A little more Ineffable Husbands: "The sea was full of constellations. I thought of you." Could be sweet. Could be angsty. Could be both! Thank you, my dear!
(A/N: For extra angst, listen to Loreena McKennitt's "Dante's Prayer" while reading.)
It was winter in the northern hemisphere, and Supreme Archangel Aziraphale was taking a break from Heaven. He was tired, and he was lonesome, and his eyes hurt from Heaven's neverending office lighting, and he had been banking his celestial holiday leave for centuries.
He needed a break.
The eastern coast of England was pleasant in the winter, at least pleasant enough for Aziraphale's purposes. He left the lodgings he had taken in a quiet seaside village, wrapped in a pale woolen overcoat of indeterminate age, but bare-headed, just as the sun was beginning to set, and walked the path to the beach.
The night air was bitter and bracing and real; the light lowering as the sun slipped below the horizon behind him endlessly soothing to his aching eyes. He persuaded a large, comfortable rock to present itself on the otherwise smooth sand, and sat down on the right side to watch the stars appear over the ocean.
After a very long time, when it was so dark that he could no longer see where the sky ended and the sea began, he felt someone sit down beside him, on his left. Someone who smelled lightly of leather automobile interiors, and whiskey, and a long-ago whiff of tobacco that lingered long after the last cigarette had been smoked and tossed away. Aziraphale inhaled, and then stopped breathing. He didn't dare make a noise, didn't dare turn his head, lest the newcomer take offense.
Worse, lest he destroy the illusion.
Finally, the other figure spoke. "Playing hooky, angel?"
The hard, painful lump that had been hovering in Aziraphale's chest suddenly leapt into his throat, and his eyes burned. "I, um." He dashed a hand over his face. "I had to get away. For a bit."
"Mm. Just for a bit?"
"Please don't. I can't--"
"Fine."
The single word had teeth in it. Aziraphale fell silent again.
After a while, a pale hand stretched itself out in the darkness (Crowley's clothing made him almost invisible, and his eyes were firmly hidden) and pointed to a light low in the sky. "Saturn," he said simply. "It'll set soon, it's almost midnight." The hand moved. "Before dawn, Mars'll be there. Venus there." He pointed up, much higher. The constellation of Orion loomed over them brightly, lights punched through the fabric of creation. "Orion Nebula, there under the Belt."
"Did you work on that one?"
"Dunno. Might've."
"What, um... Why are you here?"
A long, dejected sigh. "Had to get out of Soho. Holidays are coming. Everyone's so damned festive and happy."
"Ah. Yes. Anniversary of Christ's birth and all that."
"He was born in May."
"I know He was." Aziraphale wondered when He would be born this time.
"Anyway. Decided to come down 'ere for a few weeks. Or months. The Geminid Meteor Shower stars next week. And, er..." Crowley muttered something under his breath.
"What was that?"
"I could feel you were here."
"You... you came looking for..."
Crowley started to say something, but Aziraphale didn't wait. He leaned across the rock and buried his face in Crowley's neck, and cried. "Angel," Crowley murmured, resting his cheek on Aziraphale's hair. "Oh, angel, what've they done to you..."
Aziraphale cried for a long time, clutching his demon like a lifeline. Crowley held him until he was quiet, and then, with a gentleness so deliberate it was almost painful, softly kissed his lips, tasting his tears.
"C'mon," he said. "I've got the car. Let's get you back to the village."
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Prompt and ye shall receive! Currently accepting prompt requests from this list.
For the fanfic ask, for "The Abyss Gazes Also": 3: What's your favorite line of narration?
Yeesh, that’s tricky... there’s a lot of it, and it’s been a long time since I wrote some of it, so I had to skim through to figure out what my favorite line would be (and I took the opportunity to fix some spacing issues).
I don’t know if I have a favorite, exactly, but I found a couple things from recent chapters that I’d had in mind for a while before I wrote them in context.
From Chapter 14, explaining Loki’s look of power-mad and/or sadistic glee while he’s taking the guy’s eyeball out:
This, this was power of a kind I had not possessed since Thanos had taken me prisoner. Not the power to seize a man and maim him: that I had never lost. No doubt I could have injured or even killed several of Thanos’s Chitauri guards before the rest of them overpowered me and beat me senseless, then delivered me to Thanos’s tender mercies. No, the power was in the way these people perceived and reacted to my simple act of violence.
And from Chapter 15, remarking on the “I remember you tossing me into an abyss,” thing, which he later realizes was distorted:
For a while I wondered why Thor did not dispute the point directly, but it has occurred to me that perhaps even my oaf of a— that oaf has the sense and even, dare I say, emotional sensitivity not to say, “Oh no, you attempted suicide, don’t you remember?” to someone who has, in fact, attempted suicide.
Imagine SHIELD sends you undercover with Loki to investigate a sketchy business that is a suspected front for HYDRA. SHIELD creates a fully staffed corporation with a fancy office as your backstory, so you have a solid foundation to work from.
The idea is to approach the other company with a suggestion for a merger of the two companies.
The catch? SHIELD set up the corporation with you as the CEO, and Loki as your assistant.
princess-ikol said: ha same for loki but I also like it better xD
Oh, hahaha, I didn’t even realize your hair wasn’t naturally black. It looks great on you though. I would never have guessed it was for Loki, you look a lot like a real life Snow White. (Not that there’s anything wrong with Doing It for the Cosplay, obviously.)
missstreelight said: Omg you’re looking gorgeous! You make such a good Belle and the brown hair suits you too (though I thought your own color was nice too)
Aww thank you, Emily, that’s so sweet of you to say.
captainblitzy said: You look amazing!
Thanks darling! <3
iamhisgloriouspurpose reblogged this from enchantedxrose and added:
You look wonderful! Thank you for showing us your photos!
omg I’m so glad I’m not the only one that remembers that CD!!! I’m now upset because I don’t have it on my computer so I can’t *mumbles* upload the mp3 files */mumble* but now I feel like I gotta go listen to the whole thing on YouTube
so yeah I just put on Against the Wind and like. im emotional
Oooh, fic prompts! So much potential angst! For the Ineffable Husbands, let's go with "34. I love him to hell and back and heaven and back, and have and do and will." And yes, I'm ordering more hankies and chocolate in preparation for the devastation you will inflict upon my soul. Thank you!
From Your Lips to God’s Ears (T, 1,713 words, one-shot)
In 1862, a demon asked an angel for holy water, for ‘insurance.’ The angel refused. But what if he hadn’t? (aka ‘What if these two idiots started being honest with each other about their emotions in the mid-1800s?’)
Some tooth-rotting fluff (coming from me, anyway).
Excerpt:
Aziraphale stared at him. “A drink? I just brought you holy water so you could—you could… And you want to drink?!”
“…Yes?” Crowley turned to him with a bottle in one hand, a fresh glass in the other, and a mirror of the angel’s befuddled expression on his face. “Should we be doing something else? Only, you’re already three or four sheets to the wind so I figured we might as well keep going…”
“I will have you know I am perfectly sober!” Aziraphale all but shouted, and then realized he’d actually forgotten to finish sobering up.
Crowley made soothing noises at him. “Easy,” he urged, as though Aziraphale was some sort of cart horse. “No need to get upset.”
“Oh, you’re very accommodating, now that you’ve gotten what you want. But what about—”
“You’re crying, why are you crying?”
Prompt and ye shall receive! Currently accepting prompt requests from this list.
