “Argh!”

“Crowley, you’re attracting people’s stare,” Aziraphale calls out as Crowley spins on his heels to look at him.

“Come on, we’re getting alcohol.”

“It’s only, lunchtime, dear.”

“He’s pissing me off and I need to be drunk to handle that.”

Crowley was getting madder with each passing minute, every human and every animal he sees, he’s glaring, just in case it was you in a different form. Though, when he does stumble across you in your normal form, you’re just there irritating him. Smiling smugly with eyes flickering to different animal eyes with each passing blink.

“Stop that,” Crowley hisses as you looked at him with eyes of Tarsier, the small dot of black in the yellow was slowly getting to him.

“With what.”

“Your eyes,” Crowley desperately sounded, “Just turn them back to normal.”

You huffed, as the yellow fades away and bringing back your normal eyes, Crowley stares far longer than he should have. You blink and he’s expecting another animal eyes but he’s met with your normal eyes again.

“Earth to Crowley?” You called out, waving your hand in front of him, “You good, bud?”

“I’m fine,” He says unusually higher, he clears his throat.”

“Are you sure? It’s not the first time I caught you like this, remember 1948?” You hummed, smiling to yourself, “Berlin airlift, you almost crashed your damn plane into mine because you were staring.”

“It’s distracting,” Crowley pointed out as you shrugged your shoulders, “Not my fault your eyes startled me.”

“Alright, June 2nd 1952, Queen's coronation,” You say, smugly, “You could have easily tempted the queen and yet you were staring.”

“No, I wasn’t!” Crowley was forgetting himself and involuntarily hisses at you.

Though he couldn’t help but stare when you throw your head back and laugh, you shake your head and slowly came off your laughter.

“Whatever,” The demon grumbles, “I need to sort you out, that’s what hell says, so just fuck off for a few years before doing it again.”

“That’s your best attempt?” You asked, amused as Crowley clenched his jaw, irritation slowly coming back, “Alright, alright, since you asked so nicely.”

“Great,” Crowley nods, no thank you because in his head you don’t deserve it and he’s a demon for somebody’s sake, he isn’t really allowed to be grateful.

“Hmh, glad we sorted that out,” You hummed, scraping your hair, “Well, I’ll see you in a few years.”

And yet, Crowley hated that statement.

“You could just go looking for him,” Aziraphale says as if it was a fact - which it was.

Crowley groans, “Ughhhhh, rather not, that requires effort.”

“Yes,” The angel nods, giving his friend a side-eye, judgey and disapproving, “But, I rather not have you wistfully sighing until the next time you run in, I can feel the love radiate from you.”

“I am not-!” Crowley flushes red, he’ll say it’s anger but Aziraphale would say different, “I do not love that bastard little annoyance of a shapeshifter.”

“You’re lying, dear.”

Crowley locks his jaw, licking his lips. Anger seeping into the atmosphere, the demon grumbles, knowing full well that the Angel was right. Aziraphale grins at the demon who gets up, glaring at his best friend behind the shades and leaves the bookshop with the angel calling out his wishes.

Crowley had to refrain himself from peering at each every individual that acted strangely and screaming in its face asking if it was you.

He didn’t know where to start to find you, you were, after all, a shapeshifter and you change at will therefore, you could be around him without him noticing. Crowley looked at the duck pond at St James Park, trying to figure out if any of those could be you by making them sink.

A habit he has.

Through with no avail, he sits down on the bench to theorise where you could be. Until a small little black kitten with green eyes came climbing his leg. Its claws digging into his pants before landing on his lap.

“Hello,” Crowley says, surprisingly soft as he strokes the head of the kitten.

“Meow!” The kitten yawns, climbing further up to Crowley’s shoulder, pressing its head against the demon’s cheek before jumping down into the free spot next to him, shifting into you, “Crowley.”

Crowley looks at you, smiling, “(Y/n).”

“I saw you drowning some ducks,” You called out to him as he splutters out some nonsense noises as you grin at him, “It’s cool, I try to catch them in the kitten form. They hate me.”

“Why not shift into a cat?”

“No one is able to resist a kitten,” You hummed, “If Hastur finds out I’ve been helping Hell with temptations, he’s going to have a fit.”

“You’re not a demon, how are you-” You give him a pointed look, “My name, you’re doing it under my name, how?”

You tapped your nose and say nothing, Crowley laughs. He actually laughs, amused with your tricks and plans.

“Anyway, Aziraphale said you’re looking for me, what’s up?” You asked, looking at him, your arms crossed over your chest whilst one of Crowley’s arm leaned against the back of the bench and his other arm leaning against the armrest.

“Ah, uh, um,” Crowley managed to get out, he doesn’t know what to say because he hadn’t thought this far into his plan, “Why don’t you ever shift your eyes to snakes?”

You raised an eyebrow and it was making you embarrassed as the demon could see tones of red flaring up at your cheeks. You bite in the inside of your mouth before licking your lips and sighing.

“They don’t suit me, and plus, I think it could only really suit one person.”

“A snake.”

“I said a person, not an animal, you wanker,” You snapped, shaking your head, “Specifically a demon.”

“Oh-” You were talking about him, it dawned upon him.

“I really like looking at yours, shame you hide them away,” You continued and now Crowley was almost vibrating was this you confessing, he can’t tell, “And, why should I ruin something so beautiful?”

“Fuck,” Crowley spat as you jerk at his language, “You’re making me all gushy.”

You just grin, “I know.”

He’s embarrassed this time, he can’t find words to fill the silence and you don’t need him to, you stare into each other’s eyes before looking away and watching the sunset.

“Oh, and Crowley?”

“Hmh?”

“I love you too.”

“Whatever.”

There was silence between the two as Crowley looks at you, you raised an eyebrow as you turn your head to look at him. You see his sunglasses off, the snake eyes you’ve been trying to see. You smile with your eyes and he does too.

“Love you,” Crowley managed to say, “Dinner?”

Your smile takes up half of your face you nod, laughing joyfully, whilst Crowley admired you.

“Whatever.”

#anthony j crowley x male reader #x male reader #good omens #good omens imagine #good omens x male reader #anthony j crowley imagine #personal favourite

405 notes · View notes

ineffablefool · 5 years

Text

Okay, here’s my promised INNW chapter 5 outtake content.

First, just a little blob of text that wound up getting taken out. Not part of the Serious Plot Point that I considered but then rejected. Happens after Crowley has received his evil jungle noodles.

Crowley mostly ate the noodles themselves, leaving the vegetables behind. When Aziraphale gave him a reproachful look he pushed the plate over to him.

“You don’t want ‘em to go to waste, be my guest. I just think vitamins are boring.”

“Well, you’ll find the scurvy entertaining, I’m sure.” Aziraphale selected a chunk of green pepper, tasting it with all the delicate enthusiasm that he’d shown his own meal.

Muramoto’s had definitely not been a fluke. Aziraphale’s first bite of pad panang had yielded a hum of such pure delight that Crowley had felt it in his own throat. Each mouthful was careful, almost dainty, but still obviously very much relished. It had been hard to keep a neutral expression, watching that pretty face awash in so much joy, but Crowley thought he’d done all right.

Serious plot stuff is behind the readmore! It comes with a million paragraphs of explanation, though. People can bail in the explanation if it gets into an area they’re not comfortable with, because that’s totally possible.

So I thought for a while about Aziraphale’s romantic history. Crowley, I figure, had a number partners over the years, because he’s worked hard on being Cool and part of being Cool (not just cool but, y’know, Cool(TM)), frequently, is dating and stuff. But I pegged Aziraphale as only having had maybe a couple. (Not a lot for someone who’s almost 40, but I mean, I’m 38 and have never been on a date in my life, so it’s not impossible.)

For future chapter reasons I know that he has had a past partner who spoiler spoiler, and also a past partner who spoiler spoiler, but I think they’re the same person. Then I thought about some of the stuff that I’m aware you might have to deal with if you try Dating While Fat (again, I’ve never dated, but I follow fat positivity/fat acceptance/etc etc Tumblrs over on my other account, so I’ve read plenty of others’ stories). And I thought briefly about writing Aziraphale as having dealt with one of those situations before.

