“What do you think the stakes are?” Newt asked, peering over the piles of books.
Anathema followed his gaze. “No idea, but it’s getting pretty intense,” she said, squinting.
Crowley and Aziraphale sat either side of a rickety old table, refusing to break eye contact. It was hard to tell if that was part of the game, or the sexual tension. They had insisted that they carry out their usual games night, regardless of Newt and Anathema’s surprise visit, because there was apparently a score to settle.
The rules of their game were utterly incomprehensible to an outsider. Three decks of cards sat on the table, split into seven piles of equal height and three of differing heights. There were coins on all the cards, and half a jenga tower dangerously close to the edge of the wobbly old table. Four upturned cups sat over the top of a selection of jelly beans from a multipack (three liquorice, one watermelon). Every now and then, the angel would move a card and smirk triumphantly, or the demon would move a cup and wink. The jenga tower trembled with every motion.
“Is it best of three tonight?” Aziraphale asked, eyeing the table. He was apparently nervous about the progress of their ineffable game.
“Oh, no. All or nothing, angel,” he replied smugly. “Winner takes it all.”
He huffed, taking a poker chip from his breast pocket and trading it for a coin. Crowley hummed appreciatively of the move, nodding.
“Your move,” said the angel.
Anathema wondered what they were betting. Her best idea was human souls, but where would they be getting them from? Her next idea was just money, plain and simple, but it seemed so banal. Newt was more worried about trying to figure out the game. Every time he thought he’d started to understand, they’d introduce another bizarre manoeuvre, or a whole new game piece. Half a chess set had been involved at one point, though he had no idea what had happened to it at this stage.
Crowley was doing his best not to laugh. He turned over one of the stacks of playing cards, flipping the coin which had been sat on top.
“Tails!” he cried triumphantly.
Aziraphale whined. “Oh, bugger,” he said.
Games night had been a favourite pastime of theirs since the fifteenth century. They only had one once every few hundred years, and it was usually one of the highlights of any given century. It worked best in the modern day, with plenty of eclectic games to stitch together, but the rules had always been the same:
Rule 1: At least two humans must be present to witness the “game”; preferably mutual friends.
Rule 2: The “game” must be played using as many different game pieces as possible.
Rule 3: Be as cryptic as possible. Play along with what the other is doing (remember, it doesn’t matter who appears to be winning).
Rule 4: Bets must be placed before the game starts on how the humans will react to their absolute nonsense (because yes, there is no game, no rules and no real point to any of their antics). Closest guess wins, loser has to buy the next bottle of wine.
(Unspoken Rule 5: If any human dares to directly ask about the rules of their game, they must immediately collaborate to build the most incomprehensibly complicated, pointless, stupid and irritating list of rules known to man.)
“Hmm.” Aziraphale scanned the Tube map. “Not the best start, but we’ll catch up, my dear, don’t worry. Right. Newton, your roll.”
Newt looked at Crowley nervously, but Crowley and Aziraphale were pointing their fingers at each other, fingertips an inch apart.
“Go on, roll!” Crowley snapped. Aziraphale was frowning.
“Three.”
“Yes! Aha!” Newt and Anathema’s ears popped as Aziraphale groaned, and something snapped in the air between them. “Okay. We’re going to start at Archway.”
“Not allowed,” Aziraphale instantly countered. “You can’t start on the Northern Line, don’t be completely absurd.”
“Fine. Blackhorse Road.”
“You have to start at a station with wheelchair access.”
“Then you have to start at one of the inaccessible ones.”
“No.”
“Fair’s fair, angel. If I have to abide by Heaven’s rules you have to abide by Hell’s.”
“Fine,” Aziraphale gritted out. “We’ll take Cockfosters.”
“I fucking bet you will,” said Crowley with a sleazy grin. “Right. We’ll take Tottenham Hale.”
“What are the rules of this again?” Anathema asked.
Crowley sighed theatrically. “We start out at two different Tube stations at noon. You can only start when the BBC’s pips are over.”
“But Crowley’s not allowed to go through any station that has the letters s and t together in them.”
“Street? Or Saint?”
“Saint,” Crowley said. “But back in 1979 Aziraphale argued that one station was named after ‘St. Anmore’ and so now it’s any station with an ‘st’. And he’s not allowed to go on the Central line-”
“Because it’s red. And Crowley obviously can’t go through Angel.”
“While if Aziraphale goes through Angel or any station named after a Saint whom he met, Aziraphale, he can send me to a station of his choosing as long as it’s in the same zone I started in.”
“Now, Crowley can go through Blackfriars, because of his commendation.”
Anathema was trying to keep notes. “Commendation?”
“For the Spanish Inquisition. Blackfriars are Dominicans, and the Dominicans ran the Inquisition.”
Anathema was looking at Crowley with fury. “You did the Spanish Inquisition?”
