Happy Holidays, eldanis!
Title: And Pardon'd the Deceiver
Recipient: eldanis
Author: irisbleufic
Pairing: Aziraphale/Crowley
Rating: R
Word Count: 3,000
Author's Notes: I'd love something with Aziraphale being a (possibly inept, but quite possibly not) Shakespeare fanboy and would-be thespian, as there is definitely evidence that he enjoys performing (Warlock's birthday party), happens to be hilariously terrible at it, and that he's somewhat unable to see that fact through his own gravitas; I want to see him reading or performing Shakespeare (play/character/etc. of your choice-surprise me!) Although you may not be terribly surprised at which of your prompt options I went with, recipient mine, I live in hope that you may be surprised by which play elbowed its way to becoming this eleventh-hour production. Happy Christmas!
Summary: There's doing it wrong, and there's doing it together.
The suggestion was innocuous enough, in much the same way that nearly everything else Aziraphale said or did was seemingly innocuous. Of course, one had to keep in mind that seemingly was the operative word. Crowley grudgingly had to admit that love often resulted in selective amnesia. He tended to toss it in the same bucket of failings occupied by his fondness for small intelligent animals, well-mannered children, and terrestrial life-forms in general.
“Why don't you come along, my dear?” asked Aziraphale, adjusting his scarf. “Auditioners appreciate an audience, especially when they've got nobody along for moral support.”
“You're asking me?” Crowley remarked, idly flipping channels. He'd heard there was a River Monsters marathon on BBC Two, although he hoped the one about piranhas wasn't on the docket. He curled into the corner of the sofa, wrapping himself more snugly in the quilt he'd dragged out of the closet. It had been a recent gift from Madame Tracy, and while her handiwork left something to be desired, none of the fabric was synthetic, and it was the thought that counted.
Aziraphale wandered into his field of vision, blocking the telly, and bent to kiss him on the forehead. He muttered and tried to squirm away, but only half-heartedly. The end result was Aziraphale sitting down with a huffy sigh and Crowley sprawling across his lap.
“I've got to be there in twenty minutes,” Aziraphale reminded him, ruffling Crowley's hair. “I'd like to watch the others before going myself. Just to see what I'm up against, you understand.”
Crowley rolled over onto his back, one cheek smashed against Aziraphale's belly.
“Then you'd better start walking, eh?” he said with a yawn, cozy enough to sleep.
“I can leave fifteen minutes later than I'd planned if you drive me,” Aziraphale replied, idly trailing his left hand from where it had rested on Crowley's hip down to the folds of quilt bunched between Crowley's legs. “And if you stay to watch, we'll get home all the quicker afterward.”
Hissing, Crowley twisted into the touch with an involuntary jerk of his hips.
“Unconscionable,” he murmured, rucking up Aziraphale's jumper to mouth at soft skin. “Preying on unsuspecting souls who've just settled in for some mindless nature programmes...”
He got Aziraphale to the theatre five minutes late, smug and somewhat short of breath.
“Won't you stay?” Aziraphale asked, opening the passenger-side door. “It'll be more interesting than four hours of Jeremy Wade. Besides, you've seen every single episode in existence.”
Crowley tapped the steering wheel and guiltily chewed his lower lip.
“Dammit,” he said, jamming the Bentley into park. “All right.”
A dozy, kind old lady whom Crowley didn't recognize handed them both thick, stapled packets of A4 paper on their way through the door. He flipped through the pages, lagging a bit behind Aziraphale as they made their way down the stage-right aisle. The place was dusty and smelled of floor wax, most lights dimmed except for those directly over the proscenium. The building had seen better days, or so the neighbors said, having once been a run-down local cinema.
“Whose idea was it to stage The Tempest in March?” Crowley asked nobody in particular. “And who runs auditions and starts rehearsing two weeks before Christmas, anyway?”
“Someone rather intelligent, that's who,” said Aziraphale, hustling him down the fifth row back and pushing him into a squeaky, uncomfortable seat. “Now, shhh. They're starting.”
The young woman on the stage gave a stammering introduction to the director, the back of whose head Crowley could see perfectly from where he sat. Her hair was salt-and-pepper black, coarse, and wavy; he could discern from her hands on he clipboard that she was past middle age, but nowhere near as ancient as the woman volunteering out front. The youth reading Ferdinand opposite the girl's terrified Miranda introduced himself far too softly.