Because, look, it’s fairly generally (not universally, but what is?) accepted that tv!Crowley derives some kind of enjoyment from watching Aziraphale eat. And I’ve pulled that over into my writing, where for me it’s that Crowley loves to watch Aziraphale enjoy food, because he loves to watch Aziraphale be happy, and whatever it is that brings that about is a means to a glorious end. He’ll go with Aziraphale to gloomy plays, too. Same reason. Aziraphale loves them, therefore it’s worth it.

But Dating While Fat potentially means you have to deal with someone who’s just interested in you because you’re fat. Not because you’re you and they love everything about you so they also love your body because you’re the one in it (that’s AU!Crowley); not because they happen to have a preference for fat people but you as a person are still the more important part of the overall equation (that’s me). Sometimes you have to deal with the gross fetishy stuff.

Or the feeders. Which if anyone doesn’t know is basically a person who wants to make another person fatter, hopefully with the other person’s consent but sometimes, uh, not.

So I briefly thought that maybe Aziraphale dated someone in the past and then discovered, through uncomfortable mealtime interactions, that they were a feeder (who was not forthcoming with that information up front). He would therefore be suspicious of Crowley’s enthusiasm for Whatever The Angel Wants, The Angel Shall Have.

So here is the published version of part of the Evil Noodles conversation...

Aziraphale couldn’t decide between the pad panang or the evil jungle noodles.

“Don’t see how noodles can be evil, though.” Crowley squinted at the menu. “Seems, I dunno. Judgey.”

“I don’t think that’s what —”

“But look. Who says you have to choose.” He jabbed at his menu. “You get the pad thingy, I get the evil noodles, and we share. I can see for myself if they’re actually evil. Satanic noodles. Sounds spooky.”

“If you’re amenable to that lunch choice, then I think it sounds like a splendid idea.”

“Sure. Splendid.” Crowley grinned. “Also, I bet they’re not evil at all. Just misunderstood.”

And here is the original version...

Aziraphale couldn’t decide between the pad panang or the evil jungle noodles.

“Don’t see how noodles can be evil, though.” Crowley squinted at the menu. “Seems, I dunno. Judgey.”

“I don’t think that’s what —”

He felt genius strike. “And anyway, who says you have to pick? Get ‘em both.” Yeah. Yeah, brilliant idea, that. If Aziraphale wanted something, why shouldn’t he have it? The whole menu, even, if he couldn’t choose at all, just so he wouldn’t have to go without. He could have anything. Anything and everything. Yeah.

Aziraphale’s hand, resting on the table, curled in on itself as it pulled back toward him. His eyes lost their crinkle. “That would be rather a lot to have to finish,” he said, watching Crowley, face gone oddly still. “Don’t you think?”

Fuck. What’d he say? No weirdness this time, no flirting spilling out through his traitor mouth… he shouldn’t have been getting this reaction, this cautious look. Like Aziraphale wasn’t sure of him anymore.

“I mean… maybe? Eat what you want, leave the rest. Tell ‘em you want it boxed up for takeaway. Whatever. I just figured you shouldn’t have to choose.”

“Ah.”

“Or — or, here.” He jabbed at his menu. “You get the pad thingy, I get the evil noodles, and we share. I can see for myself if they’re actually evil. Satanic noodles. Sounds spooky.”

Aziraphale’s eyes still watched him closely. “You wouldn’t be… displeased, if I didn’t order both?”

Crowley blinked. “No? Hell, Aziraphale, get whatever you want. Just get a bunch of crab rangoon if you want. Although I’d steal one in that case, just as a warning.”

“They’re actually very good here,” Aziraphale said. His face opened up again, relaxing, cheeks dimpling and eyes sparkling. “An excellent choice, if you were to engage in thievery. But it seems easier to just split an order. And the pad panang and noodles.”

“Okay. Yeah.” Crowley grinned. “I bet they’re not evil at all. Just misunderstood.”

And that’s the outtake content from chapter 5. I really didn’t feel like touching at all on this kinda thing, like I want my boys to exist in a world where it doesn’t exist at all, so I scrapped it. Also the chapter would’ve been well over 3k words with it.

There is currently very little remaining outtake, for the record. Just one small Crowley Thinking Aziraphale Looks Nice scene that... probably I won’t fit anywhere, but I still theoretically might, so I’m hanging onto it for now.

#ineffablefool original post #ineffablefool original fiction #ifof: the human au for some reason #ifof outtakes

42 notes · View notes

patricianandclerk · 5 years

Note

Re: Aziraphale's fraught relationship w/ Heaven and the queer narrative, like... I can see where the other person is coming from, but if Aziraphale just said 'hey, I'm gay', they wouldn't be turning on him (though they might be concerned that this label is a sign that he sees himself as too human, that he can be attracted to what he's attracted to but does he have to make it sound human?)-- their issue is for lack of better word political, not personal. (1/2)

(2/2) But for Aziraphale, there's no difference, not in a 'my existence is political bc I'm queer' way, but because even though he IDs as gay separately from Crowley (his club etc), by this point every part of his life is tangled up in his feelings for Crowley. He's in the process of adopting new politics bc he loves Crowley, he loves the earth bc it's his-and-Crowley's, and he is, internally, a mess who is constantly reminded of Crowley. Their issue isn't his sexuality, but this one romance.

I’m going to say something, and for some people who specifically ID with Aziraphale’s dynamic with Heaven because of their own queer experience, I feel like it might be uncomfortable, but like...

The thing is, Aziraphale is never told by Heaven it wouldn’t be okay for him to be gay. He’s never told that he shouldn’t have human experiences.If Aziraphale walked into Heaven one day, and said, “You know what? I really identify with gay humans, and I like to eat because I enjoy the pleasure and the taste and the textures and the way it fits in with human cultures, and I like old books because I love their smells and how many stories and ideas they fit in with them, and I even like regency snuff boxes, because I think it’s beautiful that something so small and so delicate might have been crafted for such a thing.”

Now, I think everyone is assuming, especially based off of their own experiences with their families re: being queer, that Heaven would immediately go absolutely off the rails and freak out about it, kick Aziraphale out, shout at him, or keep him captive.

You know what my experience with my family was?

I was terrified to come out as trans, because I thought my family would be super weird about it, I thought they’d be nasty, I thought it’d just be really grim. No. They listened when I explained it. They asked a lot of stupid questions, but they weren’t judgey about it. And for several years, because I was so nervous that they were going to reject me (re: my extended family), I kept being super cagey and defensive about everything, even though they’d only ever been accepting.

I was justified in feeling some fear, because it can be very risky to come out as trans to a family who isn’t supportive, but my family was openly supportive, and yet for years after, I treated them as if they weren’t, because I’d built up these expectations in my head that they wouldn’t be.

I was the asshole in that situation. My family did everything right: the only thing they did wrong was not being omniscient and not being able to read my mind.

And that’s what I see when I watch Aziraphale’s interactions with Heaven.

I see an angel who’s terrified to let anything slip in case it all goes wrong, to the extent that he’s actually pretty nasty to people who literally only ever praise his work and say how great it is, and who are so, so excited to get him come home that - knowing how much he cares about his work on Earth, because they think he’s such a hardworker - they’re going to send a fucking archangel to do it in his place.

Gabriel never says it’s wrong to eat food. I didn’t take that from that interaction at all.

Gabriel: [hey, why do you eat that? to me, it looks gross] (which, by the way, is a perfectly common human reaction to sushi, let alone a fucking angel’s)

Aziraphale: it’s sushi. it’s nice. (no explanation. just a vague, it’s nice with a little bit of defensiveness.) you dip it in soy sauce. (gabriel has no idea what that means. the only soy sauce he knows is the soy sauce where his brains should be.)

Gabriel: [oh, sounds gross! as an angel, i find the whole concept of eating kinda squicky, but i’m going to couch it in religious language because we’re fucking angels and i have very few human experiences to talk from instead]

Gabriel meant hey, I think that’s gross, but whatever, it’s your thing. Aziraphale heard, I think you’re gross, and I’ll hate you if you tell me you like humans.

Even with the fucking comment about Aziraphale losing weight... That’s not Gabriel trying to hurt Aziraphale. That’s Gabriel, a moron, repeating fatphobic stuff he doesn’t understand from a culture he doesn’t understand, trying to connect with Aziraphale who DOES understand like it. Gabriel isn’t trying to bully Aziraphale. He’s trying, desperately, as he has for the part six thousand years, to establish a rapport. To be playful. To assure Aziraphale he likes him and cares about his interests. Does he do it wrong? Yes! Is it hurtful? Of course!