“No!” Crowley looked offended. “I just got a commendation for it. So, yeah, if I go through Blackfriars, I’m allowed to send Aziraphale to the final stop of my choosing.”
“If we’re both on the Piccadilly Line at the same time we have to go to Knightsbridge and duel. Whoever loses has to go to Heathrow, round the Terminals, and then come back. Oh, and Crowley can’t go through Temple, obviously. Ditto Bow Church, Westminster, and Whitechapel.”
“And Aziraphale isn’t allowed to get on or off a train which doesn’t have wheelchair access, unless it’s marked on the map with a red cross, and unless he has to start under Hell’s Rules when the starting station only is exempt.”
“Oh, and Crowley has advantage at any station to do with the monarchy or money, like Bank or East India, so if he gets off in one of those stations and I’m on the same line, he can send me to a station on a connecting line, as long as he puts me down in the same zone.”
“What about Montague’s 2nd revision, eh?” Newt was grinning. “And, er, green rules, in light of the general election? Pedestrian precincts count double and bus lanes are wild?”
Crowley stared at him. “… what the fuck are you on about?”
“Oh, come on,” Newt said. “It’s Mornington Crescent. From I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue. Radio 4? Pretending you have to get to Mornington Crescent first, wind up the American by making up stupid rules.”
The angel and the demon were silent for a long moment. “Our rules aren’t stupid,” Aziraphale said. His voice was soft with hurt.
“Oh, great! Great, we invite you to Games Day, and you hurt the angel’s feelings!” Crowley shouted. “The aim’s to get back to the bookshop, youmoron!”
“Don’t, my dear, it’s all right. I suppose… I suppose when you say them all at once like that it does all sound a bit silly.”
“No, no,” Newt said. “No, shit, no, sorry! I thought it was- There’s a game on Radio 4, I thought you were- No, I mean, we’d love to play. It’s really kind of you. Sorry, right, let me write down all the rules and then we’ll set off for the starting points…”
Aziraphale sniffed and reached for a biscuit. Crowley rubbed his back, glaring daggers at Newt as he and Anathema tried to find a pen between them. “Beautifully done,” he whispered.
The thing about Aziraphale is that he very genuinely and sincerely wants to be good and make the world a better place, but he also very genuinely and sincerely wants to accomplish this without any significant effort.
the thing about aziraphale is that he’s incredibly human. thats, like, the whole point, right? and what’s more human than looking at the world and saying “this is good, the world is already so good and full of love, imagine how much better if we were kinder to each other” and then looking at a Customer bearing down on you and thinking “i would fully gnaw your eyeballs out of your skull if i could only shift my jaw to the correct angle”
It’s so funny how Crowley is always described as “more emotionally constipated” as compared to Aziraphale. I wanted to write more about it, but then I realized there’s exactly one scene that perfectly illustrates how wrong this notion is.
It literally has it all, no need to look further, it’s all there.
So there’s a conversation with Mary Loquacious (that happens immediately after another one of “repressed” Crowley’s outbursts, by the way), where it’s so abundantly clear how good Aziraphale is at the whole “conceal, don’t feel” thing even under pressure.
You can pinpoint the exact moment when Aziraphale switches to a polite but collected mode that he uses with customers. [Side note: his initial expression of uncertainty is adorable, btw.] Now, a trick question: who’s just impatient and who’s visibly impatient here?
Then it continues in the same fashion throughout the whole convo, with Crowley visibly dying to verbally gouge the information out of her, while Aziraphale sometimes tilts his head, at best.
Aaaand finally, the big reveal: they have just found out it all has been for nothing, the records are destroyed. Do I even have to explain further? Who is emotionally repressed here? Who clearly is used to hiding his feelings?
That’s it, that’s the story, it’s one of those cases when a single scene is so illustrative that no further explanation is needed.
aziraphale’s exasperated little micro-glances at Crowley throughout are SENDING me
“do excuse my colleague, he’s having a dramatic bitch day”
This is from our very own @raunchkitty! As I said before, every time I see this video, I’m going to reblog it. It’s one my top 5 list of fave scat vids. I love the volume, the consistency, the passionate groans of pleasure. He has a lot more videos on his thisvid so check him out! You won’t be disappointed.
It’s not naturally to hate children. Can you not read
damn no shit, can you use your brain to get what i meant?
Bitch you put four stupid letters and a question mark on my post if you don’t understand the sentence ““it’s not natural to hate children” you need to get hooked on phonics
oh my god, please shut the living fuck up, no one was ever talking to you anyways. its not like anyone would want to, look at how gross you are
“no one was talking to you anyways” ITS MY POST???
you are a child bro wtf are you talking about
this is messy
I miss my children… I cannot remember their names, but oh I remember the feeling
Follow me for more! I’m just a fifty year old woman who loves memes! Proud mother, proud slut, just a lil’ mama cooking up some mischief! Inbox is always open!
