Cohen Collection: Brandy and Death
Title: Brandy and Death
Author: clodia_metelli.
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Aziraphale/War, Crowley/Mary Hodges, Death, OC.
Summary: Now in Vienna there's ten pretty women... a crossover, of sorts. Aziraphale learns how to waltz (badly); Crowley takes the former Sister Mary Loquacious to see something in an abandoned gallery; and Death's had a bad day at the office.
Disclaimer: I own neither Good Omens nor anything Leonard Cohen has ever sung, except in a strictly non-intellectual-property-related way, and I make nothing from this but my own entertainment. And possibly yours? It would be nice.
A/N: Crack, inspired partly by possibly_thrice's delightful sketch of Aziraphale and War, partly by the story she has so often lovingly outlined but not yet written of Crowley's ~epic romance~ with Mary Hodges, and partly by Leonard Cohen. ♥ A quick glance at Snow White and Rose Red might not go amiss, either.
Word Count: 1187
~ brandy and death ~
“In 1797, a gentleman called Wolf wrote about the waltz,” said Aziraphale, both loudly, because the concert hall was buzzing, and rather desperately, because it was not buzzing enough. It was hot and smoky and candles blazed overhead in an uncountable array of filigreed golden chandeliers. “His pamphlet was entitled ‘Proof that Waltzing is the Main Source of Weakness of the Body and Mind of our Generation’ -”
A portly gentleman swung past and glared at them. Aziraphale, attempting to avoid the gentleman’s equally portly partner, tripped over his own feet. He was then obliged to swallow a yelp when an exceedingly sharp heel descended, not gently, on his toes.
“Sorry,” said War, and removed it with an exquisitely judged flash of what would certainly have been an ankle, if she hadn’t been wearing thigh-high stiletto boots under her crimson ball gown. Her lipstick glistened like clotted blood. “Force of habit.”
Aziraphale hopped on his good foot and managed to suppress several quite inventive curses that would have surprised, for example, any demon currently engaged in tempting humans, or rather a human, in a gallery not so very far away. Her hand was steady under his elbow and disconcertingly strong, the red silk of her elbow-length glove shimmering liquescent in the warm candlelight.
“Look,” he said, giving up, “are you sure we couldn’t just have gone gavotting again -”
“Nope,” said War firmly. “That was last Wednesday. And the Wednesday before that. And the one before that. And -”
“Yes, all right,” sighed Aziraphale.
He set his foot gingerly down on the dance floor. “All right,” he said again, a little more confidently. Another couple spun past in a dazzle of sequins. “After all,” he added, “we are in Vienna. I should make some effort to vary my repertoire, I suppose.”
“That’s right,” said War. Her eyes caught the candlelight and glimmered brandy-golden. “So waltzing it is. And this time try not to fall over anything, there’s a good chap.”
*
The glass was bulbous, a balloon propped up on a slender stem. Liquid swirled enticingly. “Go on,” the demon was saying, “just a mouthful, it’s lovely,” and Mary Hodges, who had never really liked brandy, was thinking wistfully: I could really do with a nice cup of tea, all this tempting-and-being-tempted business is rather hard on the old nerves...
Crowley gave up sulkily. “Oh, all right,” he said. “I’ll have it, then.”
He tossed it back, his tongue curling snakishly against the inside of the glass. Mary shuddered a little.
“You know,” she said, “you don’t have to tempt me into something every time we go out. It’s getting repetitive.”
The demon looked rather embarrassed.
“Well, no,” he said. “But this way, I can put it on expenses.”
“Oh,” said Mary. “Right.”
“And anyway, Below doesn’t like us fraternising with the livestock, uh, I mean with humans, except in the way of business, uh,” said Crowley hurriedly. “Uh. How do you like Vienna?”
Mary looked around.
The long gallery was lined with white pillars, all shadowed and glistening in what little moonlight crept in through the windows that stood glassless like blinded eyes. Shards glittered in the diamond frost.
She said, doubtfully, “I thought we were going waltzing.”
Since she had dressed appropriately, horrible presentiments were currently assailing her concerning the effect of all this trekking through abandoned buildings on her blue ball gown’s satin skirts, let alone her best pair of evening shoes. Pine needles poked through the jagged edges of one of the broken windows and a bird lay dead beneath it, folded up in its own pale feathers. Like a tail, a ghostly path dragged through the icy muck carpeting the gallery’s marble floor behind them.
“Uh. Well, of course,” said Crowley. “I thought you might like to see this first... uh...”
Mary looked around the frosty gallery again, pointedly.
“... of course, it was different when I was here last...”
“Of course,” said Mary Hodges.
Demons! she was thinking; and also: what I really need right now is a nice cup of gin. Maybe a splash of tonic. A slice of lime wouldn’t go amiss, either.
“... there was this picture, I think it used to be over here...”
“But that’s just a window,” Mary started to say, and then she turned her head, just a fraction, and in the corner of her eye, the sun came up.
She blinked and stared. This window was one of the few that was still glazed. The darkness outside was overwhelming.
“No, not like that,” said Crowley beside her. “You can’t look at it straight on, you have to sort of squint -”
There it was again. Blue as a winter morning, the sun dazzling on fresh snow. Just in the corner of her eye, and now it wasn’t glass at all, it was -
Crowley caught her hand.
“Don’t touch it,” he said. “We never did work out who put it there, or why. But don’t touch it. You don’t know when it’s been.”
*
ANOTHER ONE, PLEASE.
“There y’go,” said the barman, in a language that might well have been German, once upon a time. “On the house.”
In this house, it always was. The angel of Death nodded gloomily and took the glass between his bony fingers.
THANK YOU, he said, and stared straight ahead for a while, until it apparently occurred to him that there was a drink on the bar in front of him. He drank it. Where it went at this point was hard to tell.
The barman poured him another glass of brandy. “Kids, eh?” he said, sympathetically.
YES, said Death, heavy as a gravestone. KIDS.
*
“- because of how close the dancers are, d’you see,” Aziraphale was saying as they stumbled down the concert hall’s steps. He was still flushed from the heat and the exertion and War warm against him, her hair a spill of burning silk over her burnished shoulders. They were arm-in-arm now, unsteady from liquor. “Ver’ bad, dear lady. Lewd. Thass what it is, lewd -”
War’s laughter was a chatter of rooks alighting on the battlefield.
“Sure,” she said, “lewd! Tell me about it!”
“Oh, but it is,” said the angel, feelingly. “It’s, well, it’s ver’ lewd - not like - not -”
“- not like the gavotte,” said War. “Yeah. I guessed.” She was grinning, though. “You were getting pretty good back there. Hardly trod on my feet at all.”
Aziraphale brightened up. “Do you think?”
“Would I lie?”
“Well, uh -”
There was brandy on her breath and she kissed like a bonfire: hot and smoky and burning for more. The wall was cold at his back. He was kissing her red mouth and the bronze of her neck and thinking uncertainly about sobering up, because he was an angel after all, it wasn’t the done thing, especially not in the street, not outside a Viennese hotel in the charcoal grey beyond a moon-drenched midnight -
War drew back, just a little.
“Hey,” she said, and grinned. “Come up, why don’t you? I’ll show you a couple more dances I know.”
Aziraphale decided he didn’t need to be sober quite yet.
“Oh,” he said, “well, dancing...”
On to Wild on My Shoulder
Back to the masterlist
Click to view