But Gabriel doesn’t know that, and has no way of knowing.

Who’s gonna fucking tell him, Sandalphon? Sandalphon can’t tell the difference between Mrs Beeton’s Cookbook and hardcore pornography any better than Gabriel can!

Gabriel doesn’t hate humans. Sandalphon doesn’t hate humans. Gabriel and Sandalphon go play dressup on weekends, and Gabriel goes fucking jogging at the end of the world.

Gabriel says to Aziraphale, look, I know how much you care about Earth, so I’ll give you some time to go finish up before you come home. Why? Because he knows Aziraphale cares. What could he possibly have to finish up, when the Apocalypse is coming? Nothing. It’s not about Earth or the work. It’s about Aziraphale’s feelings.

And I don’t think Gabriel is completely removed from those, either - he’s fucking jogging in the park, and that isn’t for Aziraphale’s business. He’s probably getting one last jog in before the park goes up in smoke, because he enjoys it.

Yes, the angels smite humans. Yes, they got involved in Sodom and Gomorrah, Noah’s Ark, all the other great big murders committed by Heaven against groups of humans. But like... Aziraphale watched that stuff happen too. He never said anything about it, except to Crowley. It doesn’t make it excusable that the angels did all that shit, but the thing about ignorance is that you don’t magically become aware of things you are ignorant to. You have to learn and/or be taught. And the thing is? If you don’t have the tools to go look for yourself, or even realize you can or should go look for yourself, you don’t.

I don’t think, if Aziraphale told the angels he liked humans and that they were important to him, that they’d be angry. I think some of them would be concerned, because they think it’s dangerous for him - they’re worried about him Falling. I don’t think they’d necessarily be surprised. I do think they’d be embarrassing.

But like...

This idea that they’d freak out is something that Aziraphale has made up in his own mind.

They don’t freak out at the end of it all because Aziraphale likes the Earth. In fact, given what happens, I think they probably assume a lot of the Earth stuff was lies, and that he was pretending to care about humans and the Earth in his conversations to hide the fact that he was a spy for the other side.

Aziraphale betrays Heaven. And he...

Never explains why. He rehearses trying to explain, and then he doesn’t. He rambles a bit and then the angels are like, well, this is weird and we don’t get it, so... bye. Hope you’re okay.

Heaven see Aziraphale being a double agent, then find out he wasn’t being a double agent for Hell, he was just being a double agent with one specific demon who tempted Eve in the first place. What the fuck? That’s why they’re angry. That’s why they feel betrayed.

Because they spent six thousand years awkwardly talking to Aziraphale, knowing he liked human stuff and trying to get him to talk about it but not knowing how or why, and then it turns out, from their perspective, that it was never about humans at all. It was about Hell. It was about a demon. Not just a Fallen angel, but a soldier from the other side in the war that slaughtered a whole bunch of them.

And yet, the funniest thing?

The funniest thing of all?

Michael has backchannels in Hell. She knows demons. She seems to have a pretty positive working relationship with them. Gabriel and Beelzebub are very familiar with one another, and to be honest, they act like an old married couple with shared jokes and everything.

I don’t know how much they actually... would have freaked out about Crowley specifically.

Because at the end of it, we don’t know if it’s really about Crowley at all, or the betrayal at all, so much as the fact that Aziraphale and Crowley, for all both sides knew, had planned it for six thousand years. Crowley, with Aziraphale as the accessory who got hold of the murder weapon for him, melted a fucking demon into oblivion. Before he’d actually gotten to do anything, either - it wasn’t self-defense, it was pre-emptive, and he’d been planning it for years. And Aziraphale helped him do it.

I don’t know.

I agree with you, Anon, it definitely is political, but I think the question is like... How much Heaven is actually political over personal, too, because we see only bits and pieces of it.

I just simply don’t agree that it’s as cut-and-dry as “Aziraphale did a bad, now we’ll kill him” because it was about far, far more than that.

#good omens #aziraphale #crowley #gabriel #michael #uriel #sandalphon #Anomymous #as defined by dictionary #answered

90 notes · View notes

dolphin-bouillabaisse · 5 years

Text

GO-ctober Prompt, 17

Inktober except without the ink, and with drabbles instead.

Prompt #17 - Ornament

(previous | next | beginning)

(find it all on Ao3)

“Where do you even find these tacky things?”

Aziraphale was polishing some non-existent dust off of the small angel candleholder before placing it neatly on top of a stack of books next to the till. (Not first editions, mind you, books that were not quite as important, near the till so customers could rifle through them without damaging anything. Likewise, the candle in the holder was nothing more than decoration, never to be lit – he knew very well how Crowley felt about lit candles anywhere in the shop.)

“Antique stores. Flea markets.” He finally answered Crowley's exasperated question as he nudged his newest addition a little to the left so it would sit perfect. He didn't need to look at the demon to know he was getting some very judgemental staring from him.

“You know, there's a reason why they're there. It means other people wanted to get rid of them.”

“Oh, shush.” Aziraphale said and, almost in an act of rebellion, began dusting the angel statues atop two bookshelves. Crowley groaned.

“You ever spend a moment thinking about how it feels being surrounded by angels everywhere I look in this place? You think it feels safe falling asleep on a sofa with a smiley Cherub looking down at me?” He pouted – very ineffectively, as Aziraphale knew best when a pout was a pout, and when it was just the need for being contrary. He said as much with the stern look he gave him before an answer.

“You're pretty much surrounded by a smiley angel anytime you're here, anyway, dear. Or anywhere else we go. Even if it is not a Cherub.”

“Yeah, but that one's a kind of angel I can stand.” He waved at the various statuettes, figurines, decorative bookends, soap dishes, candleholders, glass jars, sugar bowls, and embroidered throws covered in angels all around the shop. “Not these judgey fuckers staring me down all the time.”

He was met with a very judgey stare from the real angel right now.

“I'm free to decorate my home however I see fit. If you don't like it, you have a home of your own.” With various decorations I'm not too fond of, he thought, but didn't dare say. If Crowley considered his angels tacky, the statue in his hallway was more than just hypocrisy.

“You're not decorating, angel, you're basically marking your territory.” Crowley flicked his finger against the nose of the angel-bust sitting next to his chair on a side table. “Setting up guards at all your gates. An old habit, I guess.”

“Oh please, Crowley. You're reading far too much into this.” Aziraphale sighed. “They're merely ornamental.”

-*-

Crowley had taken to passive-agressively greet every 'angel' he came across on his visits to the bookshop. Aziraphale, after a few misunderstandings at the beginning, thinking Crowley had actually talked to him, very much ignored it all with the occasional huff and eye roll. Other than that, this particular argument had been laid to rest, or so he thought.

Sure, Crowley still groaned every time he found a new little figurine in some bookshelf, and did his best to manoeuvre him away from particular flea-market booths covered in winged things, but at least he wasn't trying to put any more meaning into it. They were decorations, not some subconscious attempt to surround himself with angels.

Aziraphale argued over that train of thought with himself when Crowley came back down from the flat during their customary after-dinner drinking session. He'd gone up to get some thing or other, Aziraphale hadn't really paid attention after several glasses of wine, their lines of territory had blurred extensively by now anyway, and he was not too fussed anymore about a demon rifling through his home alone when it was this particular demon. A bottle of cognac, he remembered as he saw it in Crowley's hand, one they'd both forgotten decades ago until Aziraphale had found it hidden away in his bedroom cupboard and taken it out onto the vanity to bring down sometime soon, and then promptly forgotten about it again until-

Aziraphale's rambling mind stilled. Crowley had to have gone into his bedroom to get it, he realised. He would've seen.

Maybe he hadn't. He was a demon, sure, but he was still polite. Maybe he'd only gone to the vanity, picked up the cognac, and not given the rest of the room any further thought. Maybe.

Crowley's face, covered in a sly grin, with eyes twinkling of glee, told him that was merely wishful thinking.

“Angel.” His voice was high, thrilled. “Have your bedposts always had snakes on them?”

“Do they?” Aziraphale tried to sound disinterested. “I suppose. I bought the place furnished, you know.”

“You sure?” Crowley stood in front of his armchair, not content to plop down on the sofa to open the cognac. “Cause I kind of remember there not being any snakes last time I was up there. Apart from me, of course.”

Aziraphale was watching the cognac pour into two snifters in front of him.

