for lunchbreaks

[sauntered_downward]

Follows this.

Crowley fell asleep before dawn. And, which was rather unlike him, he did dream. He dreamt of the flamethrower, of the things it could do. He dreamt of watching all of the angels at the far end of the flamethrower, watching them all burned up to crispy little cinders through the power of Hellfire.

And then he imagined the barrel of the flamethrower, pointed at Aziraphale. The angel stood there, hands up, innocent of any charges, but with the weapon that Crowley had made facing him. And then, the trigger, and then----

Crowley jerks awake with a start. He didn't dream a lot. But when he did, it was rarely pleasant. Dawn was beginning to stream in through the windows. The miracle would only last until morning, they didn't have much time.

"Angel?"

Comments

[lunchbreaks]

Aziraphale hadn't slept at all, and had instead just held onto Crowley sweetly during the night, petting his feathers and retelling himself the tale of their story together, for the last six thousand years on Earth.

"I'm right here," he says, concern all over his face. "Crowley, it was just a dream."

He tries to offer a reassuring smile, even as the light filters in. This might be it.

So he brushes his hand through Crowley's hair as if nothing is wrong, and lays a hand upon his cheek. He leans forward, and kisses his forehead, trying to soak up every last moment with him.

[sauntered_downward]

Crowley immediately looks admonished and then slightly embarrassed and then cool, like it didn't bother him at all. Dreams are human things, they're not things demons worry about. He's had a grand total of a few dozen in the last six thousand years, it shouldn't bother him when he has them.

His wings twitch a little, curling tighter around them. Daylight is coming through the windows, which means they haven't got long on the miracle left. They need to go, they need to start with their plan, with the steps forward to do this. But Crowley doesn't want to leave. Doesn't want to be the grown-up demon who helps the human race. He wants to stay here, away from it all. It's what they might have had if they left for Alpha Centurai. But then again, what would Aziraphale have had to sacrifice if they left it all?

"How often do you think they dream?" he asks. "Humans. Out there? They sleep all the time."

[lunchbreaks]

"All the time, I imagine," he says, recounting from all the times he's heard it thusly from the humans he'd grown attached to over the years. "Nightmares and dreams alike. You can't help it," he says, in a general sense but pointedly about the current issue at hand. He caresses Crowley's cheek and lays kisses all over his face, as if he'd missed Crowley for years and years and not just he few hours he'd happened to fall asleep.

"We really must get up," he says, but wishes they could just hit a little celestial snooze button and--no, they'd already discussed this.

Reluctantly, Aziraphale moves to extract himself from this beautiful bed and these gorgeous wings.

He takes one in his hand for a brief moment, nuzzles his whole face into it and takes a deep breath.

[sauntered_downward]

Crowley lazily smiles up at the angel. This is all Crowley's ever really wanted, he thinks. To belong somewhere. To really belong. And he does, with Aziraphale. They belong together. The human world can go stuff it for all Crowley cares. But---but then again---

They do make beautiful things, like cars and reality television and motorways and restaurants. They live short, tiny lives but they fill them full of so many things. Crowley likes the humans, even if he can't stand it when most of them talk to him. He can't let them down, not now.

"So we're going to go forward, demand that they're part of the truce," he says. "That they get a say in if the truce is broken."

[lunchbreaks]

"Yes," he responds. "We have to advocate for them because no one else will. And isn't that our jobs? To be emissaries between demons and angels and humans?" He doesn't understand why they'd even been assigned to these positions if not to fight for the humans and for humankind.

"We haven't got time to put a speech together or anything, and I think they could see right through a performance if they saw one. We'll just have to go out there and do some healing and hope for the best."

He goes to get dressed but instead just miracles himself clean and miracles his clothes back on. It wasn't like he had been dirty anyway; he was always impeccably neat, ethereally so.

[sauntered_downward]

Crowley, conversely, continues to lay for a moment, and then casually makes his way to his clothing. He's not dirty, per se, but he doesn't see the need to get cleaned off from this. Might even be better if he smells a bit more like Aziraphale. He tugs on his trousers.

"And how will we contact Her? You said you'd contact the Metaton?" Speaking through an angel concerns Crowley. It's like speaking through Beezelbub. A demon will always have their own ideals.

[lunchbreaks]

"I can't very well do that from your flat," he says. "Suppose we'll have to make a pitstop. And I'll need a place to draw a circle. It's a bit like demon summoning, actually, so it's not really quite a science."

