"Ssshut up," Crowley hisses, not bothering to unslump himself from the tabletop. "You're in love with a human, you don't get an opinion."
"Better a human than a loyalist," Sherlock sniffs, and that gets Crowley to jerk his head up.
"Oi! He's not— I mean, he wasn't—"
"He was, then he wasn't, then he was again," Sherlock singsongs, before turning serious. "Once a good little loyal subject of Heaven, always one. Face it, the very fact that he hasn't Fallen means that he will always go back to them."
Crowley cradles his head in his hands, feeling far too drunk for this, or perhaps not nearly drunk enough. "That's not… He wasn't…"
A little tidbit of a scene from a much, much larger AU that I'm honestly not sure will ever get written in earnest, but that has been a project @sheliesshattered and I have circled back to many times over the years
This is post s2 of Good Omens and… somewhere in the BBC Sherlock timeline, probably post s2 but s3 & s4 don't really work with this au. Set in the universe of Tim Powers' novel Declare, though I'm hoping to write this such that you don't have to have read the book (but it certainly helps). Sherlock (and Mycroft, and others) are another form of Fallen Angel who have remained earthbound rather than ever joining Hell, and Sherlock & Crowley are ofc frenemy drinking buddies
More under the cut
For anyone who has read it: After the end of Declare, Andrew & Elena retired somewhere in the UK together, taking on the very common name of Watson. They settled down and had a couple of kids. Twins, in fact. Almost like one person split in two, you might say. Which they try not to be too freaked out about, but also they're really tempting fate when they name the kids Harriet and John, after Harry St John Philby. John (and Harry, to some extent) grows up to follow in his parents' footsteps, including certain secret missions in the mountains of Afghanistan. When he's invalided home, he assumes Declare has no more use for him, until he is contacted once more to be a 'special assistant' on one of their higher-level projects here at home in London, at which point he is assigned to shadow Sherlock & assist him in any way he might need. John doesn't know exactly what Sherlock is, at first, but he's weirdly reminded of some of his parents' stories of 'Our Stepmother' in the USSR, and he's about to learn that Operation Declare is a lot deeper, older, and closer to home than he ever imagined.
That's the starting point of Part 1 of this AU.
For those who haven't read Declare: Sherlock (and Mycroft, and others) are a different sort of Fallen Angel, who never joined Hell after falling from Heaven, but rather made a home wherever they could on Earth, becoming known as nature spirits, fae, djinn, etc. (Djinn is the most commonly used term in the universe of Declare, so that's the terminology John uses, and they are explicitly stated to be fallen angels.) They've been neutral in the Heaven vs Hell war, tho Heaven definitely views them as enemies and Hell views them as… frenemies? Enemy of my enemy? Not worth bothering with? They are largely free agents, with some different powers & limitations compared to angels and demons, since they don't have the power concentration/strength in numbers of either Heaven or Hell behind them, and their own schisms and internal power struggles, separate from anything to do with Heaven and Hell.
Part 2 of the au would be after Crowley and Aziraphale fend off the apocalypse in GO s1 and become free agents themselves. Suddenly, Sherlock has a couple of rogue agents, formerly of Heaven and Hell, in his city, where before they were Officially Posted There, so he (mostly) would avoid them, though he and Crowley have definitely crossed paths before. Those two are very much frenemies, especially since the Notpocalypse. (John, for his part, has largely come to terms with the whole djinn thing. He is not happy to learn about angels and demons in the truer sense, though.)
And this scene here? IDK, Part 3, I guess, but maybe just a little aside for Crowley angst after GO s2, maybe not a whole fic, until/unless there's some interesting fodder for this au in GO s3, thwarting the second coming with Sherlock & John in tow maybe… (and Crowley and Aziraphale having to figure out their relationship while the other supernatural entity/ies around them already have their shit together)
Sitting in a little independent coffee shop while my car is at the mechanic There seem to be a lot of regulars coming in and out, stopping to talk to the two baristas I haven't been paying much attention, reading my lit textbook, but it is a really small shop And someone just asked them if they're going to "open up Ararat again"