“Speak up, lad,” said the director in a thick Sheffield accent. “I don't bite.”
This ought to be worth the price of admission, Crowley thought, chin in hand.
Aziraphale stroked Crowley's arm, watching as the pair began to read (badly).
Annoyingly enough, the proceedings were amusing to watch. The couple who'd gone first didn't stand a chance, especially not against the blonde Belfast girl and a young dark-skinned man whose unexpected stage presence had the director riveted. The usual rogues' gallery of local has-beens had turned out, and Crowley, lightly dozing on Aziraphale's shoulder by the thick of it, was sure they'd populate the more ridiculous and doddering roles on offer with suitable aplomb.
They were down to the third-to-last hopeful when Aziraphale shook him awake.
“I'm, er, up in two,” he said apologetically, and gave Crowley a worried grin.
Crowley sat up straight, rubbed his eyes, and abruptly realized-
“Glasses,” he whispered, rising, and made for the opposite aisle. “Shit.”
Aziraphale followed him as far as the back of the theatre, tugging on his sleeve.
“Nobody's paying any attention,” he said, desperately clutching Crowley's hand. “I know there are out-of-towners, but none of them have given us a second glance. I wouldn't worry-”
“Right here,” Crowley said, shaking him off, and folded his arms. “No further.”
Aziraphale sighed and nodded, shrugging out of his coat. He handed it to Crowley, draped his scarf around Crowley's neck, and agitatedly shuffled the hodgepodge script of scene selections.
“What will you read?” Crowley asked, shifting Aziraphale's coat to the crook of his arm.
“The exchange beginning with Ariel's entrance,” Aziraphale replied, running a visibly frazzled hand through his fly-away hair. “I suspect the director will have to read opposite my Prospero.”
“An island-sprite with a Yorkshire burr,” mused Crowley. “Fascinating.”
“Are you and your fellow quite finished back there, Mr. Fell?” called the director.
She was standing directly down the aisle from them, hands on broad hips, and Crowley could see her face clearly for the first time. She had enviable, striking features framed by wavy, black chin-length hair. Her eyes were lighter than he would have expected, warm hazel-green behind her reading glasses. She smiled at them.
“Ah, er, yes,” Aziraphale said, advancing a few steps in her direction. “I thought we had Miss Weston still to go? Is she not reading for Caliban and one of the nymphs?”
“I let her go early,” said the director. “Lost her voice, the poor thing. She can read for me over the weekend. You were too busy fussing over...” Her steps slowed as she approached Aziraphale, and she walked straight past him, quick eyes fixed suddenly on Crowley. “I don't believe we've met.”
Crowley turned his head to one side and lowered his glance, re-folding Aziraphale's coat.
“We won't have done,” he said dismissively. “I haven't volunteered with the company.”
“Rani, dear girl,” Aziraphale began, “if you insist on badgering him-”
“Look at me,” she said, arms folded, her voice luminous with curiosity.
Crowley sighed and faced forward, chin tucked low, and met her gaze.
“Anthony,” he said. “Anthony Crowley. Er. Just Crowley, really.”
Rani reached with her gold-ringed right hand and lifted his chin, smiling kindly.
“It's a pleasure to meet you,” she told him. “Now, get up there and read with your man.”
“Right,” Crowley muttered, draping Aziraphale's coat across the nearest seat.
Aziraphale was already onstage, clutching the script with a hint of nervousness.
Rani followed Crowley down to the front and put a script in his hand, resuming her seat while he climbed the stage-right stairs and realized belatedly that Aziraphale's scarf was still around his neck.
“It's just us,” Rani told them, and Crowley shaded his eyes to squint down at her under the lights' hot glare. “Well, us and Letitia out there on the door.” On Rani's tongue, the conspiratorially repeated word emerged sounding more like oohz: northern, clipped, and intimate. “Right, then! Who's reading what?”
“Prospero, if you don't mind,” said Aziraphale, over-assertively.
“That leaves me with Ariel,” Crowley said. “For the record, I'm not trying out.”