He seems a bit worried about it, but he takes a deep breath. The worst that could happen is she rejects him, and then he'll pick up the pieces of his broken heart and move forward. "But I won't. Talk to the Metatron, that is. He speaks for God but he is not God, and I don't want his Judgement. I only want hers."

[sauntered_downward]

Crowley shakes his head. "I was never very good at those," he admits. Demon summonings, possessing people. Stuff he was supposed to be good at, but nah. He got very good at growing plants and designing motorways instead.

"We'll go to the bookshop, do the...summoning, then back to the battlefield?" God, Crowley hates itineraries. But all the same, they have to know what to do.

He buttons up his shirt. "And you still want to go...you know, wearing each others' faces?"

[lunchbreaks]

"Yes, I think that'd be wise. Not to the bookshop of course. And you'll have to be out of sight, upstairs or something. We shouldn't waste anymore time, Crowley, I don't know how long it will take to get in touch with Her."

He frowns and thinks they should've woken up earlier, but then he gathers all his powers, stunted by nervous energy, and tries to place an extension on Crowley's miracle. He has no idea if it works or not, though he reaches over for Crowley's hand. Warm and familiar, he finds it gives him strength.

[sauntered_downward]

Crowley curls his fingers around Aziraphale's hand. They are wasting time, Aziraphale's right. People's lives are at stake, and Crowley is just being purposefully lazy because he wants to be. He wants what Aziraphale offered before. Time out of time, where they don't have to have this morning right now.

"I have a feeling they'll want to talk to you," he says. "You did just stop their War yesterday."

[lunchbreaks]

"Yes, well. We'll see," he says, not sounding too hopeful because, well. It is Heaven they're talking about. And Aziraphale was holding so fiercely onto the hope that Heaven wasn't all bad, but he supposed his faith was teetering on this one thing, may God grant it to him.

He pulls Crowley forward, towards the elevators. "What do you say, if this is all fine, and when we've got everything tidied up, we get out of London for a bit anyway? Just for a little bit." They could take a trip, maybe see a little more of the world and how it'd changed since they last went anywhere. Well, since Aziraphale had last gone anywhere at least.

[sauntered_downward]

After Crowley had more or less settled in London, he couldn't see the point of being anywhere else. London had everything he needed. It had all the things and people he cared about. He couldn't see the point of Paris or Russia or America, not when he could just stay put. But he could see the point in them, if Aziraphale were there too. If nothing else, the angel would probably be insanely excited about the different foods they could try, and that would be delightful to watch and share part of.

"Want to go to California?" he suggests, pushing on the lift button.

[lunchbreaks]

"So we could take a road trip?" he asks, hopefully. "Only if you don't fly the Bentley. And-- only if you purchase for me a Tee-shirt." He still hasn't figured out how to say the word t-shirt.

But nonetheless, a trip to California sounds lovely, and they could drive all up the coast and find little places to eat at, maybe sleep outdoors under only a canopy of Crowley's making, and perhaps also enjoy each other's company a little too much.

It sounds better than divine.

[sauntered_downward]

"This must have been one hell of a dream you had," Crowley says, giving him a laugh. "One heaven of a dream. A dream. It must have been one intense dream."

Aziraphale sounds so hopeful, Crowley doesn't dare disrupt it by telling him that a lot of California is probably under water, or damaged from the boiling seas. He won't think about earthquakes or whatever else has probably split America in two, because the angel doesn't need that. The apocalypse has already taken so much from Aziraphale, Crowley won't have any part of it.

And they will go. And Crowley will definitely buy Aziraphale a t-shirt. Maybe something really ridiculously raunchy and American.

[lunchbreaks]

He isn't thinking of all the designs they could put on t-shirts, and has his heart set on the one with the trees in a circle, redwoods, tall and proud. "Later," he says, smiling despite himself, getting into the lift and ready to greet the sun.

Or, ready as he'll ever be.

He knows the way back to the shop like the back of his hand, all of London really, the masterpiece before him, wrecked in the morning and scented of fallen concrete. But he keeps his head up high.

He won't let this get to him.

[sauntered_downward]

Crowley watches the wreckage around them with worried eyes behind his sunglasses. This is the London they knew. The shop he always met Shadwell at. The place he bought his television. Aziraphale's favorite restaurant. And all of the people, the ones who didn't understand why Heaven and Hell were doing this to Earth.