“When were you even up there last.” It was meant to sound less biting that it did.

“A few years back, when I had to carry your drunken arse up to bed cause you were too far gone to even sober up anymore.” Crowley handed him the glass of cognac with a smirk. “And I distinctively remember snake-free bedposts.”

“You must not have looked very clearly, then. You were drunk too, after all.”

“Mhm.” Crowley settled down on the armrest next to him, and Aziraphale had never wished more to just see him throw himself across the sofa as he usually did. “I suppose. And, I mean” Aziraphale could hear the grin still in his voice, even as he took a sip, “S'not like they mean anything, right? Merely ornamental.”

“Right.” Aziraphale took a sip of his own, tried to focus on the burn in his throat rather than the burn on his cheeks, which he hoped Crowley couldn't see from his vantage point. He could feel the demon's warmth sitting so close next to him, and yet was still not prepared to feel it even closer as he leaned down, his arm snaking around his front to lean on the other armrest as he whispered.

“Tell me, angel. How's it feel to fall asleep surrounded by snakes watching you?”

“Very safe.” Aziraphale turned his head, despite his blush burning bright red, to face Crowley mere inches away from his face. His teasing grin turned into blushed surprise as soon as their eyes met, noting the soft fires burning in the angel's. “That's why I put them there.”

“Well, angel.” Crowley whispered as he finally found his voice again after what felt like hours of a stare-down. “Maybe you should swap the tacky wooden snakes for a proper one sometime.”

#good omens #ineffable husbands #crowley #aziraphale #my writing #prompts #october prompts

12 notes · View notes

baastislast · 5 years

Text

Worried that your cosplay isn't good enough?

Piffle!!! You look amazing and anyone who wants to ruin your fun with their judgey elitist nonsense can go fuck right off.

We did the thing! Cosplay as Crowley and Aziraphale for Halloween! First pic is from the photo booth at husband's office party. Whaddaya think? Really pleased with how it all came together! All thrift store finds, except the snake necklace. And my apple. #sneklace

#halloween #good omens #good omens costume #good omens cosplay #cosplay #crowley #aziraphale #crowley cosplay #aziraphale cosplay #aziraphale costume #crowley costume #thrift store costumes are the best #sneklace

10 notes · View notes

callmehabie · 5 years

Note

>>dinner

“You... made this.” It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t a statement either, not really. It was more of a reminder to himself, as if parroting the words back would make the concept make more sense. The concept continued to make no sense.

“Yes,” Crowley replied with a cool even tone that warned against any more dubiousness.

“And that,” Aziraphale pointed at the oven. ~The oven~. He’d hardly remembered that he had a full kitchen prior to this week, but here it was cleaned and being used and full of smells that were by and large pleasant. “Since when do you cook, Crowley?”

“Yes, and that. I’ve been teaching mys- Why are you - Go away. I’ll tell you when I’m ready for you to be judgey.”

“Judgey?” The angel feigned offense. “Since when am I ever-”

“Go.”

“I’m not sure you have the authority to kick me out of my own kitchen,” he said, moving for a bubbling pot with a wooden spoon and a melodramatic defiance that made the demon smirk.

“It wasn’t your kitchen a week ago,” He plucked the spoon out of Aziraphale’s hand and waved it at him menacingly. “It was your third auxiliary emergency book room, and now it’s the room where you’re in my way.” Crowley glanced up at the angel and then away again quickly. “Your pout won’t work on me. Get out of here, I’ll tell you when dinner’s ready.”

#One word writing prompt game #aziracrow #ineffable boyfriends #ineffable husbands #Good omens #Habie writes

34 notes · View notes

obaewankenope · 5 years

Text

An Angel, A Demon, and a Child Saviour go to Hogwarts: Year Two - Chapter 3

Read it Here On AO3 or below :)

Harry returns to Hogwarts alone due to… circumstances. He doesn’t understand them fully himself—in fact, he has no idea what is going on really—but when he finds Ron and Hermione in the common room he sits himself down in a comfy armchair and fills them in on what he knows.

It isn’t really a lot[1].

“Why weren’t you on the train, Harry? We looked everywhere for you,” Hermione asks and she has that frowny, concerned look on her face that has seen Crookshanks be forgiven for a number of assaults on Harry and Ron’s hands over the year[2].

“Uncle ‘Zira and I were stopped when we went through the station instead of apparating,” Harry begins to explain, tucking into the food his uncle had given him from the kitchens. “The wall wouldn’t work,” he says around a mouthful of chicken salad on tasty brown bread. He drops some crumbs in his lap and Hermione gives him a reproachful look.

“Sorry.” Harry swallows the mouthful and focuses on explaining the situation to them instead of eating and getting judgey looks from Hermione for talking with his mouth full. “I missed breakfast and since I didn’t catch the train I haven’t eaten yet.”

“Dinner is in less than an hour,” Hermione says and Harry shrugs.

“Uncle ‘Zira said I shouldn’t wait to eat if I’m hungry since I’m growing,” Harry responds and Hermione can’t argue with him about that. She likes Aziraphale too much to go against what the school librarian says and he is right about this. Harry is growing—and making up for nearly a decade of poor nutrition and treatment by his blood relatives—and food gives his body to grow.

“Stop complaining about him eating, Hermione!” Ron exclaims, giving the girl a look that has her flushing a little in embarrassment. At least, Harry thinks it’s embarrassment. “Why wouldn’t the wall work? What happened? How’d you manage to get to Hogwarts then?”

Harry finishes off his food quickly and fishes a bottle of water from his bag. He takes a long draught of water before he answers Ron’s quickfire questions.

“I don’t really know why the wall wouldn’t work, only that uncle ‘Zira was really annoyed,” Harry says after a moment. The common room is quieter than it had been when he entered but there’s still enough ambient noise to make it difficult for anyone to hear him. “He fixed it but the train was already leaving by then. I don’t know what caused it but uncle ‘Zira seemed to know.”

“Okay, so how did you get to school then?” Hermione asks.

Harry grins. “We flew.”

“On brooms?” Ron asks and there’s wonder in the boys voice at the prospect. Flying all the way to Hogwarts on a broom is—Harry admits—really appealing. But what happened is even better. “Blimey!”

“No.”

“Then how did you fly here, Harry?” Hermione asks and she looks a little annoyed that he won’t just tell them. “Magic carpets are illegal nowadays and I highly doubt Mister Fell has one of those.” She pauses. “Professor Crowley might though.”

Harry laughs. “He might, I don’t know,” he says and his grin grows at Hermione and Ron’s faces now. “We didn’t use a magic carpet or brooms or anything else that wizards have made fly.”

Both of his friends frown.

“Then how?” Hermione demands and she sounds so very annoyed now because Harry’s not making sense and Harry loves that he doesn’t make sense but Hermione likes logic too much.

Harry looks around the common room before leaning closer to his friends who lean forward automatically. He gives them a sly smile and his green eyes spark with absolute delight. “Uncle ‘Zira has wings,” he says, “he’s an angel.”

Hermione and Ron stare at him for a long time before they both snort.

“Okay fine don’t tell us how you got here!” Ron exclaims, rolling his eyes. “Wings! Ha! Where would he even hide them? No wizards have wings!”

“Angels are Christian myth Harry,” Hermione says. “They don’t exist.”

“Neither do witches or wizards or griffins or dragons if you ask a muggle,” Harry shoots back. “Just because you haven’t seen an angel doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”

“Just because you don’t understand how you got to Hogwarts doesn’t mean your uncle is an angel, either,” Hermione fires back at him. “Obviously he just used some sort of levitation spell.”

“He’s an angel, Hermione!” Harry hisses. “Why do you think he doesn’t use a wand? He doesn’t need one. Neither does uncle Crowley.”

“They’re just really good at wandless magic then,” Hermione says and Ron—who has been watching his friends argue with each other over this—leans forward.

“That’s not really how wandless magic works, Hermione,” he says sort of timidly. The girl turns a glare on him. “Don’t look at me like that! It doesn’t. Professor Crowley doesn’t use magic like the rest of us. Mister Fell either. Harry’s right about that,” he continues, giving Harry a supportive look. “I don’t think angels exist, but I do know that there’s way more powerful things than witches and wizards in the world.”

“Oh?” Hermione asks and it’s rather mocking. “Like what? Because none of the books in the library mention anything being stronger than a witch or wizard.”

