GOE 2016 starts NOW! Happy Holidays, tomato_greens!
Title: Ordinary Conceptions
Recipient: tomato_greens
Characters/Pairings: Crowley and Adam Young; background Aziraphale/Crowley
Rating: PG-13 [SFW]
Word Count: 2,000
Warnings: Recent political events (on both sides of the Atlantic)
Notes: I've used part of my recipient's prompt, which is itself a quote, as both title and epigraph. Too telling and timely. The other part of the prompt explicitly asked for a conversation between Crowley and Adam on the nature of evil, so that's what this is. Happy Holidays; may you spend this dark season with family you trust, be they found or otherwise.
Summary: “One can't be too careful even now,” said Crowley. “You were my responsibility, and, to an extent, you still are. At least that's how I look at it. It wouldn't do to find out you've still got some funny ideas you can't quite put to rest. So, you know, thanksss for humoring an old serpent's paranoia.”
"[T]he coexistence of normality and bottomless cruelty explodes our ordinary conceptions [. . .]."
-from Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, by Hannah Arendt
1 December 2016
Crowley stared out the sliding glass door, pondering the frigid dusk just beyond the patio light's reach. He wrapped his hands around what must have been his third or fourth cup of tea, shivering. No amount of fiddling with the ancient, yet efficient thermostat had helped, not in weeks upon weeks. Twenty-three since the Brexit clusterfuck; scarcely three since America had gone off the rails.
“They're about to appraise a snuffbox similar to that job I commissioned,” Aziraphale called cajolingly from the living room, patting the well-worn leather of Crowley's sofa. “Won't you come see?”
“I'm expecting company, remember?” Crowley called back, the gloom in his tone, for once, entirely genuine. “Best just to sit here till he turns up. Make sure those foxes aren't skulking about the yard.”
“They'll scatter as soon as the car pulls up,” said Aziraphale, yawning. “I wouldn't worry, my dear.”
“Yeah, his engine could use some work,” Crowley sighed, tugging Madame Tracy's quilt tighter about his shoulders. “But you know our godson. Nostalgic, fond of leaving things exactly as he finds them.”
“If you ask me, all that rattle and grind is just for show,” Aziraphale remarked. “Not unlike your-”
“Vintage engines require authenticity,” Crowley cut in, examining his fingernails, biting away a fleck of scale-like cuticle. “A 1979 Wasabi rescued from the scrap-yard and kept running out of pride in the quirky improvements one foisted upon it as little more than hellspa-excuse me, as a child-is hardly vintage.”
“Or authentic?” Adam ventured, breezing through the front door without so much as a by-your-leave.
“That too,” Crowley agreed, waving at the espresso machine as Adam strolled past it. “Coffee? Tea?”
“Whatever you're having, thanks,” said the young man, cheerfully, grabbing an empty mug from the cupboard above the machine before continuing on his way to the dining-room table. He sat down diagonal to Crowley, tipping his mug in Crowley's direction, and said, “Will you do it the old-fashioned way?”
Crowley took the mug, set it in front of Adam, and passed his hand over the top. “Nope. The lazy way.”
Adam swilled the suddenly steaming contents, taking a tentative sip. “Could use more milk, I reckon.”
“Ungrateful brat,” sighed Crowley, fondly, and fixed it. He peered into his own, frowning at the lukewarm contents before surreptitiously reheating them to a temperature just shy of scalding.
“These chats been going well, d'you think?” ventured Adam, hopefully. “Helping keep you sane?”
“Listen,” Crowley said flatly, tapping the tabletop, “since summer, since everything, I swear...”
Adam chewed his lip, taking refuge in a longer swig of tea. “It'd be wrong of me to mess things about.”
“Yeah, but have you seen the news?” Crowley demanded, his tone bleak. “I mean, have you?”
“S'all we talk about these days, the news,” Adam said, displaying the first trace of genuine anger that Crowley had seen in him since...well, since. “I'm tired of the news. It's all I hear at home, too.”
“Ah, well,” Crowley conceded, feeling sympathetic in spite of himself. “It's all you would.”
“I've got a sneaking suspicion what this is really about,” Adam sighed, apparently finished with his tea, “and it hasn't got anything to do with your usual concerns about my dreams or subconscious thoughts.”
“One can't be too careful even now,” said Crowley. “You were my responsibility, and, to an extent, you still are. At least that's how I look at it. Wouldn't do to find out you've still got some funny ideas about world domination you can't quite put to rest. So, you know, thanksss for humoring an old serpent's paranoia.”
