Good Omens fic: Once Meek, and in a Perilous Path

[rainjoyswriting]

Need me some Good Omens icons . . .

Once Meek, and in a Perilous Path, a Good Omens fic set two thirds of the way through episode six, Crowley/Aziraphale how could it not be (in my heart I ship them asexual because I think the series gives a really beautiful portrait of a same-sex ace relationship but I'm also cool with porn as I'm sure you're all aware so I might write both *shrug*) (also it's been so long since I read the book that we'd better say it's entirely based off the series . . .) (I am also very out of practice with writing omg like how do you sentence)

Rating: Uhhh I'm never good at this PG-13? People talk about sex, it doesn't happen.

Disclaimer: HAH. No I don't own them I just love them.

Warnings/spoilers: Spoilers for the entire thing (it's set near the end of the last episode), it's only six episodes, go watch that first. Warnings - there is an extremely anxious angel in it, breathe steady if you're working through your own anxiety, and, uh, a discussion by two non-humans about sex which would be a lot more disturbing if either party had an average human response to sex; I think to them it's just mechanics, with no particular desire or aversion involved.

Summary: An angel and a demon walk into the High Wycombe Travelodge . . .



Note: I literally didn't know what to call this and thought, Blake will know. For those who don't live in Britain and aren't aware of the geography: is smol. Crowley and Aziraphale are in Tadfield sometime in the evening, catch a bus to London and seem to arrive late the following morning. Driving from Oxfordshire to London - especially when the driver is influenced by Crowley - does not take twelve hours. Which means the two of them *did* something in between the bench in Tadfield and their respective bases in London, and they also needed somewhere safe and unseen to switch bodies. And so I present to you: An angel and a demon pass the night in a Travelodge, bringing all their respective exhaustion and extreme anxiety with them.

Crowley unlocks the door and pushes it open, holding it with his extended arm, nodding a sarcastic gesture of an after you bow at the room. Aziraphale, over-agitated by the internal warring forces of politeness and panic, defaults to capitulating to politeness, and he's the first to enter the room, bobbing a nervous thank you to Crowley holding the door for him as he passes. The room turns out to be smaller than he'd expected and rather plain, but not especially unpleasant.

"It's not bad at all, is it? The Travel Lodge. Very clean. And they've given us a little writing desk and oh look Crowley look at the little kettle, it's so tiny! Well it's just darling, I should get one for the shop for in case I only want one cup of -"

The door clicks closed. "Angel."

"And I like the -" There is not much in the room he does like in honesty, the aesthetic tends towards a neutrality that, in its attempt not to offend anybody, is actually toxically offensive to someone like Aziraphale, who has standards. "- the - ah - window? - and look there's a little bathroom through there, it's only the size of a cupboard, is this a special miniature hotel? Ooh look, they've given us biscuits!"

"Angel," Crowley says again, patiently, tossing his sunglasses on the desk. "Can we address the elephant in the room before you pull a muscle in your neck avoiding looking directly at it. It's just a bed. It's not hellfire. It won't hurt you."

Aziraphale remains on the balls of his feet so he can expend at least a little of his nervous energy in discreetly bouncing, playing his spread fingertips against each other, bouncing his hands a little as well; there is rather a lot of nervous energy to use up, given being with Crowley in a room with a bed in it, his own general disposition, the last twenty-four hours, the last seven days, the last few millennia. "No," he says, and laughs, and doesn't know what else to say. He still doesn't want to look at the bed. Crowley just blinks at him in a tired way, and perhaps people think that slit-pupilled golden snake eyes don't give much away, Aziraphale has never thought so. He frequently doesn't understand Crowley's expression but there is very much an expression going on. Quite beautifully expressive, sometimes.

"Am I right in assuming," Crowley says, leaning against the closed door with one hip, "that you think I've brought you here to fling you down on the bed that you won't look at and ravish the last white in your wings out of you?"

That feels like swallowing something hot-cold and horrible, filling his cheeks and all the way down his closing throat, and boiling like the waters above the kraken's head in his stomach. He looks down. One cheek tics a smile, the other doesn't make it. He feels a very special kind of foolish, and wants to say no, and can't, can only shake his head a little without looking Crowley in the eye. Crowley makes a frustrated noise; when Aziraphale looks up Crowley is scrubbing his own face hard with one hand, waving the other at the bed.

