#tiny fic
He watched them through the glass as he had countless times before; their humming brought him comfort. The bees were kindred.
Being a witness to the last telling made this all the more difficult. The task now fell to him. With Sherlock’s passing, he and the Watsonia were orphans. Arthur smiled and shook his head, wondering if a thirty year old man and bees could be considered orphans.
He sighed. It was time.
He rapped on the hives’ top just like his father had done when his mother passed away, and with each knock he mournfully intoned, “Your master has died, your master has died … your master has died.”
Finally posting the ficlets I did in Discord for the March Flash Fiction challenge of @kedreeva. Gonna post one a day until they’re all done
‘Honey, I’m home!’ Crowley calls as he walks into their cottage, revelling in his ability to quote human sitcoms now. They all fly over Aziraphale’s head, but that’s half the fun.
The other half is the look of delight on Aziraphale’s face when Crowley calls him a pet name.
However, this time, Aziraphale doesn’t beam back. Instead he meets Crowley in the doorway of the kitchen, glancing over his shoulder at the back door.
‘Angel?’
‘Promise not to get mad,’ Aziraphale says, biting his lip.
Oh no. ‘Angel, what happened? I was only gone a day!’
Aziraphale looks over his shoulder again. ‘Well… I went to water your plants, like you aske-’
Oh those bastards. ‘What did they do?’ Crowley growls, storming out the back door towards the greenhouse. ‘If they’ve bullied you-’
‘No, Crowley!’ Aziraphale cries as Crowley walks into the greenhouse.
Relief floods through Crowley. It takes him a long moment to realise it’s not hisrelief.
The plants stop shaking at the sight of him, settling down into something like relaxation. He stares at them in confusion - they’d been perfectly behaved, shaking plants just twenty-four hours ago. What happened?
Aziraphale walks in behind him. The plants instantly start to tremble, their fear clouding the air.
Crowley turns to look at Aziraphale. ‘What did you do?’
‘Nothing much,’ Aziraphale says, looking at his feet. ‘I read a book to them, while having a cup of tea… and I may have forgotten to bring in the watering can so I ah… used the tea.’
‘You,’ Crowley says with wonder, ‘watered my plants with tea?’
‘Yes.’
‘Tea.’
Aziraphale frowns. ‘Yes, Crowley!’
Crowley starts to grin and pulls Aziraphale out of the greenhouse. ‘You read to them from the body of one of their fellow plants and then watered them with the strained water of another.’
‘Oh.’ Aziraphale stares into the distance. ‘Oh dear.’
Leaning in, Crowley places a kiss to his angel’s kiss. ‘You utter bastard,’ he says in delight. ‘You’ve got them running scared. They’re going to grow beautifully, if I threaten them with another day under your care.’
That gets a glare from Aziraphale. ‘I will not be your… your musclefor terrifying those poor things,’ he says but leans into the kiss.
‘You’ll never have to see them,’ Crowley assures him and kisses his angel again and again, until he is welcomed home and Aziraphale has forgotten his problems.
Not that Crowley will forget.
He has plansnow.
Ligur was lolling on the lovesac in front of the TV when he heard the front door open. He tilted his head back and called, “Game Night?”
“Game Night,” agreed Hastur’s voice from the kitchen, followed by the thunk of a sixpack being set on the counter.
When Ligur had been living with Michael, Game Night had been every Tuesday. Now it was any night that Hastur decided to come over.
Ligur leaned forward to grab the consoles without letting his butt leave the lovesac. The giant beanbag had been on sale when he’d been looking to furnish his new apartment, because nobody wanted swamp green. But Ligur loved swamp green; it went great with his only other piece of furniture, Demon’s terrarium.
Ligur mashed his body to one side of the lovesac and booted up the game, listening to Hastur pop the caps off two bottles. “Hullo, Demon,” muttered Hastur as he walked past the terrarium, sounding as fond as he ever did. Which wasn’t very, but was still more affectionate than Michael had ever been when speaking to Ligur’s pet chameleon. Come to think of it, she never did talk to Demon, she only talked about him, as if he couldn’t hear her.