Rapping the tabletop lightly with his knuckles, Adam brightened. “Still not clear on the nature of evil, are we? What if I were to tell you I'm as sure as you were back in the day that I'm not?”
“Oh, I'm still sure,” Crowley said, half smiling, “or you'd likely have vaporized me on the spot, eh?”
“There's no sense in vaporizing people,” said Adam, reasonably. “Not even meddlers like you two.”
“Here's a question,” Crowley began, shoving his mug forward to join Adam's. “Wouldn't you say the world's more diabolical than ever, and that without benefit of any nudging from either of us?”
“From either you or Aziraphale?” asked Adam, puzzled. “Seems to me you canceled each other out.”
“No,” Crowley corrected him. “From either me or you. Let's face it: for those few days, precocious occult seedling that you were, you meddled with humanity most intimately of all.”
Adam folded his arms across his chest and gave Crowley a reproachful look. “People aren't plants.”
“Indeed not, but you'll ride this flaming metaphor as far as I'm inclined to take it,” Crowley hissed, “because I've been here a hell of a lot longer than you have. Thesis, based on present worldwide evidence: humans are far, far more evil than good. They'd rather belittle, mistrust, and legislate the slaughter of each other than get down to the business of being their brother's keeper. Am I right?”
“Looks that way for the moment, doesn't it,” said Adam, keeping his voice curiously neutral. “Shame.”
“That's just the trouble, isn't it!” Crowley exclaimed, thumping the table. “They haven't got any.”
“Actually, I think it's shame that drives them,” said Adam, softly, studying his hands. “Shame they haven't done better, I s'pose is what I mean. Shame leads to self-loathing, and self-loathing leads to-”
“Sin?” Aziraphale interjected from the living room. “Adam, take a look around. We're past it.”
Crowley nodded, morose. “Seems to me the angel's got a point. We're on the brink of atrocity.”
“You speak as if you count yourselves amongst the ranks you used to influence, what when you've sworn off messing people about,” Adam reminded him. “I know what you did, but why did you? You could've just dusted your hands. Fought with instead of against the Devil if I'd let him come. All of this human-brewed evil you detest would've been wiped out. Piff. Game over.”
Crowley closed his eyes, listening for a reaction from Aziraphale, but it didn't come. He sighed.
“Whatever else you get up to, you buggers still have a choice. When will you use it wisely?”
“Is that what you did?” Adam countered. “Back when you decided to step in and muck up the Plan?”
“I'd like to think so,” said Crowley, earnestly rubbing his temples. “I really, really would.”
“I'd certainly made no end of poor choices up until that point!” Aziraphale asserted loudly.
Adam considered Aziraphale's words. “Can't say I disagree. It was a step in the right direction.”
“What he means,” Crowley clarified, “is that we tried to start making up for it all. We're still trying.”
“And here's what I mean,” sighed Adam, spreading his hands. “We're all trying, same as you and Aziraphale. We get it wrong sometimes. Deeply, awfully wrong. Like now.”
“He has a point, Crowley,” intoned Aziraphale, nonetheless chagrined. “We're all of us flawed.”
“Flawed enough to not see the wrong in spurning our neighbors across the Channel?” demanded Crowley. “Flawed enough to not realize the leader of the free world's just shy of pulling a Fourth Reich? Call me an alarmist, but we have literally seen this before.”
After a long, uncomfortable moment of silence in which Adam went a bit pale, Aziraphale relented.
“Too true, dear boy,” he sighed heavily, turning off the antiques programme. “Too, too true.”
“I stand by what I said about shame,” Adam said quietly. “It leads to self-loathing, and nothing good ever comes of that. And anyway, evil's only evil because it stands in such contrast to everything else, which is mostly good. At least I'd like to think so, or else I gave the universe up for nothing.”
Aziraphale wandered in from the living room, half-drunk mug of cocoa in hand. “It's past your bedtime, young man,” he said, raising one warning eyebrow at Adam. “No ifs, ands, or buts about it.”
Adam nodded glumly, rising. “What's my thirty-seven years to your six-thousand-odd, anyway?”
“I've had enough of this planet,” Crowley said. “Or at least enough of this blessed year on it.”
“I'll say,” replied Adam, saluting as he made his way to the door. “You've sprouted a few grey hairs.”
Later, Crowley checked the dusty bathroom mirror, cautiously inspecting his hairline. So he did.