"I don't want to play this game, Aziraphale, no, alright? No, that's not why we're here. That is for sleeping on, I mean, for Heav- for God- for fuck's sake, we're made out of the same stuff, why would you think that's what I want you for? I don't have any -" He waves both hands at his own body, indicating largely his digestive system, suggesting a surprising lack of familiarity with the relevant anatomy. "- biological urges, we don't really have biology, all that - hormones and stuff, it's a human thing. That's not what we're here for. That's not what we're about."

Aziraphale doesn't dare to move in case in breaks the spell, but he does swallow, and say in a low voice, "You made the bus driver park outside and wait for us just so that you can sleep."

"Yes!"

"You don't even need to sleep!"

"No. I want to. I like things I want much better than things I need." Crowley walks to the bed, turns his back to it to face Aziraphale and smile - well, smirk - and he falls easily backwards, bouncing a little on the mattress, stretching his long arms overhead. "Been a bit of a week and I would like to sssleep."

Movement seems a little less frightening, a little less likely to bring about something catastrophic, so Aziraphale allows himself, minutely, to relax into his stance, flexing his fingers and clasping his hands behind his back. "And why do you need me here, to sleep?"

"Don't need you here," Crowley says, tugging a pillow down to settle his cheek into it. He grins a profoundly snake-like grin at him then. "I want you here."

That puts a thrill in the middle of his back which his body itches to shimmy to, and he coughs to hide the smile even though it never seems to work against Crowley. "But - Crowley - all of Heaven and Hell are angry with us. All of them. This hardly seems like a good time to get a bit of shut eye."

"Still going to be angry in the morning," Crowley says, undulating, working his body properly into the pillow and mattress. "Still going to be angry forever. Might as well sleep now as any other time."

It's not even really a decision, it's just a certainty. "I will stay awake," Aziraphale promises. "I'll watch over you."

"My own personal angel," Crowley says, and grins.

"Well - you've done it for me. For - forever, really."

That changes Crowley's expression to something deeper, and after a long stare, he holds a hand out; his voice has lowered, roughened a little. "Come here."

"I - why?"

"Because it's more comfortable on here than it must be standing in the corner of the room like an angel-shaped floor lamp. Come here."

His voice is insistent but not unkind - honestly, Crowley's voice is never unkind to Aziraphale, even when he's calling him an idiot it's clear somehow that he's only offended because of how clever he thinks Aziraphale actually is, he's a much dearer creature than he likes to let on - and it has been rather a day, so Aziraphale walks over, and draws his breath in, and is brave, and sits on the edge of the bed next to the demon. He rests his hands on his knees and wriggles to get comfortable. "I haven't been on one of these things in years," he says. "Since - gosh. The eighteenth century? I didn't put one in the bookshop. Just - more books."

Crowley says into the pillow, "I love beds."

"I know you do."

"Clever humans, making beds. Clever humans, going on making things." Crowley takes in a long breath, then says, "Are you going to lie down or am I talking to your back?"

"Oh - am I lying down? Is that . . ."

"With a gold-plated guarantee that I am not going to ravish you if you promise not to ravish me."

". . . yes. Quite."

He does lie down, on his back, hands folded on his stomach. It's not unpleasant. Crowley sprawls there at his side, watching his face, Aziraphale can feel it as he looks at the ceiling and tries to think. He has too many thoughts right now. Books are nice; when he's reading, he doesn't have any thoughts, there's just the book. Then he has to close the book again and come back to himself and not have a single blessed clue what he's doing all over again.

Crowley says, "Why did you think I brought you here for sex?"

Aziraphale takes a long breath in, lets it sigh gustily out. Dear creature as he might be Crowley still is a demon, and he's not going to let Aziraphale keep his dignity entirely intact. If he is still a demon, really, if Hell won't have him anymore. The panic starts its too-fast beat in his chest again, since he doesn't, after all, know that he is still truly an angel anymore . . .

"Well - you insisted on our going to a hotel, Crowley. And - after today - our relationship has, has - changed. Rather. Hasn't it. We only have each other, now, there's a lot of . . ." He honestly has no idea why Crowley would think him intelligent, he thinks himself an idiot almost all of the time. ". . . I don't have any excuses left, do I? Heaven is hardly . . . it doesn't matter what they think of me anymore."

"And you came with me. Even though you thought it was for sex that you didn't want to have."

He nods, slowly, eyes on the floor beside the bed, away from Crowley. "I just - didn't want to be a disappointment."

"You didn't want to be a disappointment. You came to do something you a hundred percent didn't want to do because you didn't want to disappoint me? Angel, when have you ever disappointed me?"

"Oh, Crowley, all the time, I do know it, even this week - I never did run away to the stars with you."