Harry rolls his eyes. “That’s because those books are written by witches and wizards,” he says slowly because, really, that makes all the difference. “You don’t read books written by racists saying nice things about black people do you? Or books written by misogynists. And what about all those books that talk about eugenics like it’s a good thing!”

“But all of the books in the library can’t be wrong Harry!”

Harry snorts. “Why? Because they all say the same thing?” he asks but it’s not really a question. Hermione still opens her mouth to answer him but he continues before she can. “Hermione, all the books in the library about Voldemort that mention me all say the same thing and they’re all wrong. Half of them don’t even mention that I’m a half-blood! Just because something is written doesn’t make it true, just well-known. Books are just that, books. They have knowledge and information in them but they’re not always right. Sometimes they’re completely wrong and no one thinks to question them because they’re books. You’re smarter than that Hermione. You are.”

Hermione is staring at Harry. Ron is staring at Harry.

“Uncle ‘Zira told me that himself and you both know how much he loves books,” Harry adds and both nod at him. “Uncle Crowley once told me that knowledge doesn’t always mean understanding. That sometimes you have to decide what is really knowledge and what is just information. Not all information is right, just like not all knowledge is good. It’s why kids are told about Santa and most parents let them figure out Santa isn’t real on their own right? Because you have to decide if something is right, true, good, or the opposite.”

Hermione nods slowly, reluctantly. “Okay Harry, you’re- you’re right,” she says, biting her lip. “I don’t think I can believe you about Mister Fell being an angel but—if anyone could be one, it’d be him.”

Ron nods. “Definitely,” he agrees, “he’s definitely nice enough to be an angel.”

“Do you believe me?” Harry asks Ron and the ginger boy shrugs.

“I don’t not believe you,” he replies and Harry figures that’s good enough.

“Okay then.”

The trio drop the discussion there, shifting instead to leave the common room and head down to the Great Hall for dinner. If there is some awkwardness between them it dissipates soon enough.

Aziraphale informs Crowley as to what happened with the platform wall the moment he arrives at Hogwarts, foregoing his usual visit to the library before hunting down his demonic counterpart. It speaks to how annoyed Aziraphale is about the situation that he finds Crowley in the defence classroom and instantly goes off on a diatribe about obnoxious walls, determined creatures, and miracles designed to protect children from the wind chill factor.

Crowley is—as is typical with his angel—patently amused until he processes the general gist of Aziraphale’s rant. Then he is angry.

“It did what!”

Aziraphale pauses in his diatribe to look at the demon who is now stood up and stalking toward the angel. “I don’t think it meant to cause injury,” the angel says, realising that Crowley is angry in a Dangerous Way.

The demon—for all that he loses his temper and snaps and snarls at things—tends to not get angry in a Dangerous Way. Aziraphale has perhaps known Crowley to get that angry twice in six thousand years. Both times involved children.

This is third and it also involves a child.

Harry is not just any child however. Harry is theirs. That makes the anger even more dangerous.

“I don’t care!” Crowley snarls. “Where is it?”

Aziraphale sighs. “I sent Dobby away,” the angel answers, reaching out and touching Crowley’s arm. The demon allows the touch and Aziraphale knows that Crowley is not so angry yet that he can’t handle contact. That alone reassures Aziraphale that this won’t end in the unfortunate demise of a house-elf[3].

Possibly.

“You didn’t kill it!”

Aziraphale gives Crowley a hard stare. “No, I most certainly did not,” he says and there’s steel in the angel’s voice that draws Crowley’s attention. “It was only doing what it thought best for Harry.”

“For Harry?” Crowley spits, looking and sounding like a cat that has just been dunked in a bucket of water for a wash. “What the fuck? That- that’s bollocks!”

Aziraphale’s hand on Crowley’s arm tightens, keeping the demon close and focused on the angel himself. “Dobby is aware of a threat to Harry’s safety here at Hogwarts, although he cannot say what—because of magical ties to whatever family he serves—” Aziraphale forestalls Crowley’s snarky questions “—and believed that preventing Harry from returning to Hogwarts would protect him. Obviously, I’ve corrected the poor thing on that notion,” Aziraphale says. “He reminded me of those humans that Hawkins[4] fellow brought to England in 1554,” he confesses quietly.

Crowley’s anger burns out at the confession. “Really?” he asks and his voice is softer, more controlled, calmer. Aziraphale nods. “Shit. Thought slavery was outlawed in Britain two hundred years ago?”

“Apparently that does not extend to non-human creatures in wizarding Britain,” Aziraphale says a little bitterly.

Crowley’s features darken. “That’s not right.”

“It isn’t no, though I’m not sure what can be done about it,” Aziraphale agrees, sighing a little. “I had so hoped this awful slavery business would be done with when they outlawed it.”

“Nah, it’s not over.” Crowley shakes his head. “There’s a whole industry of slave trading—human trafficking—still going strong. Hastur got a commendation for dropping the idea into a human’s head a few centuries ago,” he explains heavily. There’s disgust in the demon’s voice.

Aziraphale echoes the disgust with his face. If there is one thing Crowley hates most of all it is the subjugation of free will. Those forced into slavery have no free will, thus Crowley hates slavery[5].

“We’re not saving the world angel,” Crowley says, looking at Aziraphale with an expression the angel can identify after thousands of years of knowing him; it’s a look that says ‘We Are Not Able To Fix Everything Even If We Want To’ and ‘I Know How You Feel And I Feel The Same But We Can’t’ with a dash of ‘If We Did This Then Where Do We Stop?’

Aziraphale—much as he wishes to do otherwise—accepts Crowley’s argument. For now. Of course, although Aziraphale accepts the demon’s logic, the angel isn’t going to just forget the topic. He may not be able to do much without causing Problems, but he can at least try and make life a little easier for a house-elf that wants to protect Harry as much as Crowley and himself do.

“Some things you can’t change,” Crowley mutters and it sounds sad and bitter and just a little bit like an admission from the demon.

“Some things you can,” Aziraphale says softly, gently, and the demon looks at him. “If you’re willing to take the risk of trying.”

Crowley shakes his head. “Sure,” he says, “because you’d know all about taking risks angel.”

Aziraphale feels the sting of those words. He feels it deeply. Because, for Crowley, Aziraphale always takes risks. They may not be the types of risks that the demon expects him too—no great shout at heaven that he’s siding with a demon—but they’re risks nonetheless. He took a risk with giving Crowley holy water. He took a risk agreeing to their Arrangement. He took a risk in not fighting a demon that had just slithered up beside him on the wall after tempting humanity to sin.

Aziraphale took risks with Crowley and he was both proud and reluctant to admit that he did such.

“When bad men combine, the good must associate,” Aziraphale says and he moves his hand on Crowley’s arm down and gently touches the demon’s hand. “Else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle[6].”

Crowley groans. “Seriously?”

Although Crowley is annoyed with him, Aziraphale notes that the demon doesn’t pull away when the angel slips his fingers between Crowley’s own and entwines their hands together.

“Fine, we’ll do something about it angel,” the demon relents and Aziraphale smiles. This is how they interact, how they work things out. This give and take, push and pull, disagree and accept.

Their relationship is one that Aziraphale still does not understand. He simply chalks it up to it being Ineffable.

Harry meets Ron’s new familiar—technically old but new for Ron—the first night back at Hogwarts. The ginger boy had forgotten to mention his familiar to Harry when the other boy had not shown on the train and then there had been that Argument about belief and knowledge and some other stuff that Ron didn’t like to really think about.

So it’s understandable that Harry is only introduced to Ron’s pet when Crookshanks tries to eat it and claws Harry’s arm when the boy grabbed the cat to prevent said eating.

Scabbers is a rat. A rat that Crookshanks wants to eat, judging by the way the cat yowls and tries to escape Harry’s firm hold on it. Ron is trying to keep Scabbers from fleeing inside his mattress when Seamus opens the door to their dorm and shouts at Harry to throw the damned cat out.

Unfortunately for Harry, Ron, and Seamus, Hermione is stood outside their dorm. She had obviously gone looking for her wayward familiar and is thus in prime place to witness Harry half drag, half throw said familiar out of the doorway while there is the sound of Ron yelling obscenities in the background.

Hermione grabs Crookshanks and gives the cat a once over, murmuring sweet nothings at the cat that has just clawed Harry and tried to murder Ron’s own pet. It is particularly typical of anyone who owns a cat.

