Happy Holidays, Sofie!
Title: Brown, Blue, Red, and Green
For: Sofie
Author: A Secret!
Beta: [REDACTED]
Rating: Gen
Pairings: Aziraphale/Crowley
Characters: Aziraphale, Crowley
Warnings: None
Summary: In search of new sights, Crowley and Aziraphale take the Bentley on a jaunt across the continental United States.
Author's Notes: For the prompt “Crowley and Aziraphale go on a road trip. I don't know how or why or where to, but they have to make this trip leading to being stuffed in the Bentley together for an extended period of time. Crowley worries about his plants, Aziraphale worries about his books. Bickering ensues, and also... feelings(!!!) Any rating.” Though I have road-tripped across the UK once, I’m a lot more familiar with American roads and topography, so I decided to stick our guys in good old Amurrica. Also, I’m sure both Crowley and Aziraphale have driven up and down the UK enough times they’d want to try something newish.
Somewhere in Nebraska
“This is depressing,” Crowley muttered, cruising down Interstate 80 at a leisurely 110 mph.
Aziraphale thought very briefly about saying something about the Glory of God’s Creation, just to annoy his traveling companion, before he lost interest and silently agreed. On one side of the highway there was a thin bank of trees, and on the other . . . practically nothing. Just grass and the occasional squat farmhouse off in the distance. He could see where the yellow-green earth met the horizon with almost no obstruction. At least the sky was very pretty: blue as anything and huge. Still, if you look at scenery for a long enough time it all starts to look like a boring postcard.
They’d been driving through the flatness of Midwest America for almost five hours.
“I suppose it could be worse,” Aziraphale said moodily. “We could have flown--"
“How on earth would taking a plane be worse than--oh, you mean flying. I guess you’re right. We would have missed out on those charming horse-drawn buggies in Pennsylvania.”
“What exactly is it with you and horses?”
“Not my fault they’re all terrified of me,” Crowley grumbled, making a heart-stopping swerve around a minivan peacefully trundling along at the actual speed-limit.
“I think you were aggravating them on purpose,” Aziraphale said.
“Hey, you get to stare at Amish quilts for two hours, I get to scare horses. Fair is fair,”
“They were lovely quilts,” Aziraphale snapped. “And there’s a quilt museum in Lincoln I want to visit.”
In truth, he wanted to do no such thing. What he wanted was to get to a B&B and settle down with some of the books he’d brought with him (and the few more he’d bought along the way). But the mention of a quilt museum made Crowley clench his jaw and slam on the gas, which was worth it.
Phoenix, Arizona
“This is unholy. It is so fucking hot. How is it 38 degrees here? How? What the fuck?” Aziraphale moaned. He was currently laid out on the kitchenette floor of their room. He wore only his underwear and had a freezer bag of ice on his forehead.
There was a reason he stayed in temperate zones. There were seasons, for example. All four of them! They lasted a sensible amount of time and didn’t require him to put forth extra effort in controlling his human body, which was convenient. He did like his body and took issue with how this flaming desert plain was treating it. It was very well suited to sitting in armchairs, reading, and walking at reasonable speeds. It was sturdy, had ergonomic rounded corners, and didn’t have even half the flash Crowley insisted on tacking on his form. Aziraphale knew how his body worked. For example, under most circumstances, he could regulate his own body temperature.
Phoenix apparently did not fall under ‘most circumstances’.
He adjusted his icepack and got a splash of lukewarm water in the face for his trouble. It seemed the ice had melted and was leaking out of the plastic bag. It hardly mattered. Lukewarm was pleasantly cool in comparison.
As was becoming their custom on this little sabbatical, they’d rented a room at a bed and breakfast. This particular bed and breakfast was run out of a quaint historical building. A historical building that, they’d noticed only after they’d settled in, had very spotty air conditioning.
Once again, under most circumstances, this wouldn’t be a problem. Crowley was very good with mechanical things and could keep a fifty-year-old radio producing ice-cool air for hours if he wanted. As it was, Crowley wasn’t there, and Aziraphale was left to struggle unsuccessfully with the terrible AC.