Crowley laughs, not unkindly, out of sheer surprise. "Still can," he says. "Got the rest of eternity, we can have a nice holiday out there one of these days. Did you want to?"

"The stars? . . . yes. But . . ."

"You still wanted to believe that Heaven was going to do the right thing." Aziraphale risks a glance at Crowley who is looking back at him openly, softly, with an effect like hands cupping the panicked flutter in Aziraphale's chest so he immediately feels a little better, a little calmer. "Why would you think that's a disappointment to me? You've always been good."

Aziraphale puts a hand on his chest where the panic sits, because it's just kicked up again stronger. "Good-ish," he says.

"Weelll, good enough," Crowley says. "You've always been you, anyway, and that's better than being good."

Aziraphale nods, slowly, pressing his lips together, massaging that point in the centre of his sternum. He hopes his body is working properly, that it's not breaking, it has seen a lot of stress recently. It's hardly like he can go to Heaven and ask for a new one now. Perhaps he could ask Adam, who seems to have forgiven him for trying to blow him up with an antique blunderbuss, bless the child.

Crowley says again, very quietly, "Why would you think you would be a disappointment?"

Aziraphale thinks of Heaven, the cavernous empty spaces in which disdain leaves such an echo. "Have you done it? Had - sex?"

"Don't change the subject."

"I'm not changing the subject, this is the subject. You know I haven't - been with anybody, I'm an angel." Was an angel. Might be an angel. He rubs his chest, maybe this is what humans mean by heartburn, he feels dreadful. "Have you?"

Crowley levers himself up on an arm. "Are you alright?"

"Don't you change the subject, Crowley."

"Your heart's going like mad. Are you alright? Do you want to - we can leave. We don't have to stay here if you really don't like it."

"But then you wouldn't get to sleep which you insist you would like to do even though there seems to be an awful lot of talking and not very much sleeping going on right now."

"I love it when you get cross," Crowley says. "You're like an angry meringue."

"Crowley!"

"Alright, yes, a few times, it was one of the easiest ways to tempt in the old days, now you have more of a job keeping them off you, hardly seems worth the tempting. You wouldn't like it. It's very human, very - undignified. And messy. Not even all the humans like it and they've got the proper hormones and everything, I can't see you enjoying it."

Looking at the floor, the ceiling, the window, the tips of his shoes, Aziraphale asks while very shy of the answer, "Did you like it?"

"I don't like undignified and messy either."

". . . no. Quite." Aziraphale risks a glance at Crowley's face, which is furrowed with worry.

"What's - this?" Crowley hovers a hand above Aziraphale's, on his chest. "You're not going to freak out if I touch you."

"I don't 'freak out'." Aziraphale huffs, and Crowley just cocks him an excessively amused eyebrow, and lays his hand on his, over his chest. Crowley's skin is a little cool - he is a snake, underneath it - and his touch has weight, it's grounding, it relaxes him a little. Aziraphale blinks, and suddenly he understands tiredness, in a way he hasn't in a very long time.

"What's wrong?" Crowley says, so gently, like it's all he cares about in the world.

Aziraphale shakes his head a little, can't seem to work out what to do with his mouth, says, "It'll seem - very silly. To you. To anyone, I suppose, after what I've done."

"Just spit it out, angel."

"That's - the problem, Crowley, I don't - know that I am. An angel. Now. I mean, Heaven . . ."

Crowley is just watching his face, not saying anything. Aziraphale feels like an idiot, swallows and keeps his eyes on the wall, away from Crowley. He really is a fool, worrying about this to a Fallen angel. "Heaven won't have me back. And regardless, I don't want to go back." Crowley's hand on his feels so very natural, it's funny, it's maybe the first time they've ever touched for no reason other than affection - not to stay together when crossing a crowded street, not to stop each other from walking ahead, not shaking hands on an Arrangement, just touching because they want to. Six thousand years and did Aziraphale really ever think that Crowley was rushing things? "So I don't -" The panic rushes up, sickening, his head feels heavy, light, wrong, there's a pulsing in his ears like saltwater. "I don't know that I am an angel anymore. I don't know what I am."

"You're not a demon," Crowley says. "You'd know if you'd Fallen. Trust me."

"I'm -" He closes his eyes at the sheer weight of the panic, and gestures awkwardly with his free hand. "It feels awful. The not knowing. I think - all I ever wanted was to be - be sure. To trust. And now I don't know what I . . ."

"We don't have to worry about what any of it means anymore. Angels and demons and - that's their game, we're not playing." Crowley shrugs one skinny shoulder, and his thumb - oh gentle as the graze of a snowflake, soft as his voice - strokes the side of Aziraphale's hand. "We can just be us."