“Maybe not,” replied Rani, winking at him. “But you're reading.”
“Come away, my servant, come; I am ready now,” Aziraphale cut in.
Crowley gaped at him for a moment and then blinked at the script.
“Um,” he said, frantically flipping pages. “Just a minute-”
“Approach, my Ariel. Come.”
“All hail, great master!” said Crowley, irritably, more or less from memory, “Grave sir, hail! I come to answer thy best pleasure, be 't to fly-” he paused, folding back the few remaining pages, and caught up “-to swim, to dive into the fire-” he made a face, because, just, no, his days of doing that were long over “-to ride on the curl'd clouds. To do thy strong bidding, task Ariel and all his quality.”
Down in the front row, Rani made a startled, thoughtful sound.
Aziraphale gave him an unsettled, piercing look, more honest than acted.
“Hast thou, spirit, perform'd to point the tempest that I bade thee?”
Crowley shut his eyes for a few seconds and stood his ground. His next reply was something of a speech, consisting of ten or twelve lines at least, and subservience would not suit.
“To every article,” he snapped, launching into a veritable laundry-list of retorts. “I boarded the king's ship; now on the deck, now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin, I flam'd amazement.” He ignored Rani's sudden snort of laughter and ploughed on. “Sometime I'd divide, and burn in many places-on the topmast, the yards and bowsprit would I flame distinctly, then meet and join. Jove's lightnings, the precursors o' the dreadful thunder-claps, more momentary and sight-outrunning were not; the fire and cracks of sulphurous roaring the mos mighty Neptune seem to besiege, and make his bold waves tremble-yea, his dread trident shake.”
“Pick it up,” said Rani, encouragingly. “You can go even faster than that.”
“My brave spirit!” Aziraphale exclaimed, drawing nearer, “Who was so firm, so constant, that this coil would not infect his reason?” The taunt was sly, yet oddly appealing.
“Not a soul but felt the fever of the mad,” replied Crowley, crossing downstage, “and play'd some tricks of desperation. All but mariners plung'd in the foaming brine and quit the vessel, then all afire with me. The King's son, Ferdinand, with hair up-staring-then like reeds, not hair!-was the first man that leap'd, cried, Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.”
He stopped, short of breath, and crossed back to Aziraphale with hesitant steps.
“Why, that's my spirit,” said the angel, gently, extending his hand. “But was not this nigh shore?”
Crowley nodded, not quite smiling. He could easily draw this out.
“Close by, my master.”
“But are they, Ariel, safe?”
“Not a hair perish'd! On their sustaining garments, not a blemish, but fresher than before; and, as thou bad'st me, in troops I have dispers'd them 'bout the isle. The King's son have I landed by himself...”
They easily fell into the exchange of who-had-landed-where-and-in-what-state, for when had they ever found such a thing other than second nature? Aziraphale parried Crowley's delivery of Ariel's proud, eager claims with cool, restrained admiration, although his intrinsic fondness tainted the great magician's reserve with delightful irony.
We play them mad for each other, Crowley thought, rattling off the fate of the harbor-beached flagship and Naples-bound fleet. Constantly in orbit and almost never touching, with words upon words striving for a kiss.
In his peripheral vision, Crowley could see Rani standing at the foot of the stage with one hand over her mouth: watching Crowley's every move, anticipating what Aziraphale would say next.
“Ariel, thy charge exactly is perform'd, but there's more work. What is the time o' the day?”
“Past the mid season,” Crowley replied, trying for nonchalance, but the phrase was heavy.
“At least two glasses,” agreed Aziraphale, gravely, but with a hint of mischief. “The time 'twixt six and now must by us both be spent most preciously...”
Oh, sod you, Crowley thought, adding an ellipsis where there's none. “Is there more toil?” he asked innocently. “Since thou dost give me pains, let me remember thee what thou hast promis'd, which is not yet...perform'd me.”
Aziraphale actually gaped at him, and then indignantly sucked in his breath.
“How now? Moody? What is 't thou canst demand?”
Crowley gave Aziraphale his saddest, fondest smile; in this, there was no pretending, for the memories it was bound to bring down on them both were even heavier still, and, yes, precious.
“My liberty,” he said, finding the taste of it strange even now.