While the oppressive heat had made the angel sluggish and weak, it seemed to have the opposite effect on Crowley.
“I’mgoingtogoseethesightsdoyouwanttocome?” he said cheerily just before he’d left some hours before. Aziraphale, at that point already on the floor but still wearing most of his clothes, could only shake his head lamely.
“YourlossI’llbebackwheneverbye.”
Was it a demon thing or a snake thing? Aziraphale didn’t have the energy to think about it.
The sun was sinking by the time the demon got back. It was still bloody hot but Aziraphale had summoned up the gumption to run several cool baths in succession. He was on his fourth when Crowley came flouncing back in, laden with shopping bags and chattering away on his mobile.
“It’s absolutely hideous. It’s Hellish, ” he said from the bedroom after he’d hung up. “You would not believe the kind of tourist crap they sell out there. It’s amazing. The best part is that it’s all human. The ingenuity alone is just--oh. Sorry.”
For a split second Aziraphale felt the need to cover himself, with a washcloth perhaps, but the impulse passed. Crowley stared for a few seconds before darting away again, nattering away about how he could probably wrangle a commendation out of this horrible city if he pulled some strings.
In the other room, the AC kicked on full-blast. Aziraphale quietly submerged himself in the cool bathwater, sure that the sudden flush of warmth was just more of the Phoenix heat.
The Chihuahuan Desert
The desert was vast and open, but somehow managed to be less empty than the plains.
There was a lot of scrub and dust, but it was broken up by rolling red hills and craggy, purple mountain ranges. And the sunsets were lovely.
Not that either of them were in any mood to admire sunsets. They were too busy fighting over where the hell they were supposed to be going.
“Look, here’s the exit we were meant to take,” said Crowley, stabbing a finger at the atlas.
“That can’t be right. That would have taken us North, see here-“
“It turns back South after this town here, look-“
“We’ll just backtrack then.”
“I’m not doubling back; it’ll add at least another hour!”
“Oh so you want to be navigator now? Fine. Let me drive and you can read the bloody map.”
“Over my dead body.”
“That can be arranged, dear boy.”
They eventually did backtrack and find their way to the correct exit. When they finally arrived at their next B&B on the list, they took separate rooms.
U.S. Route 550, Uncompahgre Gorge
Crowley was hunched over the wheel, breathing hard. His knuckles were white and his dark face had an ashen look to it.
Aziraphale didn’t blame him. The view, straight down off the road and into the gorge below, was breathtaking. Literally.
No shoulder, no guardrails. Just one steep drop down and then a quick flight straight back up to explain to the Quartermaster why he needed a new body.
At least I would go back up, Aziraphale thought, feeling a little hysterical. Crowley would just keep going down and down… He firmly shook himself and took a healthy pull off the bottle of red he had clutched in his hands.
The Bentley suddenly jostled sharply, having hit a shallow pothole or stone in the road. The old car jumped a little and settled right back down again, no harm done. Regardless, as soon as they felt the bump, someone had let out a little shriek and someone had reached out and grabbed other other’s hand.
Hoh Rain Forest, Washington
After long stretches of desert and plain, the forest was astonishing. Everything from the seedling ferns to the trees was bursting with vitality. It was green, wet, and incredibly close.
"Reminds me of Jonah," Aziraphale said, picking gingerly over a snake-like jumble of roots.
"And why does it do that?" Crowley asked. He was dressed in extremely stylish hiking gear, which he'd sweated clear through. It was fairly cool under the great canopy of leaves and hanging moss, but the poor boy was flushed and soaked. Aziraphale felt a bit lightheaded and giddy as they tromped through the undergrowth.
"The air is so thick, it's almost like being in the belly of a beast," Aziraphale said.
"Humid," Crowley gasped. Aziraphale was just as sweaty and red in the face, but he huffed and puffed along like a champion. He felt pretty good despite the exertion; it was probably the thick, coastal air.
"It's a little like the Garden," Aziraphale added.
"Parts of it, I guess," Crowley said. He then sighed loudly collapsed onto a thick, mossy log. "Go on without me," he moaned.
"Oh, you're alright. You ran me into the ground in Portland, remember? It was humid there."