Crowley catches a scent on the wind and turns his head. A figure, standing off to the side, near an alley. Demonic? Perhaps. Definitely watching them.

Crowley quickens his pace to catch up to Aziraphale.

"We're being followed."

[lunchbreaks]

"Then take the long route," he says, and he can smell the evil emanating off of them. Not subtle, are they, demons? With fire and brimstone and everything, they could be smelled down the block. Maybe not when London had a cholera outbreak, when it still put all its trash and sewage on the street.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a sunshower starts, seemingly confined to a very small area of a single alley.

There might or might not be any screams.

Aziraphale wears a merciless, cold expression.

[sauntered_downward]

Crowley doesn't know whether to be impressed or terrified. He always knew what angels could do to demons, and he saw some of it during both Wars, but sometimes it's the little things, the moments where his best friend slaughters a demon in a nearby alley, that it becomes really real.

He's going to stick with being impressed. After all, it is them or the enemies.

"We can't stop all of them like that," Crowley warns, keeping in pace with Aziraphale. "And for all we know, there could be a lot of them. I was in Hell's bad books before we stopped the War."

[lunchbreaks]

"I know," he says. "But anyone who comes for us has to go through us," he fires back. And if he wants Crowley to live, then he can't show any mercy. He'll have to kill any angels too, but he feels as if they'll try something just a little bit smarter. He places a hand on Crowley's thigh and gives it a little squeeze.

More will come and Aziraphale will make them rue the day.

He spots something out of the corner of his eye and says, "Make a left here, dear."

With the guide of the rear-view mirror, suddenly behind them is just a little slippery over where they would've made a right instead.

[sauntered_downward]

Crowley jerks the Bentley left, and hits the gas hard. There's a lot of wreckage on the ground, a lot of debris, a lot of wandering people, so he's paying a lot more attention to the road than he normally would. He normally would call and drive, or be generally distracted and drive. He might've texted and drove, but the only person he would have wanted to text was Aziraphale, and getting Aziraphale into a mobile phone would've been a bit like getting an elephant into a sequin evening gown.

"Up on that building," he says, tilting his head to the side as a tuft of darkness slides through a window. While Aziraphale and Crowley had their lie-in, it appeared that Crowley's flat was being surrounded.

[lunchbreaks]

"I see them," he says, as part of the building crumbles and two beings fall down, miraculously crushed underneath some rubble. Aziraphale looks all around them and sets little fires to a pair of wings he spots, white but then smoking and singed.

"We're going to have to step on it a little, please darling." There's a crash behind them and a few people stepping out and gasping, though they see an angel and a pile of goop and contemplate with each other whether to save it or to kill it.

[sauntered_downward]

Crowley imagines that the Bentley doesn't hit anything, and he is usually right. He can speed through central London doing 90 and never hit a pedestrian. He can frighten them, yeah, but they should be watching where they're going. It's a bit harder, here. There's so much on the road, there are so many people wandering, lost or injured.

"I could use a bit of your dream right now," he says. "Fly over all of this."

All the same, he steps on the gas.

[lunchbreaks]

"You're going to have to supply the flying, though I distinctly remember you were going so fast I was wondering if your speedometer might break," he says, and there's plenty of space left on a Bentley. Ninety is still too fast for Aziraphale, as it always had been, but what the need right now is fast and what he needs for his brain to do is catch the heaven up.

"I really don't think we're going to lose them driving this to my shop," he replies, "Think they might be waiting for us there. They might've gone in; Crowley, I think we'll have to go elsewhere."

[sauntered_downward]

"But that's where your---" he gestures vaguely. "Your summoning circle thing is, right? Can you reconstruct it?"

They have to get out of London. This place is crawling with angels and demons and they're out to get them both. Aziraphale is right, even if Crowley doesn't want to accept it.

"We could go back to Tadfield," he says. "That's the one place no one is right now. Go back to the air base."

[lunchbreaks]

"Yes, well, I had to draw it, and I'll have to draw a new one, but all I really need is chalk," he says. "And a candle. And a book. I guess I could just try the other line and pray, but I don't think She's listening. Probably has all the lines tied up at the moment, if I were to guess."

"Tadfield it is, I'm afraid. Should we try and get in touch with Adam? I really don't think he expected all this," he adds.