Aziraphale's expression clashed jarringly with the next line, unexpected and moving.
“Before the time be out? No more!”
“I prithee, remember I have done thee worthy service, told thee no lies, made thee no mistakings, serv'd without grudge or grumblings. Thou did promise-”
“Dost thou forget from what a torment I did free thee?” asked Aziraphale, softly.
“No,” Crowley said, no longer reading off the page. He hadn't been for some time.
“Stop,” Rani said, and both of them jumped. “You can stop right there, that's quite enough, good night. I've got plenty to think about, no two ways about it. Give me those scripts, lads, and get out of here. Well, shoo. Off home with you!”
They left Rani to her sudden, fitful brooding as she moved about to collect discarded scripts.
Crowley let Aziraphale whisk him up the aisle with one possessive arm about his waist; they made it to the lobby just in time to give Letitia something to gawk at, so Crowley broke away with a muttered, doubly-intended apology and went back to fetch Aziraphale's coat. They left the theatre in silence, hands in pockets, neither one of them wishing to scandalize the old lady any further.
The drive home consisted of five whole minutes' pensive, torturous silence.
“Well, that happened,” Crowley said, skidding them to a halt in the drive. He got out of the car and released a tremulous plume of breath in the frozen air. “I'm not one for leading roles. Put me in the background as an extra-or, better yet, stick me behind the scenes-and everything's fine. Shove me out front, though, and that's blatantly courting disaster. You should know.”
“I think,” said Aziraphale, crunching his way around the Bentley (cold sand, grit, and gravel glittering with frost underfoot), “that you sorely underestimate your capacity to captivate.”
They made their way up the walk in silence, arm in arm, listening to the sea's constant murmur.
Crowley pinned him against the front door. “If she casts us, angel, so help me-”
“But imagine,” said Aziraphale, framing his face. “Just imagine what we could do.”
Crowley fumbled his key into the lock, twisted it, and they both stumbled awkwardly inside.
“At least for now,” he said, “I'm far more interested in doing than in imagining.”
“My brave spirit,” Aziraphale murmured, drawing him on toward promise. “Indeed.”
-Flashback Extra: The Form of An Apple-
Recipient: eldanis
Author: irisbleufic
Pairing: Aziraphale/Crowley
Rating: R
Word Count: 3,000
Author's Notes: I'd love something with Aziraphale being a (possibly inept, but quite possibly not) Shakespeare fanboy and would-be thespian, as there is definitely evidence that he enjoys performing (Warlock's birthday party), happens to be hilariously terrible at it, and that he's somewhat unable to see that fact through his own gravitas; I want to see him reading or performing Shakespeare (play/character/etc. of your choice-surprise me!) Although you may not be terribly surprised at which of your prompt options I went with, recipient mine, I live in hope that you may be surprised by which play elbowed its way to becoming this eleventh-hour production. Happy Christmas!
Summary: There's doing it wrong, and there's doing it together.
The suggestion was innocuous enough, in much the same way that nearly everything else Aziraphale said or did was seemingly innocuous. Of course, one had to keep in mind that seemingly was the operative word. Crowley grudgingly had to admit that love often resulted in selective amnesia. He tended to toss it in the same bucket of failings occupied by his fondness for small intelligent animals, well-mannered children, and terrestrial life-forms in general.
“Why don't you come along, my dear?” asked Aziraphale, adjusting his scarf. “Auditioners appreciate an audience, especially when they've got nobody along for moral support.”
“You're asking me?” Crowley remarked, idly flipping channels. He'd heard there was a River Monsters marathon on BBC Two, although he hoped the one about piranhas wasn't on the docket. He curled into the corner of the sofa, wrapping himself more snugly in the quilt he'd dragged out of the closet. It had been a recent gift from Madame Tracy, and while her handiwork left something to be desired, none of the fabric was synthetic, and it was the thought that counted.
Aziraphale wandered into his field of vision, blocking the telly, and bent to kiss him on the forehead. He muttered and tried to squirm away, but only half-heartedly. The end result was Aziraphale sitting down with a huffy sigh and Crowley sprawling across his lap.
“I've got to be there in twenty minutes,” Aziraphale reminded him, ruffling Crowley's hair. “I'd like to watch the others before going myself. Just to see what I'm up against, you understand.”
