A Game of Two Halves (Rated T, ~9k)
⚽ A Good Omens Meet-Cute for @beerok23's birthday! Happy birthday, dear 💜
🥞 Football Manager Crowley | Lousy French Translator Aziraphale | Meet-Cute | Voice Kink | Flirty Bitches Going At It | No GO Besties were pestered in the writing of this fic
In a series of improbable circumstances, antiquarian bookseller Aziraphale Eastgate ends up in Paris for a translating job he is woefully unprepared for. Man United gaffer Anthony J. Crowley has lost the Champions League semifinal against PSG and is having a spectacularly terrible time with the press. Could they possibly join forces and turn the night around?
⚽ Read it here on AO3 🥞
Excerpt:
“This was a very important match,” said a deep, sultry, British voice straight into his ear. “So sorry to hear about your loss.” Crowley went very still, taken off-guard like a dumbfounded goalie watching the ball sail right past him after what was supposed to be just a round-of-the-mill goal kick from the opposing team’s keeper. He distinctly felt his carefully-cultivated indifference crack, the sudden awareness so acute it was almost painful. Somewhat winded despite not moving an inch, he turned to the French reporter, who was staring at him expectantly. Only it wasn’t him speaking, Crowley realised, it was the translator. Wherever he was. “You must be, er, acclaimed? No, that’s not it,” the deep voice continued, now laced with a specific type of breathlessness that, for some reason, had Crowley thinking of tangled sheets, warm hands and liquid moans. “Anyway, if you could have another chance at your back, what would you do differently?” It was so unexpected, so unlike anything he’d had to face in a press room before, that it completely threw him off balance. A shiver skittered down his back, heat crept up his face, and before he could quite catch himself he felt his lips twitch and he shifted forward on his seat, sitting properly rather than slouching for the first time since he’d come in. And given that his media training didn’t exist, Crowley took out his earphone and blurted out, “Very erotic voice by the way. The translator.” He scanned the crowd for whoever the voice belonged to. “Where are you?” The room erupted into sniggers and even Crowley couldn’t fight a very off-brand chuckle. He was still searching and squirming a little when he spotted Muriel pointing to a man huddled in the far corner of the room, the lapels of his beige trench-coat flipped up to… was this pale-blond, better-groomed, cherubic version of Columbo hiding his face on purpose?
With special thanks to @littleweezel for beta-reading💜💜💜