"Not like this," Crowley said, waving his hand and banishing the sweat stains from his clothes. He eyed a healthy patch of ferns covetously. “Nice hair, by the way.”
Aziraphale smiled sweetly and patted his black mane, which was curling up even more so than usual, like a bunch of fiddlehead ferns.
Aziraphale sat down next to Crowley and shut his eyes. The forest was beautiful. It was about as far from his bookshop as one could possibly get. He could be happy in a place like this, he supposed. He could buy a bunch of khaki shorts and a hideous vented sunhat and lead groups of tourists around, pointing out lichen and deer droppings.
He opened his eyes again and watched a butterfly flit around, enjoying and feeling slightly nauseous at the profound homesickness and wanderlust that filled him.
Next to him, Crowley glared fiercely at the ferns, which trembled. He missed terrorizing his plants and had taken to sending scalding looks at anything green. For all his complaints, he was clearly having a fantastic time with a whole forest to harass. His eyes were very bright against his dark face and had even taken on a greenish tinge, reflecting their surroundings.
He looked good, sweat and all. But he would never want to settle in Washington. Aziraphale's innards twisted at that thought. He grasped Crowley's hand. Crowley didn’t snap or shake him off. He just twined his fingers with Aziraphale's and quit menacing the flora.
"Let's go home," Crowley said.
"Excellent idea," Aziraphale agreed.
Aziraphale's bookshop, London
Crowley and Aziraphale weren't really English. They hadn't really been Roman, Mongolian, Swedish, or Egyptian either. They weren’t really anything except, well, what they were. And what they were was creatures of the moment.
At that moment they were eating French sweets and drinking Irish whiskey. Crowley was wearing Italian clothing, Aziraphale's shoes were English. The skin of Crowley's neck was hotter than Phoenix and tasted a little like the dry, leathery smell of the Bentley's upholstery. Aziraphale's mouth was wetter the Hoh Forest. Skin on skin became the brown and red rolling hills of the desert. They both felt like they were about to nosedive off the Million Dollar Highway into the gorge below, except this time it was actually fun.
~end
Happy Holidays, Sofie, from your Secret Writer!
For: Sofie
Author: A Secret!
Beta: [REDACTED]
Rating: Gen
Pairings: Aziraphale/Crowley
Characters: Aziraphale, Crowley
Warnings: None
Summary: In search of new sights, Crowley and Aziraphale take the Bentley on a jaunt across the continental United States.
Author's Notes: For the prompt “Crowley and Aziraphale go on a road trip. I don't know how or why or where to, but they have to make this trip leading to being stuffed in the Bentley together for an extended period of time. Crowley worries about his plants, Aziraphale worries about his books. Bickering ensues, and also... feelings(!!!) Any rating.” Though I have road-tripped across the UK once, I’m a lot more familiar with American roads and topography, so I decided to stick our guys in good old Amurrica. Also, I’m sure both Crowley and Aziraphale have driven up and down the UK enough times they’d want to try something newish.
Somewhere in Nebraska
“This is depressing,” Crowley muttered, cruising down Interstate 80 at a leisurely 110 mph.
Aziraphale thought very briefly about saying something about the Glory of God’s Creation, just to annoy his traveling companion, before he lost interest and silently agreed. On one side of the highway there was a thin bank of trees, and on the other . . . practically nothing. Just grass and the occasional squat farmhouse off in the distance. He could see where the yellow-green earth met the horizon with almost no obstruction. At least the sky was very pretty: blue as anything and huge. Still, if you look at scenery for a long enough time it all starts to look like a boring postcard.
They’d been driving through the flatness of Midwest America for almost five hours.
“I suppose it could be worse,” Aziraphale said moodily. “We could have flown--"
“How on earth would taking a plane be worse than--oh, you mean flying. I guess you’re right. We would have missed out on those charming horse-drawn buggies in Pennsylvania.”
“What exactly is it with you and horses?”
“Not my fault they’re all terrified of me,” Crowley grumbled, making a heart-stopping swerve around a minivan peacefully trundling along at the actual speed-limit.
“I think you were aggravating them on purpose,” Aziraphale said.
