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contritecactite · 4 months

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Ooops, the eternally wonderful @quoththemaiden blessed us with some more thoughts on the Japanese dub of Good Omens and then I got left waiting in a car for half an hour with nothing to do so uh. Quick little Tumblr fic? The discussion was just about "your stupid car is on fire" becoming "your car is burning in the manner of a fool" and I promise this thing gets around to that. After about a thousand words. But the literal translation there made me think about burning in other contexts, and so:

Ways to Burn

Rating: M; tags and fic under the cut

Tags: angst, fire imagery, choking imagery, references to fire, Crowley has a bad time throughout the years but then has a good time, also a brief instance of a very particular kind of good time (blink and you'll miss it unspecified penetrative sex act), post-s1, ignores s2, dramatic tonal shift into silly bickerflirting

Ways to Burn

First: literally. Probably.

He’s scorched when he lands, and that's all he knows for sure.

Shame comes next. He hadn't known he could feel it, much less that it could burn as surely as a flat dark rock with too much direct sun—and hadn't that been a new sensation, too, his tender serpent's belly warming too much too quickly at the contact.

All right, so that one next, the too-warm surface, and then the shame.

He doesn't mean to get them kicked out. Right thing or wrong thing, he hadn't wanted that. Trouble’s one thing. Trouble, actually, is kind of fun. But he's never really liked endings, and this is as sure an ending as anything ever was.

But—a beginning, too.

He never felt the fire of that flaming sword, but he burned sure enough watching that angel admit to giving it away.

It's a long time before he works out what to call that particular sensation, and longer still—much longer—before he lets himself call it that.

The sun burns, and the sand, all those days in the desert, and the fires—those he starts and those he doesn't—and the shame, over and over, of being reminded that before anything in the world had even happened, he had proven to be a failure at his job.

Except.

Some days, it's his new job that brings him the most joy. There are so very many ways to cause trouble, more and more every century, and eventually—

Eventually the frostbite he used to imagine himself sustaining under that angelic gaze eases into something a bit more… well, lukewarm, at first.

And even that burns hot when applied to something chilled to the bone. He ought to know. He's spent time in the mountains. In the snow and the dreary slush of miserable winters.

Doesn't take much of being out alone in all that for come in and sit by the fire, you wretched old thing to do just as much work as a cup full of something spiced and warm.

Heat gives way to warmth the way wildness gives over to domesticity—in the world at large and in whatever passes for the heart of one particular demon. As Crawley made room for Crowley, so too does untrustworthy fiend slip away in favor of my dear.

It's the polite warmth-almost-heat of tea set out for a guest who arrives a little too late, but it's more than enough to fend off icy fingers. And it's safe.

It rises to a slow simmer one day as anything might after nearly escaping a bombing, but he doesn't dare let it grow further. He's been in London so very long now, and he will not allow himself to burn up against his only source of warmth.

There's something perfect in the tension of keeping it there, of striking the kind of balance that leaves something just too hot to touch but cool enough to draw near.

And then the bookshop burns, and Crowley has never been colder, stood there in the centre of the flames and shouting until his throat feels as seared with prayer as the book beside him has been by the tongues of fire.

And then, again, literally: the Bentley is no more than a car-shaped wreath of flame, and Crowley himself has caught, too, but it doesn't matter. Doesn't matter because it can't matter. Doesn't matter because even if the wheel is red-hot under his hands, he doesn't feel a damned thing.

It's a good job the old man in Tadfield knows a thing or two about keeping one's thoughts to oneself; the impression of your stupid car is on fire and you're just sitting there like a fool emanating from him is almost enough to break Crowley's concentration, and if he'd said it aloud, well—

Doesn't bear thinking about.

At the air base he learns all over again that relief is wool blankets and dry socks like what in the world were you doing out in that awful cold, my dear back in 1684 and that grief is swallowing an ice cube whole and feeling it melt while still choking and fear is almost like both at once when you're so used to it that it's more companion than stranger.

The Hellfire he stands in while wearing Aziraphale's shape could never hope to burn the same way as just like that, my love, you feel wonderful when, days later, he sinks down onto Aziraphale for the first time and feels heat inside him and warmth all around.

A warm bath, after, both literally and figuratively—warmer than body temperature but not enough to scald, laughter and joy and something he suspects might be freedom.

“He insulted my car, you know,” he mumbles into Aziraphale's hair.

"Who, dear?”

“Dunno. Man with a dog back in Tadfield. Didn't say it out loud but he was thinking so hard about it being on fire. I swear he said ‘your stupid car is on fire’ and ‘your car is burning in the manner of a fool’ and a dozen other different variations on- oh, no.”

“What?” Aziraphale asks, alarmed enough to try to sit up, but Crowley tugs him back down.

“Well, did you notice the Bentley being a bit. You know. Odd.”

Aziraphale hums, considering, and then makes a small sound of recognition. “There was some new music. And it—well, I thought you must have done it, but when we got out, I thought it winked.”

“Why would I make a car wink? My car? Honestly.”

“Oh, as if you've never been cheeky.”

Crowley groans. “That’s not the point. What I'm saying is, it didn't used to do those things, yeah? And I didn't make it do them. And you, you wouldn't have made it wink at you.”

“Certainly not.”

“I think that when Adam put things back together, since I was thinking about missing it and the old man was out there giving it personality, he might have thought—well, it might actually have one now. For better or worse.”

“Ah. Well. I'm sure no harm will come of it. It's a very loyal car, and you've always taken good care of it.”

“What has that got to do with anything?”

Aziraphale burrows in more deeply against his chest. His face seems to grow a bit warmer. “Well, if you must know, Adam left quite a few new books about… well, about haunted cars.”

Crowley snorts. “And you read them? Oh, angel, how far you've—grk. Mn. Nevermind that.”

“Hm.” He's quiet for a moment or two longer, and then: “They made some of them into films, you know.”

“I am not watching anything about haunted cars.”

“I thought you liked spooky.”

“For someone who reads as much as you do, you ought to have a better grasp on spooky versus terrifying.”

“I think you like your car too much.”

“Like you better.” He pauses. Considers. “Don’t tell it I said that.”

Aziraphale only laughs at him and holds on tighter, and it's bubbles in champagne chilled to just the right temperature to be held in a warm, dear hand while the other hand holds Crowley's.

#good omens #my fic #rating: mature #good omens fanfiction #i don't think this one belongs on ao3 idk #i Did Not look over it again so it's prob A) weird and B) riddled with mobile typos #rambled on this thing like an online 'quick recipe for homemade biscuits'

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