"But I don't know what I am, they always told me -"

"I know what you are." Aziraphale looks at him at that, and Crowley looks serious, and certain. "I know," the demon says. "Come on, angel. You've been disobeying them since they first gave you that sword but your wings are still white. Whatever She's thinking, She knows as well as I do that you are sickeningly good at heart, so just - just chill out. We can work all the rest out in the morning but the last thing either of us needs to worry about is whether or not you deserve your halo. Do you really think those other angels are nicer than you?"

Aziraphale thinks about what those angels would do to Crowley if they got hold of him; or, for that matter, if they got hold of him. ". . . no," he says softly, watching every expression move through Crowley's face, the furious certainty of him, that he knows, even if Aziraphale is doubting. "No, I don't . . . think that." He's brave, and takes his hand out from underneath Crowley's so that he can press Crowley's palm directly to his chest where the panic is faltering, and hold it there while he awkwardly shuffles and turns to his side so he can face Crowley, look him directly in the eye, mystified as ever by him so close.

He's always tried so hard, always wanted so much to trust in something; Heaven, the ineffable plan, God, duty, the greater good, through every doubt and temptation he's tried so hard to trust and be good. Now he looks into Crowley's golden eyes and feels the panic beat down, settle, rest; now, he decides with his breath drawing in, now he will trust in Crowley, and that will be what makes things alright.

He smiles at him, and squeezes his hand a little, and Crowley looks dumb for a moment before he smiles back, and says quietly, "There."

"There," Aziraphale confirms, calmer now. Crowley's smile twitches, and he closes his eyes, gives his long body another stre-etch down the bed. With Crowley's eyes closed Aziraphale can submit to the very old temptation of openly looking at Crowley's mouth, which has always given him feelings he didn't quite understand. For a very long time he didn't allow himself to think at all about why he wanted to look at it, and in recent decades he's settled for simply not acting on any of the feelings he gets when he looks at it. He says, a little drunk on honesty and proximity to Crowley, "I think I'd like to try kissing."

Crowley's eyes open, wide, then amused. "Would you," he says.

"Not now. Sometime." Aziraphale shrugs in a helpless way. "At some point. Eventually."

"We have plenty of time," Crowley purrs, and it is a purr. "All the time in the world."

"I've done that before," Aziraphale says. "Well, on the cheek. It was quite the thing for greeting at one point. I liked that." He's never kissed Crowley on the cheek, and feels flushed at the thought; he honestly doesn't know how humans manage to have sex, the thought of the intimacy of kissing Crowley's cheek makes him feel ignited all the way through, combustible, it's too much even before all of the extra fleshy nonsense of copulation comes in. Crowley's grin stays wide and wicked as he closes his eyes again, and he says only, "Mm."

There's quiet, then, Crowley apparently deciding to sleep after all, Aziraphale just watching him, Crowley's face relaxed in a way he doesn't usually wear it. Crowley is not, Aziraphale thinks, obviously handsome in the way that humans judge these things, they seem to go for chiselled jaws and broad shoulders and probably not big yellow snake eyes, but he finds him beautiful. There is something sculptural about Crowley's face, it should be carved, not painted; the three-dimensionality of it, the subtle asymmetry, the touchableness of it, he wants to run a crooked finger down the plane of his cheek, a fingertip down the length of his nose, smooth his brow with the pad of his thumbs; he very much would like to touch his lips. He doesn't. They have eternity for him to feel like this is the moment when he does all of those things, but for now he's happy just looking, because of everything he could have lost, they both could have lost, all the world would have burned and for all Crowley talked of fleeing, where would he really go?

Aziraphale swallows, hard, around the feeling of painful gratitude that the world has been saved so that Crowley still exists. He hardly knows what the world without Crowley is like, they've known each other for so long. He never knew him in Heaven before the Fall, the first war, all of that terrible, horrible mess. He does wonder what would have happened if they'd met before then. Perhaps Crowley never would have Fallen.

Perhaps Aziraphale would.

He looks down at Crowley's hand settled happy to his chest and the smile comes broader, warmed by the magic of such a simple touch, and he says, "Does this count as cuddling? I've never done that before."

Crowley's mouth does a surprised twitch and his forehead furrows, but he doesn't open his eyes. "I don't think this counts. I think you need to be a bit more - embraced, for 'cuddling'."

He says 'cuddling' like he's cutting the word, like he can't say it in seriousness. Aziraphale says, softly, "Oh."

Silence.