“Hey, you get to stare at Amish quilts for two hours, I get to scare horses. Fair is fair,”
“They were lovely quilts,” Aziraphale snapped. “And there’s a quilt museum in Lincoln I want to visit.”
In truth, he wanted to do no such thing. What he wanted was to get to a B&B and settle down with some of the books he’d brought with him (and the few more he’d bought along the way). But the mention of a quilt museum made Crowley clench his jaw and slam on the gas, which was worth it.
Phoenix, Arizona
“This is unholy. It is so fucking hot. How is it 38 degrees here? How? What the fuck?” Aziraphale moaned. He was currently laid out on the kitchenette floor of their room. He wore only his underwear and had a freezer bag of ice on his forehead.
There was a reason he stayed in temperate zones. There were seasons, for example. All four of them! They lasted a sensible amount of time and didn’t require him to put forth extra effort in controlling his human body, which was convenient. He did like his body and took issue with how this flaming desert plain was treating it. It was very well suited to sitting in armchairs, reading, and walking at reasonable speeds. It was sturdy, had ergonomic rounded corners, and didn’t have even half the flash Crowley insisted on tacking on his form. Aziraphale knew how his body worked. For example, under most circumstances, he could regulate his own body temperature.
Phoenix apparently did not fall under ‘most circumstances’.
He adjusted his icepack and got a splash of lukewarm water in the face for his trouble. It seemed the ice had melted and was leaking out of the plastic bag. It hardly mattered. Lukewarm was pleasantly cool in comparison.
As was becoming their custom on this little sabbatical, they’d rented a room at a bed and breakfast. This particular bed and breakfast was run out of a quaint historical building. A historical building that, they’d noticed only after they’d settled in, had very spotty air conditioning.
Once again, under most circumstances, this wouldn’t be a problem. Crowley was very good with mechanical things and could keep a fifty-year-old radio producing ice-cool air for hours if he wanted. As it was, Crowley wasn’t there, and Aziraphale was left to struggle unsuccessfully with the terrible AC.
While the oppressive heat had made the angel sluggish and weak, it seemed to have the opposite effect on Crowley.
“I’mgoingtogoseethesightsdoyouwanttocome?” he said cheerily just before he’d left some hours before. Aziraphale, at that point already on the floor but still wearing most of his clothes, could only shake his head lamely.
“YourlossI’llbebackwheneverbye.”
Was it a demon thing or a snake thing? Aziraphale didn’t have the energy to think about it.
The sun was sinking by the time the demon got back. It was still bloody hot but Aziraphale had summoned up the gumption to run several cool baths in succession. He was on his fourth when Crowley came flouncing back in, laden with shopping bags and chattering away on his mobile.
“It’s absolutely hideous. It’s Hellish, ” he said from the bedroom after he’d hung up. “You would not believe the kind of tourist crap they sell out there. It’s amazing. The best part is that it’s all human. The ingenuity alone is just--oh. Sorry.”
For a split second Aziraphale felt the need to cover himself, with a washcloth perhaps, but the impulse passed. Crowley stared for a few seconds before darting away again, nattering away about how he could probably wrangle a commendation out of this horrible city if he pulled some strings.
In the other room, the AC kicked on full-blast. Aziraphale quietly submerged himself in the cool bathwater, sure that the sudden flush of warmth was just more of the Phoenix heat.
The Chihuahuan Desert
The desert was vast and open, but somehow managed to be less empty than the plains.
There was a lot of scrub and dust, but it was broken up by rolling red hills and craggy, purple mountain ranges. And the sunsets were lovely.
Not that either of them were in any mood to admire sunsets. They were too busy fighting over where the hell they were supposed to be going.
“Look, here’s the exit we were meant to take,” said Crowley, stabbing a finger at the atlas.
“That can’t be right. That would have taken us North, see here-“
“It turns back South after this town here, look-“
“We’ll just backtrack then.”
“I’m not doubling back; it’ll add at least another hour!”
“Oh so you want to be navigator now? Fine. Let me drive and you can read the bloody map.”
“Over my dead body.”
“That can be arranged, dear boy.”
They eventually did backtrack and find their way to the correct exit. When they finally arrived at their next B&B on the list, they took separate rooms.