And-heaven help him, sense of faint dread aside-he didn't feel the need to change them back.
Recipient: tomato_greens
Characters/Pairings: Crowley and Adam Young; background Aziraphale/Crowley
Rating: PG-13 [SFW]
Word Count: 2,000
Warnings: Recent political events (on both sides of the Atlantic)
Notes: I've used part of my recipient's prompt, which is itself a quote, as both title and epigraph. Too telling and timely. The other part of the prompt explicitly asked for a conversation between Crowley and Adam on the nature of evil, so that's what this is. Happy Holidays; may you spend this dark season with family you trust, be they found or otherwise.
Summary: “One can't be too careful even now,” said Crowley. “You were my responsibility, and, to an extent, you still are. At least that's how I look at it. It wouldn't do to find out you've still got some funny ideas you can't quite put to rest. So, you know, thanksss for humoring an old serpent's paranoia.”
"[T]he coexistence of normality and bottomless cruelty explodes our ordinary conceptions [. . .]."
-from Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, by Hannah Arendt
1 December 2016
Crowley stared out the sliding glass door, pondering the frigid dusk just beyond the patio light's reach. He wrapped his hands around what must have been his third or fourth cup of tea, shivering. No amount of fiddling with the ancient, yet efficient thermostat had helped, not in weeks upon weeks. Twenty-three since the Brexit clusterfuck; scarcely three since America had gone off the rails.
“They're about to appraise a snuffbox similar to that job I commissioned,” Aziraphale called cajolingly from the living room, patting the well-worn leather of Crowley's sofa. “Won't you come see?”
“I'm expecting company, remember?” Crowley called back, the gloom in his tone, for once, entirely genuine. “Best just to sit here till he turns up. Make sure those foxes aren't skulking about the yard.”
“They'll scatter as soon as the car pulls up,” said Aziraphale, yawning. “I wouldn't worry, my dear.”
“Yeah, his engine could use some work,” Crowley sighed, tugging Madame Tracy's quilt tighter about his shoulders. “But you know our godson. Nostalgic, fond of leaving things exactly as he finds them.”
“If you ask me, all that rattle and grind is just for show,” Aziraphale remarked. “Not unlike your-”
“Vintage engines require authenticity,” Crowley cut in, examining his fingernails, biting away a fleck of scale-like cuticle. “A 1979 Wasabi rescued from the scrap-yard and kept running out of pride in the quirky improvements one foisted upon it as little more than hellspa-excuse me, as a child-is hardly vintage.”
“Or authentic?” Adam ventured, breezing through the front door without so much as a by-your-leave.
“That too,” Crowley agreed, waving at the espresso machine as Adam strolled past it. “Coffee? Tea?”
“Whatever you're having, thanks,” said the young man, cheerfully, grabbing an empty mug from the cupboard above the machine before continuing on his way to the dining-room table. He sat down diagonal to Crowley, tipping his mug in Crowley's direction, and said, “Will you do it the old-fashioned way?”
Crowley took the mug, set it in front of Adam, and passed his hand over the top. “Nope. The lazy way.”
Adam swilled the suddenly steaming contents, taking a tentative sip. “Could use more milk, I reckon.”
“Ungrateful brat,” sighed Crowley, fondly, and fixed it. He peered into his own, frowning at the lukewarm contents before surreptitiously reheating them to a temperature just shy of scalding.
“These chats been going well, d'you think?” ventured Adam, hopefully. “Helping keep you sane?”
“Listen,” Crowley said flatly, tapping the tabletop, “since summer, since everything, I swear...”
Adam chewed his lip, taking refuge in a longer swig of tea. “It'd be wrong of me to mess things about.”
“Yeah, but have you seen the news?” Crowley demanded, his tone bleak. “I mean, have you?”
“S'all we talk about these days, the news,” Adam said, displaying the first trace of genuine anger that Crowley had seen in him since...well, since. “I'm tired of the news. It's all I hear at home, too.”
“Ah, well,” Crowley conceded, feeling sympathetic in spite of himself. “It's all you would.”
“I've got a sneaking suspicion what this is really about,” Adam sighed, apparently finished with his tea, “and it hasn't got anything to do with your usual concerns about my dreams or subconscious thoughts.”
“One can't be too careful even now,” said Crowley. “You were my responsibility, and, to an extent, you still are. At least that's how I look at it. Wouldn't do to find out you've still got some funny ideas about world domination you can't quite put to rest. So, you know, thanksss for humoring an old serpent's paranoia.”