Crowley rolled over onto his back, one cheek smashed against Aziraphale's belly.
“Then you'd better start walking, eh?” he said with a yawn, cozy enough to sleep.
“I can leave fifteen minutes later than I'd planned if you drive me,” Aziraphale replied, idly trailing his left hand from where it had rested on Crowley's hip down to the folds of quilt bunched between Crowley's legs. “And if you stay to watch, we'll get home all the quicker afterward.”
Hissing, Crowley twisted into the touch with an involuntary jerk of his hips.
“Unconscionable,” he murmured, rucking up Aziraphale's jumper to mouth at soft skin. “Preying on unsuspecting souls who've just settled in for some mindless nature programmes...”
He got Aziraphale to the theatre five minutes late, smug and somewhat short of breath.
“Won't you stay?” Aziraphale asked, opening the passenger-side door. “It'll be more interesting than four hours of Jeremy Wade. Besides, you've seen every single episode in existence.”
Crowley tapped the steering wheel and guiltily chewed his lower lip.
“Dammit,” he said, jamming the Bentley into park. “All right.”
A dozy, kind old lady whom Crowley didn't recognize handed them both thick, stapled packets of A4 paper on their way through the door. He flipped through the pages, lagging a bit behind Aziraphale as they made their way down the stage-right aisle. The place was dusty and smelled of floor wax, most lights dimmed except for those directly over the proscenium. The building had seen better days, or so the neighbors said, having once been a run-down local cinema.
“Whose idea was it to stage The Tempest in March?” Crowley asked nobody in particular. “And who runs auditions and starts rehearsing two weeks before Christmas, anyway?”
“Someone rather intelligent, that's who,” said Aziraphale, hustling him down the fifth row back and pushing him into a squeaky, uncomfortable seat. “Now, shhh. They're starting.”
The young woman on the stage gave a stammering introduction to the director, the back of whose head Crowley could see perfectly from where he sat. Her hair was salt-and-pepper black, coarse, and wavy; he could discern from her hands on he clipboard that she was past middle age, but nowhere near as ancient as the woman volunteering out front. The youth reading Ferdinand opposite the girl's terrified Miranda introduced himself far too softly.
“Speak up, lad,” said the director in a thick Sheffield accent. “I don't bite.”
This ought to be worth the price of admission, Crowley thought, chin in hand.
Aziraphale stroked Crowley's arm, watching as the pair began to read (badly).
Annoyingly enough, the proceedings were amusing to watch. The couple who'd gone first didn't stand a chance, especially not against the blonde Belfast girl and a young dark-skinned man whose unexpected stage presence had the director riveted. The usual rogues' gallery of local has-beens had turned out, and Crowley, lightly dozing on Aziraphale's shoulder by the thick of it, was sure they'd populate the more ridiculous and doddering roles on offer with suitable aplomb.
They were down to the third-to-last hopeful when Aziraphale shook him awake.
“I'm, er, up in two,” he said apologetically, and gave Crowley a worried grin.
Crowley sat up straight, rubbed his eyes, and abruptly realized-
“Glasses,” he whispered, rising, and made for the opposite aisle. “Shit.”
Aziraphale followed him as far as the back of the theatre, tugging on his sleeve.
“Nobody's paying any attention,” he said, desperately clutching Crowley's hand. “I know there are out-of-towners, but none of them have given us a second glance. I wouldn't worry-”
“Right here,” Crowley said, shaking him off, and folded his arms. “No further.”
Aziraphale sighed and nodded, shrugging out of his coat. He handed it to Crowley, draped his scarf around Crowley's neck, and agitatedly shuffled the hodgepodge script of scene selections.
“What will you read?” Crowley asked, shifting Aziraphale's coat to the crook of his arm.
“The exchange beginning with Ariel's entrance,” Aziraphale replied, running a visibly frazzled hand through his fly-away hair. “I suspect the director will have to read opposite my Prospero.”
“An island-sprite with a Yorkshire burr,” mused Crowley. “Fascinating.”
“Are you and your fellow quite finished back there, Mr. Fell?” called the director.