Then she turns her attention to Harry.

“Your cat just tried to kill Ron’s pet,” Harry says immediately, before the girl can hurl any accusations at him. He did just hurl her cat out of his dorm so accusations are expected. He’s just not in the mood for them, clutching his arm and tenderly poking the deep gouges along the forearm. He’s going to have to see Madame Pomfrey for them—they’ve very deep. “And clawed me.”

“Crookshanks is a cat, Harry, that’s what cats do,” Hermione responds hotly but there’s concern in the girl’s face when she sees how tenderly Harry’s holding his arm. She might be angry at him for throwing her cat, but her anger is outweighed by her love for her friend. Thankfully. “You’re going to need to go to the infirmary for that. Kneazles are known for having highly infectious bacteria on their claws; it’s a method for weakening prey.”

Harry grimaces. “Great.”

“How’s Ron’s pet?” Hermione asks after a moment. She’s stroking Crookshanks who is calm and comfortable in her embrace—again, a typical act by a cat when it’s in the mood to annoy a victim.

“Alive,” Harry answers and Hermione lets out a sigh. “We woke up before Crookshanks could get him but it was close. I think Scabbers might be in his mattress or possibly somewhere else that he can hide.”

“I’ll try and keep Crookshanks out of your dorm,” Hermione promises and Harry nods. “There might be a charm I can use if he ignores me.”

“Maybe avoid Ron for a day or two as well,” Harry suggests and Hermione nods.

“I’ll apologise to him tomorrow, not now,” she says. “I can only guess how upset he is right now.”

Harry hums. Upset isn’t exactly the word he’d use to describe Ron’s mood right now. More like murderously angry.

“Come to the infirmary with me?” He asks instead and Hermione nods.

Harry waits at the portrait entrance for Hermione to lock Crookshanks in his carrier—magically enlarged so that he has a decently-sized space to roam—after telling Seamus he’s heading the infirmary.

Ron is still busy trying to coax Scabbers from the top of his four-poster—how he got there none of them are quite sure but it’s definitely a decent spot to hide since there’s a lot of spots to hide up there—and doesn’t accompany Harry and Hermione to the infirmary.

Madame Pomfrey is displeased to be woken up by students in the early hours of the morning—just past three o’clock—but puts her displeasure aside when she sees Harry’s arm and learns the scratches are from a Kneazle. Hermione chooses to stay in the infirmary—Madame Pomfrey giving her permission to sleep in one of the beds—and Harry is given a half-dozen potions to take and ordered into bed to sleep.

Crowley and Aziraphale hear about his attack by feline the next day when he attends classes with an arm in a sling—an undesired situation that Madame Pomfrey had given him no opportunity to refuse—and the boy is promptly cornered by them both and has to explain what happened.

Crowley promises to terrorise the cat into never entering the boys dorm again but Aziraphale tells him that’s not acceptable—the cat is Hermione’s familiar after all—and Harry is allowed to go on his way when demon and angel get distracted arguing about something the boy has absolutely no idea of.

Unfortunately for everyone, Lockhart returns to the school a day after spring term, bringing with him tales of exotic peoples and great perils that sounds like some colonialist fantasy glorifying exploitation of other civilisations. Needless to say, it doesn’t win him much favour with the staff or any student with common sense.

Harry and Ron both uniformly despise Lockhart enough that they engage in some childish pranks that causes Ron’s older brothers to pay them more attention than before[7]. It is inevitable that the twins join in with Harry and Ron’s pranks on Lockhart to the point of revealing the secret to their success as pranksters.

The Marauders map is revealed to Harry James Potter a year ahead of schedule due to the intricate changes to the universe as a result of Crowley taking the Boy Who Lived from his blood family and deciding to raise him with an angel. This is—additionally—a good thing.

“Who’s Peter Pettigrew?” Harry asks, frowning. “Is he a Gryffindor?”

Fred, or George—Harry can’t yet tell them apart—shrugs. “Don’t know,” he says, “we’re used to his name being in Percy’s dorm though not yours. Wonder why it’s there.”

“Could it be a glitch?” Harry looks at the map. “Like it’s got a fault and shows up random names?”

“Maybe, but it’s never shown us any other name and we’ve checked the student lists before to make sure,” George—or Fred—answers. “Our best guess is whoever this Peter Pettigrew is, they’re a ghost.”

“The map shows ghosts?” Ron goggles at the map. “What about animals? Does it show where everyone’s familiar is? I can see Mrs Norris there—” he points at the map, finger directing them to focus on the Astronomy tower “—so it must do, right?”

“Oh yeah, it shows ghosts and familiars. Even the house-elves in the kitchens!” Fred—or George—says grinning at their brother. “But not regular animals. Basically anything that has a name—like us, or familiars.”

“Cool,” Harry says, grinning. The Weasley twins grin back.

In the same manner that the Marauders map is revealed to Harry a year early due to changes in the Standard Flow in the universe, the first attack of the year occurs three days after spring term, giving students everywhere a significant fright and Draco Malfoy the perfect opportunity to gleefully shout about how ‘Mudbloods best watch out!’

This, naturally, riles Harry and Ron up quite a lot—Hermione is a little more level-headed than the two boys, but only just—and they hatch a plan to interrogate the Slytherin boy about this Chamber of Secrets and the monster supposedly hiding within it.

Aziraphale and Crowley make their own plans regarding the opening of the Chamber—although their plans revolve around bullying Dumbledore into telling them what the fuck the Chamber of Secrets actually is and where it is.

Both groups carry out their plans within a month of term starting and both groups hit problems along the way.

First is Harry and Ron getting detention from Lockhart for hexing Malfoy after the boy made another ill-advised comment about mudbloods. Then Crowley and Aziraphale are both waylaid with miracles and temptings to perform that require a lot more of their attention than either wish to allot to them.

Hermione manages to wrangle permission from Lockhart for a book in the restricted section and the trio get on with brewing an illegal potion in a girls lavatory that is inhabited by a teenage ghost with a mildly unhealthy interest in Harry.

Crowley corners Dumbledore in the headmasters office and gets the basics about the Chamber from the man—although Dumbledore does his utmost to dally about until Crowley tells him in no uncertain terms that he will ruin the man’s wardrobe until the end of time if he doesn’t just tell him what he wants to know.

Unfortunately for Crowley and Aziraphale’s plan, there is no actual knowledge as to where the Chamber is located and no information about whatever creature is inside it. This leaves them rather stumped as to what they can do to solve the issue.

Mrs Norris—the familiar of Argus Filch—is petrified by the creature but hasn’t died. This at least gives the demon and angel something to work with and both of them get to work trying to figure out what exactly can petrify a living thing. Naturally they consider gorgons but the last known gorgon in Europe was murdered in 302AD by a spear-happy soldier. Those that have come after don’t really have the umpf to petrify anything unless there’s several of them working together.

Crowley works with Pomfrey to try and counter the effects of petrification but finds that he can’t heal the cat because it’s not technically injured. The petrification is unfortunate but it’s something that isn’t actually harming the cat and thus he’s kind of stuck with it unless he performs a miracle and draws attention to the situation—healing is easy but reversing something that freezes an object in time gets the attention of everyone, heaven and hell; Crowley isn’t quite willing to draw that much attention to himself. Yet.

It leaves them even more stumped because that level of dilation of time is not easily achieved and Aziraphale can’t think of a single creature capable of such that isn’t an angel or demon. Divine and infernal interference is about the only thing the can rule out with absolute certainty.

The school settles back into its regular rhythm when there isn’t another attack and Harry and Ron entertain themselves with flying on the pitch whenever they can. Harry managed to get on the team as seeker but Ron—having a preference for chaser or keeper—hadn’t due to no space. It leaves Ron a little jealous of his friend but, overall, pleased when Harry lets him use the flaming broom instead of the slow school brooms.

The day the Polyjuice potion is ready turns out to be a fantastic day for infiltrating the enemy encampment—Slytherin common room—as it’s a relatively decent day outside and they overhear Malfoy telling Crabbe and Goyle that he’s going to write a letter to his mother and to not bother him in their dorm room. Harry and Ron manage to waylay the two Slytherin boys who follow Malfoy around, tricking them with cupcakes laced with a sleeping draught made by Hermione. This enables them to assume the identities of Crabbe and Goyle with little fanfare.