Rapping the tabletop lightly with his knuckles, Adam brightened. “Still not clear on the nature of evil, are we? What if I were to tell you I'm as sure as you were back in the day that I'm not?”
“Oh, I'm still sure,” Crowley said, half smiling, “or you'd likely have vaporized me on the spot, eh?”
“There's no sense in vaporizing people,” said Adam, reasonably. “Not even meddlers like you two.”
“Here's a question,” Crowley began, shoving his mug forward to join Adam's. “Wouldn't you say the world's more diabolical than ever, and that without benefit of any nudging from either of us?”
“From either you or Aziraphale?” asked Adam, puzzled. “Seems to me you canceled each other out.”
“No,” Crowley corrected him. “From either me or you. Let's face it: for those few days, precocious occult seedling that you were, you meddled with humanity most intimately of all.”
Adam folded his arms across his chest and gave Crowley a reproachful look. “People aren't plants.”
“Indeed not, but you'll ride this flaming metaphor as far as I'm inclined to take it,” Crowley hissed, “because I've been here a hell of a lot longer than you have. Thesis, based on present worldwide evidence: humans are far, far more evil than good. They'd rather belittle, mistrust, and legislate the slaughter of each other than get down to the business of being their brother's keeper. Am I right?”
“Looks that way for the moment, doesn't it,” said Adam, keeping his voice curiously neutral. “Shame.”
“That's just the trouble, isn't it!” Crowley exclaimed, thumping the table. “They haven't got any.”
“Actually, I think it's shame that drives them,” said Adam, softly, studying his hands. “Shame they haven't done better, I s'pose is what I mean. Shame leads to self-loathing, and self-loathing leads to-”
“Sin?” Aziraphale interjected from the living room. “Adam, take a look around. We're past it.”
Crowley nodded, morose. “Seems to me the angel's got a point. We're on the brink of atrocity.”
“You speak as if you count yourselves amongst the ranks you used to influence, what when you've sworn off messing people about,” Adam reminded him. “I know what you did, but why did you? You could've just dusted your hands. Fought with instead of against the Devil if I'd let him come. All of this human-brewed evil you detest would've been wiped out. Piff. Game over.”
Crowley closed his eyes, listening for a reaction from Aziraphale, but it didn't come. He sighed.
“Whatever else you get up to, you buggers still have a choice. When will you use it wisely?”
“Is that what you did?” Adam countered. “Back when you decided to step in and muck up the Plan?”
“I'd like to think so,” said Crowley, earnestly rubbing his temples. “I really, really would.”
“I'd certainly made no end of poor choices up until that point!” Aziraphale asserted loudly.
Adam considered Aziraphale's words. “Can't say I disagree. It was a step in the right direction.”
“What he means,” Crowley clarified, “is that we tried to start making up for it all. We're still trying.”
“And here's what I mean,” sighed Adam, spreading his hands. “We're all trying, same as you and Aziraphale. We get it wrong sometimes. Deeply, awfully wrong. Like now.”
“He has a point, Crowley,” intoned Aziraphale, nonetheless chagrined. “We're all of us flawed.”
“Flawed enough to not see the wrong in spurning our neighbors across the Channel?” demanded Crowley. “Flawed enough to not realize the leader of the free world's just shy of pulling a Fourth Reich? Call me an alarmist, but we have literally seen this before.”
After a long, uncomfortable moment of silence in which Adam went a bit pale, Aziraphale relented.
“Too true, dear boy,” he sighed heavily, turning off the antiques programme. “Too, too true.”
“I stand by what I said about shame,” Adam said quietly. “It leads to self-loathing, and nothing good ever comes of that. And anyway, evil's only evil because it stands in such contrast to everything else, which is mostly good. At least I'd like to think so, or else I gave the universe up for nothing.”
Aziraphale wandered in from the living room, half-drunk mug of cocoa in hand. “It's past your bedtime, young man,” he said, raising one warning eyebrow at Adam. “No ifs, ands, or buts about it.”
Adam nodded glumly, rising. “What's my thirty-seven years to your six-thousand-odd, anyway?”
“I've had enough of this planet,” Crowley said. “Or at least enough of this blessed year on it.”
“I'll say,” replied Adam, saluting as he made his way to the door. “You've sprouted a few grey hairs.”
Later, Crowley checked the dusty bathroom mirror, cautiously inspecting his hairline. So he did.
And-heaven help him, sense of faint dread aside-he didn't feel the need to change them back.