U.S. Route 550, Uncompahgre Gorge
Crowley was hunched over the wheel, breathing hard. His knuckles were white and his dark face had an ashen look to it.
Aziraphale didn’t blame him. The view, straight down off the road and into the gorge below, was breathtaking. Literally.
No shoulder, no guardrails. Just one steep drop down and then a quick flight straight back up to explain to the Quartermaster why he needed a new body.
At least I would go back up, Aziraphale thought, feeling a little hysterical. Crowley would just keep going down and down… He firmly shook himself and took a healthy pull off the bottle of red he had clutched in his hands.
The Bentley suddenly jostled sharply, having hit a shallow pothole or stone in the road. The old car jumped a little and settled right back down again, no harm done. Regardless, as soon as they felt the bump, someone had let out a little shriek and someone had reached out and grabbed other other’s hand.
Hoh Rain Forest, Washington
After long stretches of desert and plain, the forest was astonishing. Everything from the seedling ferns to the trees was bursting with vitality. It was green, wet, and incredibly close.
"Reminds me of Jonah," Aziraphale said, picking gingerly over a snake-like jumble of roots.
"And why does it do that?" Crowley asked. He was dressed in extremely stylish hiking gear, which he'd sweated clear through. It was fairly cool under the great canopy of leaves and hanging moss, but the poor boy was flushed and soaked. Aziraphale felt a bit lightheaded and giddy as they tromped through the undergrowth.
"The air is so thick, it's almost like being in the belly of a beast," Aziraphale said.
"Humid," Crowley gasped. Aziraphale was just as sweaty and red in the face, but he huffed and puffed along like a champion. He felt pretty good despite the exertion; it was probably the thick, coastal air.
"It's a little like the Garden," Aziraphale added.
"Parts of it, I guess," Crowley said. He then sighed loudly collapsed onto a thick, mossy log. "Go on without me," he moaned.
"Oh, you're alright. You ran me into the ground in Portland, remember? It was humid there."
"Not like this," Crowley said, waving his hand and banishing the sweat stains from his clothes. He eyed a healthy patch of ferns covetously. “Nice hair, by the way.”
Aziraphale smiled sweetly and patted his black mane, which was curling up even more so than usual, like a bunch of fiddlehead ferns.
Aziraphale sat down next to Crowley and shut his eyes. The forest was beautiful. It was about as far from his bookshop as one could possibly get. He could be happy in a place like this, he supposed. He could buy a bunch of khaki shorts and a hideous vented sunhat and lead groups of tourists around, pointing out lichen and deer droppings.
He opened his eyes again and watched a butterfly flit around, enjoying and feeling slightly nauseous at the profound homesickness and wanderlust that filled him.
Next to him, Crowley glared fiercely at the ferns, which trembled. He missed terrorizing his plants and had taken to sending scalding looks at anything green. For all his complaints, he was clearly having a fantastic time with a whole forest to harass. His eyes were very bright against his dark face and had even taken on a greenish tinge, reflecting their surroundings.
He looked good, sweat and all. But he would never want to settle in Washington. Aziraphale's innards twisted at that thought. He grasped Crowley's hand. Crowley didn’t snap or shake him off. He just twined his fingers with Aziraphale's and quit menacing the flora.
"Let's go home," Crowley said.
"Excellent idea," Aziraphale agreed.
Aziraphale's bookshop, London
Crowley and Aziraphale weren't really English. They hadn't really been Roman, Mongolian, Swedish, or Egyptian either. They weren’t really anything except, well, what they were. And what they were was creatures of the moment.
At that moment they were eating French sweets and drinking Irish whiskey. Crowley was wearing Italian clothing, Aziraphale's shoes were English. The skin of Crowley's neck was hotter than Phoenix and tasted a little like the dry, leathery smell of the Bentley's upholstery. Aziraphale's mouth was wetter the Hoh Forest. Skin on skin became the brown and red rolling hills of the desert. They both felt like they were about to nosedive off the Million Dollar Highway into the gorge below, except this time it was actually fun.
~end
Happy Holidays, Sofie, from your Secret Writer!