Hermione’s situation however is less lucrative. She takes hair from Millicent Bulstrode—a tall, imposing second year Slytherin who has singled Hermione out in class for reasons unknown. Bulstrode is hiding in the library, writing a potions essay when Hermione manages to snag some loose hair from the girls robe but the hair—it turns out—isn’t human.

Thus Harry and Ron find themselves entering Slytherin common room alone while Hermione goes and presents herself to Madame Pomfrey in her… dishevelled state.

Malfoy is—as usual—annoying and irritating, insulting them both and making snide comments about Ron’s family that have the boy turning red with anger. Harry manages to ask Malfoy the questions they want answered and are disappointed when it turns out Malfoy has no idea who the Heir of Slytherin is, what the creature is, or where the Chamber of Secrets is located. They do, however, learn that Malfoy is determined to get a broom like Harry’s in order to ‘knock Potter off his fancy broom!’.

Hermione remains in the infirmary for three weeks as opposed to the initial number of six that Madame Pomfrey had stated at the start. The reduced time in the hospital wing is the result of Crowley’s intervention in Hermione’s care.

The demon had been amused and delighted to see Hermione with feline eyes—eyes that matched Crowley’s own—but had pushed that aside when the girl had burst into tears over how she looked. That had resulted in Crowley becoming very soft and gentle in a manner not at all typical of the demon, as he had comforted the girl and informed her that it didn’t matter how she looked but how she acted. She could look like the ugliest person in the world but the only really ugly people would be the ones who picked on her for her appearance.

This—coming from someone who, depending on the day, wore dress robes or an actual dress, jeans or a rather revealing sort of shirt and very tight leather trousers—reassured Hermione in a manner that all the conversations with her parents about her looks couldn’t. Crowley was different and stood out and revelled in his difference.

He did not know it, but that conversation decided for Hermione Jane Granger something Very Important to her future.

Valentines Day arrives and the whole school is abuzz with valentines messages interrupting lessons left and right until several professors run out of patience and block any dwarf with a message from entering their classrooms.

Aziraphale simply asks them to deliver their messages a little more quietly since ‘this is a library you know’ and the dwarven messengers do as requested because they sense something about Aziraphale that they don’t sense in anyone else except the dauntingly grumpy Care of Magical Creatures professor who sicced a bunch of snakes on them the first time they went to deliver a valentines[8].

Harry and Ron are heading back to Gryffindor tower after visiting the library when they’re distracted by the sound of cursing and flowing water. They follow the noise and discover that Myrtle has flooded her bathroom again, forcing Filch to mop up a lot of water that’s flowed out into the hall. They watch the caretaker storm off—in search of another bucket incidentally—before sneaking into the bathroom and witnessing the mess for themselves.

Myrtle informs them of the reason for her flooding the bathroom and Harry—being Harry—takes the reason with him to the tower and hides away in his bed to study it. This is how Harry discovers that some books shouldn’t be touched and that he shouldn’t just Do Things because he thinks he should.

This is also how Harry learns about the Chamber of Secrets and Hagrid’s connection to it.

The diary of Tom Marvolvo Riddle tells Harry a lot of things about Hagrid’s involvement in the death of a student fifty years prior and Harry figures out that the student was Myrtle, causing him to feel somewhat sympathetic for the ghost with a strange fascination with him. The diary is also the cause of the boys dorm getting trashed the next day—mainly because someone wrecked Harry’s belongings and only the diary was missing.

It is an interesting end to the spring term and a warning that the rest of the school year is about to get a lot more messy.

[1] In Harry’s defence, the boy is only twelve and has two adults looking out for him at all times. Granted, those adults are generally awful at their own respective jobs but they happen to be very good at caring for Harry. Thus they protect him from a lot of things that, in another universe, he would have had to deal with alone. This protection affects the strands of time in the universe, shaping events in endlessly complex and contradictory ways. It is, in effect, an ineffable situation understood by only One Being.

[2] Forgiven by Hermione and only begrudgingly by Ron and Harry. Both boys have had to charm their bed covers to prevent Crookshanks from sticking a paw under them and scratching their toes.

[3] Aziraphale has no doubt that Crowley will end the existence of the house-elf without any regret if he feels the need to. In truth, Aziraphale only hesitated in ending the creature’s existence when it had shied away from him, trembling, with a sort of terror that the angel had seen before on the faces of slaves. It had made him pause long enough to think about the Why of the house-elf’s actions and to decide to send Dobby on his way with a strict warning to Stop It Now because Aziraphale would not show him such a mercy again. The house-elf had taken Aziraphale’s threat to heart—he hopes—and left quickly. Harry—fortunately—had been none-the-wiser as to the cause of his missing the train.

[4] The Hawkins fellow that Aziraphale is referring to here happens to be an Elizabethan seafarer by the name of John Hawkins from Plymouth. An Admiral and given the fancy title of Sir, Hawkins is acknowledged as the “pioneer of the English Slave Trade” in the sixteenth century. Hawkins formed a slave trading syndicate in 1554 and over four voyages is estimated to have transported 1,500 slaves from Africa across the Atlantic. He was stopped by a skirmish with some Spaniards where he lost five out of seven ships in 1568. Unfortunately he didn’t die with his ships. Hawkins is—for both Aziraphale and Crowley—an all-round detestable human being that is suffering grandly in hell and deserves every ounce of agony he is still experiencing to this day.

[5] Crowley hates slavery so much that he has gone out of his way to completely fuck up human trafficking rings, sex trafficking rings in the present day. This continues a tradition of the demon’s wherein he fucks up the lives of slavers by sinking their ships—after freeing their ‘cargo’—and sending their slavers running in terror at the sight of a giant, writhing nightmare coming at them during their ‘search’ for slaves. Aziraphale doesn’t know the specifics of Crowley’s actions over the centuries but the angel knows of some of them since he’s received memos from heaven congratulating him on Saving Souls relating to these actions.

[6] This is a saying from Edmund Burke that Aziraphale finds rather favourable to his morals. It compliments the angel’s principle philosophical stance on good and evil that Saint Thomas of Aquinas presents as The Problem of Evil. Evil contains the seeds of its own destruction as it is inherently a negative experience and cannot, therefore, succeed over good. Needless to say, whenever Aziraphale brings up these two individuals and their opinions—influential on western human society—Crowley rolls his eyes a lot and performs petty acts to irritate the angel in recompense; acts that almost always end with Crowley being ignored by Aziraphale and thus suffering himself, thereby proving Aziraphale’s point about the self-defeating nature of evil.

[7] They are able to perform several highly enjoyable pranks on the defence professor including turning his office desk into a pile of snakes—politely requested by Harry to not actually bite the man but thoroughly terrify him; something the snakes gleefully agree to—and charming his portraits to burp continuously every time the professor opens his mouth to speak. These pranks are only made possible through the use of a cloak gifted to Harry by an unknown individual. The cloak had appeared on his bed two days after term began with a note stating that it had been left in the person’s possession and belonged to Harry’s father. As such it was greatly coveted by the twelve-year-old who had yet to mention it to his uncles.

[8] Several valentines had, interestingly enough, been for Crowley from a variety of students—and one or two staff members. Those valentines had been met with a blank stare and a quiet “what the fuck is wrong with you people” before the snakes had been summarily summoned and sicced on the dwarven messengers. Only one valentine hadn’t elicited this response from the demon—it had been a message none of the students or dwarves understood but it made perfect sense to the demon: “a little less slow if you please”.