She was standing directly down the aisle from them, hands on broad hips, and Crowley could see her face clearly for the first time. She had enviable, striking features framed by wavy, black chin-length hair. Her eyes were lighter than he would have expected, warm hazel-green behind her reading glasses. She smiled at them.
“Ah, er, yes,” Aziraphale said, advancing a few steps in her direction. “I thought we had Miss Weston still to go? Is she not reading for Caliban and one of the nymphs?”
“I let her go early,” said the director. “Lost her voice, the poor thing. She can read for me over the weekend. You were too busy fussing over...” Her steps slowed as she approached Aziraphale, and she walked straight past him, quick eyes fixed suddenly on Crowley. “I don't believe we've met.”
Crowley turned his head to one side and lowered his glance, re-folding Aziraphale's coat.
“We won't have done,” he said dismissively. “I haven't volunteered with the company.”
“Rani, dear girl,” Aziraphale began, “if you insist on badgering him-”
“Look at me,” she said, arms folded, her voice luminous with curiosity.
Crowley sighed and faced forward, chin tucked low, and met her gaze.
“Anthony,” he said. “Anthony Crowley. Er. Just Crowley, really.”
Rani reached with her gold-ringed right hand and lifted his chin, smiling kindly.
“It's a pleasure to meet you,” she told him. “Now, get up there and read with your man.”
“Right,” Crowley muttered, draping Aziraphale's coat across the nearest seat.
Aziraphale was already onstage, clutching the script with a hint of nervousness.
Rani followed Crowley down to the front and put a script in his hand, resuming her seat while he climbed the stage-right stairs and realized belatedly that Aziraphale's scarf was still around his neck.
“It's just us,” Rani told them, and Crowley shaded his eyes to squint down at her under the lights' hot glare. “Well, us and Letitia out there on the door.” On Rani's tongue, the conspiratorially repeated word emerged sounding more like oohz: northern, clipped, and intimate. “Right, then! Who's reading what?”
“Prospero, if you don't mind,” said Aziraphale, over-assertively.
“That leaves me with Ariel,” Crowley said. “For the record, I'm not trying out.”
“Maybe not,” replied Rani, winking at him. “But you're reading.”
“Come away, my servant, come; I am ready now,” Aziraphale cut in.
Crowley gaped at him for a moment and then blinked at the script.
“Um,” he said, frantically flipping pages. “Just a minute-”
“Approach, my Ariel. Come.”
“All hail, great master!” said Crowley, irritably, more or less from memory, “Grave sir, hail! I come to answer thy best pleasure, be 't to fly-” he paused, folding back the few remaining pages, and caught up “-to swim, to dive into the fire-” he made a face, because, just, no, his days of doing that were long over “-to ride on the curl'd clouds. To do thy strong bidding, task Ariel and all his quality.”
Down in the front row, Rani made a startled, thoughtful sound.
Aziraphale gave him an unsettled, piercing look, more honest than acted.
“Hast thou, spirit, perform'd to point the tempest that I bade thee?”
Crowley shut his eyes for a few seconds and stood his ground. His next reply was something of a speech, consisting of ten or twelve lines at least, and subservience would not suit.
“To every article,” he snapped, launching into a veritable laundry-list of retorts. “I boarded the king's ship; now on the deck, now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin, I flam'd amazement.” He ignored Rani's sudden snort of laughter and ploughed on. “Sometime I'd divide, and burn in many places-on the topmast, the yards and bowsprit would I flame distinctly, then meet and join. Jove's lightnings, the precursors o' the dreadful thunder-claps, more momentary and sight-outrunning were not; the fire and cracks of sulphurous roaring the mos mighty Neptune seem to besiege, and make his bold waves tremble-yea, his dread trident shake.”
“Pick it up,” said Rani, encouragingly. “You can go even faster than that.”
“My brave spirit!” Aziraphale exclaimed, drawing nearer, “Who was so firm, so constant, that this coil would not infect his reason?” The taunt was sly, yet oddly appealing.
“Not a soul but felt the fever of the mad,” replied Crowley, crossing downstage, “and play'd some tricks of desperation. All but mariners plung'd in the foaming brine and quit the vessel, then all afire with me. The King's son, Ferdinand, with hair up-staring-then like reeds, not hair!-was the first man that leap'd, cried, Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.”
