So I tried really hard to get a fic done today; it’s another installment in my Sawdust of Words series, based on an idea I had like the first week I joined Tumblr, and it’s actually going well… but I’m only about 2/3 through, and the last third is the difficult part where the two walnuts need to have an actual conversation.
Unfortunately it’s now after 10pm so I’m also too tired to post something else. I was too ambitious and hoisted myself on my own petard (which by the way means I dropped a grenade at my own feet I’m serious look it up).
So! There will be fic updates in the near future, I promise. (How soon, I can’t say—I’m currently working 2 jobs up to 6 days per week so I’m frequently just too tired to words.) I’m also sharing below the first page of this fic, which takes place 48 hours after “Absence of Words” (Tuesday evening after the Apocalypse) and opens on one demon being completely heart-eyes-smitten over the local angel.
(If I get the chance I’ll reblog this with the typed up text of the page, but at the moment… )
Well, I have the 2/3 written up and now just need to figure out the Serious Conversation. Things got uhhhhh sort of increasingly traumatic with every draft, so that was fun.
Anyway, find below the extended version of this scene, as it will more likely appear in the final version on AO3. Warning: almost insufferable softness to follow.
Tuesday evening, after the Apocalypse
They had been talking for almost 48 hours straight.
Talking. Laughing. Listening to music. Drinking wine. Occasionally kissing.
Crowley had never felt so… “happy” didn’t even begin to describe it. He felt as though some terrible weight he’d carried for thousands of years was just… gone. A knot inside him undone, turned to smoke and dissipating on the wind.
He was free. Not from Heaven or Hell or some Great Plan.
The part of him that always held him back was gone. Crowley was free from himself.
He lounged across the sofa tucked in the east corner, watching his angel move about the shop. It was growing dark, but the last few beams of light caught his platinum curls, dying them ever so slightly golden. Picked out a flush of pink in his cheeks that had been all but absent for the last decade.
He was so goddamn beautiful.
A couple had come in to browse. Crowley had suggested just putting up the CLOSED sign, but Aziraphale insisted that “wouldn’t be very sporting.” So now he followed the couple around, helpful, polite, but firmly preventing them from so much as touching a single book.
When his eyes fell on Crowley, watching from the corner, Aziraphale’s face broke into a warm smile, like sun after a rainstorm, like fire on a cold day. Like coming home.
So fucking beautiful.
My perfect Angel, Crowley thought, watching as Aziraphale turned again to herd the customers as far as possible from anything of interest. Behind his glasses, the demon’s eyes never blinked, never moved from the object of his affection.
One of the customers pointed at something, and Aziraphale turned towards it, shoulders giving that little wiggle of excitement they did whenever he saw one of his favorite things. Crowley couldn’t get enough of it. The smile, the wiggle, the gleam in his eye. What he wouldn’t give to see Aziraphale so happy every day.
And he could. That was the whole damn point of being free, wasn’t it? No one to tell him off, no reports to write, no havoc to plan, no high-ranking demons to send him on secret missions… nothing stopping him from giving every moment of his attention to the being that mattered most to him, from giving that angel everything he wanted.
He longed to say that out loud. Not only that, a thousand things, millennia of emotions and confessions locked inside, the words straining against his chest, yearning to escape.
But that was forbidden to the demon. Couldn’t say it. Couldn’t write it. Couldn’t express his feelings in any way, not if he meant it.
And Aziraphale… accepted that. Understood. And loved him all the same. It was enough to make his heart ache as it rattled in his chest.
Finally, Aziraphale escorted the couple outside, having been thoroughly rude to them while still providing exceptional customer service. Crowley heard the door click shut, the sound of footsteps across the shop floor, and then Aziraphale rounded the corner into the little office, blessing Crowley with another smile.
Beautiful.
“So. Finally got rid of the nosy bastards?” Crowley asked, swinging his feet back to the floor to clear the space beside him. “Never seen a more unsavory pair of characters.”
“Oh, nonsense, my dear. They were perfectly charming, apart from their interest in my Jane Austen sets.” He hesitated for only a heartbeat before sitting on the sofa, hands folded in his lap, eyes downcast. Crowley tugged his glasses down so he could better watch the flush spreading across the angel’s cheeks.
“See? I knew it. Might have been planning to rob the place, or worse, buy something.”
“They hardly seemed the type, really, though you can’t be too careful. Though I confess to getting a bit impatient towards the end, as I wished to get back to… more important tasks.” As he said the last part, his eyes flicked briefly towards Crowley, bashful and demure, and his shoulders gave a little wiggle.
“Oh.Oh.Well,” fighting back an even bigger grin. “Hope you didn’t have to do anything too nasty to dissuade them.”