#Good Omens #Ineffable husbands #Crowley #Aziraphale #HP #Harry Potter #Absconding with Harry verse #update #kat writes #my fic #my writing

23 notes · View notes

shkspr · 5 years

Note

Uuuh please tell us about your love triangle fic concept???

okay i am SOOOOO sorry for how long this got fdkjlfdljk i literally just copy/pasted a bunch of rambling i did in the discord several months ago and i guess it was more rambling than i thought. anyway long version below but if you want the short rundown of the Dynamics at play in this love triangle, read these posts and these short funnies:

1 2 3 4

gabriel and crowley bonding over what a bastard aziraphale is? while still also hating each other a lot? chef's kiss. very jacob & edward in that tent in eclipse

even if az could carry on some sort of Thing with both of them at the same time it still wouldn't be a two hands situation it would be like. crowley has both of az's hands and also his heart and mind and soul, and gabriel gets to occasionally be near him

gabriel: So, Aziraphale, Wh - / aziraphale: [checking his watch] listen do you want to fuck or not because i've got shit to do

gabriel can kiss my ass with the sole exception of how delightfully stupid he is. i have taken him under my wing and made him a big gay idiot instead of the big rude idiot he is in canon.

az & gabriel only works for me in the scenario where gabriel is enthusiastically into az & az puts up with him on occasion when he's bored and horny. there's no romance or even friendship potential there

i like to think that az and gabriel used to have a friendly workplace rapport and gabriel was actually one of the least unbearable angels to be around during the rare times when az had to interact w/ other angels face-to-face but then when az started to recognize his feelings for crowley and his distaste for the way that heaven handles things, he started to kind of pull away and gabriel noticed and that's when he was like wait do i like aziraphale? and then he tried to talk to az about it and az was like oh. uh. hmm. i don't think so, honey.

and gabriel did not like being turned down and over the years watching az & crowley together he's just gotten more and more bitter to the point where he's now an insufferable douchebag but especially to aziraphale bc they both try to pretend none of that ever happened but they both Know and it's super awkward and gabriel covers for it by being even more of an ass.

i'm also imagining like. aziraphale giving in to gabriel and allowing something physical to happen right after he's had a big fight with crowley. like aziraphale trying to convince himself he doesn't need crowley, he's got plenty of other people to fraternise with, obviously, and he's trying so hard to not be heartbroken that he edges a bit too far into Emotionless territory, starts something with gabriel and he's cold and not nice about it but gabriel wants it so bad and aziraphale needs a distraction and neither of them are aware of what it means to the other.

gabriel is so wrapped up in the angelic notion of being worshipped and praised that he doesn't understand why aziraphale doesn't want that, because he'd give him that, he'd sit through every magic trick and he'd clap and he'd love it and he doesn't get it! he doesn't get that aziraphale is fundamentally a person and he doesn't want a partner who worships him he wants someone who knows him and loves him and tells him when he's being embarrassing and when he's being ridiculous and when he's being a bastard.

gabriel is... a fan. gabriel is a Fan of aziraphale when aziraphale needs a Friend.

we've talked about aziraphale and gabriel having this fucked up unrequited crush casual sex thing and that being why gabriel is so personally hurt by aziraphale's betrayal, right.so i'm imagining gabriel being like. well, this is the end, right, aziraphale's going to be gone, forever, and he's angry but he's spent enough time around humans and around aziraphale to know what regret is, and he knows he'll regret it if he doesn't say something.

so he just nips in before the whole hellfire deal, just tells the others to wait in the hall, i just need to have a few words with the traitor before he dies. and he goes in and. confesses? yells? cries? propositions him, one last fuck for old times' sake?

only like. that's crowley. it's crowley and he looks like aziraphale and gabriel thinks he's aziraphale but he's crowley.

and i'm imagining in this scenario, crowley never knew about the thing between gabriel and aziraphale, never found out about it because aziraphale was always too ashamed, and crowley and aziraphale still haven't let their six thousand years of tension come to a head, so now crowley's finding this out and he has to react as if he's aziraphale and then proceed with the whole not-dying thing

crowley tears up a little bit and he says something appropriately bitchy but his voice breaks on it just a bit and gabriel is like. oh maybe he gets it! does he get it? does he understand how hard this is for me? finally?? and then everything is Wrong and he's like i don't know i don't know what's happening i don't know what to do

but the whole time crowley’s dying on the inside, trying to convince himself that gabriel was fucking with him, gabriel was just saying things he thought would get aziraphale upset, none of that actually happened. but he's not very convincing. and then when they see each other again, what is he supposed to do? is he meant to pretend he didn't find this out?

and with aziraphale decidedly not dead, what is gabriel going to do with the fact that he poured his fuckin heart out? sure, heaven and hell are going to leave them alone, for a bit, but gabriel is different, isn't he? surely, he thinks, he must be different. and with aziraphale not dead, now he has to actually process all his feelings, and decide how to proceed with their not-relationship

so like. big angst on gabriel's part, HUGE angst on crowley's part, aziraphale caught between a rock (an archangel who hates him but also loves him and also wants him dead and also wants to keep casually fucking him and also wants to marry him a bit) and a hard place (a demon who's been in love with him for six thousand years and just inadvertently found out that he's been sleeping with someone else for several hundred of those years and is deeply, deeply hurt over it)

gabriel pictures crowley and aziraphale down on earth, laughing at him, mocking his unrequited feelings, or he pictures them happy together, never thinking twice about him at all. and he thinks about how aziraphale never really wanted him, never wanted anything to do with him, was always just using him and he knew it on some level and he let it happen because he needed to be near aziraphale. and he thinks, surely a demon can't love him the way i can, surely he doesn't have the pure and bright and clean love inside him that i have. does aziraphale need him, the way i need aziraphale? is that what's going on here? and then he dreams, he wouldn't call it dreaming but he dreams of rescuing aziraphale, even though he knows that's not what he wants, he knows that aziraphale has something with crowley he could never have with gabriel, but he can pretend, he can hope, that aziraphale might open his eyes someday and see him there.

and aziraphale being sort of. not afraid, per se, but. he must know, on some level, that gabriel's feelings for him are a big part of the reason he's alive. and he doesn't want to crush gabriel, because he doesn't want to be cruel, but also because he doesn't want to burn that bridge, as tenuous and reluctant a bridge as it is, because he doesn't know what will happen if gabriel really truly gets over him and decides he doesn't care if aziraphale dies

and az is like. it's just practical, crowley, i don't see what the issue is. and crowley is like..... he has FEELINGS, angel.

crowley's like....... i'm literally The Authority on being in love with you, and i say this from six thousand years of experience: it fucking sucks. loving aziraphale and not being loved back? or, not knowing if you're loved back? it's the worst pain imaginable, and i wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy, and you know i'm not exaggerating because gabriel is literally my worst enemy.

az: excuse me, my love, my sweet, my dearest one, are you fucking siding with gabriel over me? / crowley: i'm just Saying, i can empathize with his plight / az: empathize with my plight for a moment, please, imagine gabriel never fucking leaving you alone, ever. / crowley: i don't leave you alone either! the only difference is that you love me back! that's not his fault!

az: crowley you don't understand.... he's so enthusiastic about everything, it's so irritating. / crowley: angel what are you talking about. / az: he practically BEGGED me to let him eat me out. Ugh. / crowley: y. you. what? he. you're upset because he wanted to? go down on you? w. what??

aziraphale is so hurt and when he's hurt he gets defensive and so he's trying to justify how he's treated gabriel, while crowley's deep deep deep in his own mind, remembering every time he's been a pest in the same way that aziraphale has just admitted he hates

eventually aziraphale pulls enough teeth that crowley explains it fully: "everything you've said you hate about gabriel, that's all stuff that i do, that's all me. i follow you around, i ask questions, i care about appearances, i act like i know everything, i don't like to eat, i want to be near you all the time. and you've just told me that's unbearable. that you hate gabriel, because he's exactly like me."

and aziraphale softens, softens so much he's practically a puddle. looks at crowley with the biggest, most pitying eyes. and he doesn't feel like he can properly characterize what makes crowley so different, so unlike gabriel. because it's true, he has to admit, those similarities are there, but he's never wanted crowley to go away. he's never wanted crowley to want him less.

gabriel's questions are... judgey. even when he doesn't mean them to be. even when he wants to learn, for real, about humanity, to get closer to aziraphale. his questions are always... they have this undertone of "i don't understand this, but that's only because i have been worrying about more important things." and when aziraphale tries to explain food to him, or alcohol, he just doesn't get it. and he tries his best to pretend that he could maybe be on his way to getting it, because he thinks the not getting it is the biggest obstacle between him and aziraphale, but he'll never get it and he doesn't really want to?

when crowley asks questions, it's because he's thought about it. it's because he's thought about it a LOT and he needs now to talk about it. and aziraphale likes that, because when crowley asks him a question, he's not looking for an answer, he's looking for. a conversation. and a bit of support. when crowley asks a question, he wants aziraphale to tell him yes, it's okay to be unsure about this, i'm unsure too, let's work it out together. but when gabriel asks a question, he wants aziraphale to tell him you are good for wanting to know this, and here is a straightforward answer.

#long post -#sex t --#gomens #Anonymous

9 notes · View notes