He stopped, short of breath, and crossed back to Aziraphale with hesitant steps.
“Why, that's my spirit,” said the angel, gently, extending his hand. “But was not this nigh shore?”
Crowley nodded, not quite smiling. He could easily draw this out.
“Close by, my master.”
“But are they, Ariel, safe?”
“Not a hair perish'd! On their sustaining garments, not a blemish, but fresher than before; and, as thou bad'st me, in troops I have dispers'd them 'bout the isle. The King's son have I landed by himself...”
They easily fell into the exchange of who-had-landed-where-and-in-what-state, for when had they ever found such a thing other than second nature? Aziraphale parried Crowley's delivery of Ariel's proud, eager claims with cool, restrained admiration, although his intrinsic fondness tainted the great magician's reserve with delightful irony.
We play them mad for each other, Crowley thought, rattling off the fate of the harbor-beached flagship and Naples-bound fleet. Constantly in orbit and almost never touching, with words upon words striving for a kiss.
In his peripheral vision, Crowley could see Rani standing at the foot of the stage with one hand over her mouth: watching Crowley's every move, anticipating what Aziraphale would say next.
“Ariel, thy charge exactly is perform'd, but there's more work. What is the time o' the day?”
“Past the mid season,” Crowley replied, trying for nonchalance, but the phrase was heavy.
“At least two glasses,” agreed Aziraphale, gravely, but with a hint of mischief. “The time 'twixt six and now must by us both be spent most preciously...”
Oh, sod you, Crowley thought, adding an ellipsis where there's none. “Is there more toil?” he asked innocently. “Since thou dost give me pains, let me remember thee what thou hast promis'd, which is not yet...perform'd me.”
Aziraphale actually gaped at him, and then indignantly sucked in his breath.
“How now? Moody? What is 't thou canst demand?”
Crowley gave Aziraphale his saddest, fondest smile; in this, there was no pretending, for the memories it was bound to bring down on them both were even heavier still, and, yes, precious.
“My liberty,” he said, finding the taste of it strange even now.
Aziraphale's expression clashed jarringly with the next line, unexpected and moving.
“Before the time be out? No more!”
“I prithee, remember I have done thee worthy service, told thee no lies, made thee no mistakings, serv'd without grudge or grumblings. Thou did promise-”
“Dost thou forget from what a torment I did free thee?” asked Aziraphale, softly.
“No,” Crowley said, no longer reading off the page. He hadn't been for some time.
“Stop,” Rani said, and both of them jumped. “You can stop right there, that's quite enough, good night. I've got plenty to think about, no two ways about it. Give me those scripts, lads, and get out of here. Well, shoo. Off home with you!”
They left Rani to her sudden, fitful brooding as she moved about to collect discarded scripts.
Crowley let Aziraphale whisk him up the aisle with one possessive arm about his waist; they made it to the lobby just in time to give Letitia something to gawk at, so Crowley broke away with a muttered, doubly-intended apology and went back to fetch Aziraphale's coat. They left the theatre in silence, hands in pockets, neither one of them wishing to scandalize the old lady any further.
The drive home consisted of five whole minutes' pensive, torturous silence.
“Well, that happened,” Crowley said, skidding them to a halt in the drive. He got out of the car and released a tremulous plume of breath in the frozen air. “I'm not one for leading roles. Put me in the background as an extra-or, better yet, stick me behind the scenes-and everything's fine. Shove me out front, though, and that's blatantly courting disaster. You should know.”
“I think,” said Aziraphale, crunching his way around the Bentley (cold sand, grit, and gravel glittering with frost underfoot), “that you sorely underestimate your capacity to captivate.”
They made their way up the walk in silence, arm in arm, listening to the sea's constant murmur.
Crowley pinned him against the front door. “If she casts us, angel, so help me-”
“But imagine,” said Aziraphale, framing his face. “Just imagine what we could do.”
Crowley fumbled his key into the lock, twisted it, and they both stumbled awkwardly inside.
“At least for now,” he said, “I'm far more interested in doing than in imagining.”
“My brave spirit,” Aziraphale murmured, drawing him on toward promise. “Indeed.”
-Flashback Extra: The Form of An Apple-