Crowley does not open his eyes, and clears his throat. "Would you . . . like to?"

Aziraphale smiles; the patience works both ways between them, because if he can wait then Crowley always will give him what he wants, the dear. "Yes, I think I would."

And Crowley's hand leaves his chest, and curls around his side like a snake, and at first Aziraphale's body shocks to the touch but then he's already been yanked inwards - he makes a little noise of surprise, only a little one, he hopes Crowley doesn't notice - and the demon is nuzzling his cheek into Aziraphale's breastbone, arms tucked determinedly around his waist, one leg slithering over Aziraphale's ankles. "This," Crowley says in a tone of voice that means on one level 'if you tell anybody about this then I will cut you' and on a deeper level means 'please make this just our thing, between us, please don't ever tell anyone I said this', "is how you cuddle, angel."

Aziraphale's body remains rigid for a few seconds more as he works out whether he likes being so entirely encoiled, blinking at the headboard, and then he decides that he does; he relaxes, breath sighing out, looks down at Crowley's messy dark hair, touches his head, gingerly at first in warning. Then he slips his arms around Crowley's neck and shoulders, a hand to the back of his head, tucking him gently in.

He allows his fingers to play a little up and down the short hair at the back of Crowley's head, which feels very nice, and makes Crowley make a noise that sounds like 'ngk', muffled to Aziraphale's shirt. Aziraphale says, "This is nice."

Crowley makes another noise, vaguely affirmative, a bit strangled. Aziraphale continues stroking his hair, searching for the name of what he's feeling, laying on a hotel room bed and cuddling a demon with all the forces of Heaven and Hell hating them both with fiery eternal fury and the apocalypse so close to their backs that his wings still feel scorched. He runs his knuckles up and down the back of Crowley's hair and Crowley gives a soft, low moan.

Bliss, Aziraphale thinks. That's what this is. It's as good as a comfy couch and fresh cup of cocoa and new book just opened and two empty days ahead to read it in. This is blissful.

Nothing is fixed, nothing is settled. There are still Heaven and Hell to deal with, they need to work out how they can keep a general eye on the Antichrist who is a sweet boy but will be a teenager soon and that's going to be hellish, pun entirely intended. They need to work out how to stay safe and protect each other, and what they're going to do with the rest of eternity if they survive that long, and Aziraphale needs to find out if any book anywhere has any tips about kissing on the mouth. He hates uncertainty, the unmoored feeling, not knowing that he is a part of the greater good, that there is a Plan and he's doing his duty by it, that still feels awful, horrible. But the feeling of dread has lowered from high in his chest and unbearable to lower in his stomach, and background; the presence of Crowley is more immediate. Crowley's body has relaxed now, Aziraphale can feel the tiredness in him, his poor Crowley; he strokes his hair, murmurs, "Go to sleep." The darling man stopped time for him this afternoon, no wonder he's so tired. "Go to sleep."

Aziraphale doesn't sleep, though he feels it when Crowley does, limp and cradled to him, safe in an angel's arms. For once in his life Aziraphale has not brought a book with him but he hardly minds, he has a lot to think about. Crowley is a lot of it. Having turned his back on Heaven - and oh, his bookshop, all gone, he can't even think about it yet - being cast out even if not Fallen, Crowley is the only thing that Aziraphale has in all of creation; but it's more than that. Of course it's more than that. He knows that Crowley understands that, though Aziraphale is still helplessly trying to work out how to express it. They are both creatures made for worship. Aziraphale holds him, and feels more than he knows how to bear, let alone say.

Crowley sleeps and Aziraphale holds him gently, and strokes his hair, and broods through the night on how he can keep him safe from Hell, because there'll be no mercy from that quarter, no forgiveness. Nor from Heaven, he knows, and it hurts after all of his existence to know that he will never be forgiven this. He tried so hard, worked so hard, all for them, well mostly for them, he never took the one thing that he really wanted, only for them. Well. He doesn't have to look to them for the difference between right and wrong now. Crowley and Aziraphale will decide on that. Somewhere in the balance between them Aziraphale thinks that goodness will find its point of rest.

He mulls over Agnes' final prophecy. He does not want Crowley to die, and he needs to dredge up from somewhere the intelligence that Crowley thinks is in him. And somewhere around the dawn, when the confused but obedient bus driver in the car park is using his newspaper as a pillow, the passengers are sleeping in their seats with their coats over themselves and the demon is still breathing slow and easy to Aziraphale's chest, he thinks - Oh.

Oh.

Oh that'll be rather jolly, won't it . . .