Hurt both Demon’s and Ligur’s feelings, that did.
The lovesac sank as Hastur dropped onto it. “You need a couch,” he grunted, an important Game Night ritual. They’d agreed during the first Game Night in Ligur’s new apartment that it was pretty weird for two dudes to share the same beanbag, but they could manage as long as it was temporary. Thus the need to regularly reaffirm the imminent acquisition of a couch.
“Yeah,” agreed Ligur, taking the beer that Hastur offered and properly looking at his friend for the first time since he’d walked in the door. Same messy blond hair, hollow eyes, and weird crooked smile. Good. Hastur wasn’t attractive, not that Ligur spend time thinking about what made men attractive, which meant it was even more okay to share the lovesac with him.
“You’re staring,” said Hastur, the side of his mouth pulling up even higher in a grin that other people called creepy.
Ligur liked creepy. He lifted the bottle to his lips and took several long swallows without breaking eye contact. Then he dropped it and wiped his mouth. “Right, let’s play.”
As Ligur took a blade to every body, and Hastur proceeded to rip all riches and life from the land, the space between them shrank. When they were pressed thigh to thigh and shoulder to shoulder, Ligur took his cue for the next part of the ritual. “How’s it going with that Dagon chick?”
Hastur grunted sourly. “Last time she came into the bar, she had some person with her.”
“Guy or girl?”
“Couldn’t tell. Doesn’t matter. Kept a hand on Dagon’s back, ordered for her, made her laugh. Date crap.”
“Maybe–”
“No,” Hastur cut him off.
“Oh.”
Ligur took over capturing and ransoming the young so that Hastur could flay and render flesh, one of his favorite bits. Hastur’s pointy elbow kept jostling Ligur’s side, so he dug his elbow back. After a few rounds of that, Hastur cleared his throat and asked, “How’s Michael?”
That wasn’t in the script. Ligur shrugged. “I think she’s banging Lucifer again.”
Hastur made a face that almost looked like sympathy. It annoyed Ligur. “We broke up,” he reminded his friend.
“Yeah,” said Hastur. “You never told me why.”
“No,” said Ligur shortly. “I didn’t.”
Apparently Hastur was all about the improv tonight. “Always thought it was a bit funny, you dating a girl named Michael.”
“Why?”
“Well. It’s a boy’s name. People ever think you were gay?”
“Sometimes.” Ligur considered that he’d like to be drunk for this conversation, but his beer was empty and he didn’t want to get up for another. Hastur was leaning on him heavily enough that he’d probably fall over. “Why, did you?”
“Did I what?”
“Think I was gay?” There, now they’d both used the word.
“Dunno,” mumbled Hastur. On the screen, they caused the earth’s entrails to exude from its body, and the village paid obeisance in word and tribute.
“We split because of you,” said Ligur.
“Me?”
“Michael said I was more into you than I was into her, and I told her to shut her stupid face, and she kicked me out.”
“Oh,” said Hastur. He dropped his controller and turned to Ligur, and then he was pressing that weird smile right against Ligur’s mouth. So Ligur dropped his controller too, putting his hands in Hastur’s gross hair.
“I have to tell you something,” said Ligur after a bit, sprawled horizontally in the lovesac.
“Yeah?” said Hastur, who was underneath him.
“I’m tired of Animal Crossing. Next Game Night we’re playing Stardew Valley.”
~
Okay so this is what happened. There was a conversation about lovesacs that led to @charlottemadison42 outlining a slobby gamer AU which @moondawntreader proposed applying to maggot husbands and then I said “what game should they be playing” and @goodbyevanny said Animal
PlanetCrossing and @ack-emma gave me the violent ways to describe real gameplay (and @cassieoh too!) so yeah. Moral of the story, I feel lucky to know such clever people. Also I never tired of getting Ligur and Hastur together in weird ways.
