logsinthenight | We Are the Champions, My Friend || Closed

Entry tags:

We Are the Champions, My Friend || Closed

characters: Crowley and Aziraphale
location: The Village, Miner's Castle #3
date/time: Evening after the arrival of new people
content: An angel and a demon make excellent use of their time and several bottles of alcohol.
warnings: None

Crowley doesn't have any need of money. Money has never been something that's ever been a necessary point in his life. If he's wanted something, he's just made it available to himself. He has had a credit card with an unlimited balance that he's never had to pay off at any point, and that was useful when Amazon came around, but other than that, he's just never needed it. Therefore, no need for a wallet. He didn't have one on him when he woke up on that ship, either.

He can just miracle money, but he's a bit worried about being too flip with his miracles here. After all, he doesn't know how much he is allowed to do while he's here. He creates just enough money to buy supplies, but no more, just in case it's too much of a miracle. How much is too much? What are his limits? He certainly can't create more light, which is really, really disconcerting.

What's also disconcerting is hunger. Crowley has never been hungry before, and suddenly, that's all he feels. A gnawing ache in his stomach that he is hyperfocused on while they're in the general store, and focused on as he picks out a few supplies to eat back at their new residence. He also has purchased some alcohol, because that is what he definitely needs right now.

After all, he and his best friend just died today.

He holds up one of the canned peaches he's purchased and looks at it through the lantern light. The cabin is sparse, but it isn't dusty anymore, at least.

"So, what? You just eat it and you stop feeling this way?" he asks Aziraphale. Crowley has eaten many times in the past, but it was never out of hunger. It was because he was going somewhere with Aziraphale and the angel wanted to share a meal with him. He ate, and it was pleasant enough, but it never really meant anything either way to him. Now, he stares at the peach on the fork and can feel himself salivate. He takes a drink of the cheap wine purchased from the general store. No body, not a great year, and definitely not something he'd have picked for himself. But it'll do in a pinch.

"Is this how we're going to have to live? Eating?"

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"Oh, alright, let me get you the bread," he says, opening up the can and pouring it out onto the counter. Well, he tries to pour it out on the counter, but ends up patting the back, stare at it, open up the other side, and sort of plunger it through.

It's got the ridges on the side, and Aziraphale thinks he might be sick.

"No butter," he responds, sadly, as he cuts thick slices, places it in a cold oven, whacks it on, and waits for magic to happen to this round loaf. "Oh, I really can't wait for that apple tree. It'd be so lovely to have fresh fruit. Big, juicy apple." Instead, they have canned bread.

"Figure it'll be a bit appropriate for us, as our new start," he says. "It's how we began last time. With an apple in a garden."

He looks around the flat. It's so bare, but clean. It's nothing like his old flat, which was cold and dark, kept with nothing personal in it apart from his plants. Even now, it feels more like home. Maybe it's the company.

"I'll get some plants for here," he says. "Nothing too big, just a few rubber plants, maybe a few lilies---"

He thinks about how they don't have anything like that here, and how they might not be able to get anything like that, not even from the ferry. It's nice to think about, nice to imagine, but it's not something they can really have. He should be able to have his plants, and Aziraphale should have his books and tea and cocoa, and that should be enough for them.

"Start over," he says, and thinks about it. "Yes, let's start over with the apple tree." He checks on the bread by poking it once or twice-- still stone cold, so he'll leave it there and make his way back tot he couch for a bit. "And then when we get back, we could get an apple tree too."

It would've been a bit hard though, what with Aziraphale being in Soho and Crowley being in Mayfair. He wondered if they might be able to find someplace - a holiday house, maybe - that they could share, when this was all said and done.

But he's getting ahead of himself. No, this would be enough for them. A little cottage, some plants, books, maybe a painting or two. It had potential.

"And a garden," Crowley agrees immediately. "I'd need to leave the flat. That's all right, I've never really liked it all that much anyway."

He leans against the back of the couch, gazing at Aziraphale. His oldest friend. He still can't believe he's here. he can't believe he's alive---dead----here. They should be walking through St. James Park. They should be taking in shows. Having dinner at the Ritz.

"Remember when you told me we should have a picnic together?" he says. "We could do that, here. No one to watch us, tell us we can't. No one to tell me I can't be your friend."

"You want to have a picnic? Here?" he asks, looking up at him with wide, blue eyes. "Oh." His mouth spreads into a smile, easy as warm butter. "I'd like that very much. But we'll have to wait until we have all the things for it, do it up proper."

That meant waiting until they had some decent wine and something to make sausage rolls or something. Really, anything worth taking on a picnic. Cheese, perhaps, and crackers. Oh, crackers.

There's a faint whiff of actually baking bread, which is miraculous, and Aziraphale goes to check on the slices in the oven. Actually, they've gotten a bit of toasty crust, and he takes them out, places them on a plate and offers them to Crowley.

Crowley eyes the baked bread warily. He has never been a big fan of bread, but his stomach tells him that he should try it. He reaches out and takes one cautiously. It's warm and a little crusty, and he takes a cautious bite.

"Not bad," he says. "Considering our whole meal has come from cans, I can't complain too much about it." He takes another bite. He supposes he could get used to the whole eating business. It's more enjoyable than he remembered.

He takes another swig of the wine, too. For a basic table red, it's become wonderful the more he drinks it. Maybe it's just the company.

"We might not have long to do it," he reminds him. "Before we leave. Should try to get it in while we still have the chance."

"Well alright. I'll see what materials I can gather for it." And then he thinks, if they return, they won't be able to do this anymore. They'll only be able to do what they normally had, which is dance around knowing each other, sit rows apart on a bus, meet in secret. He didn't mind that, of course, but he was going to miss being able to just be with Crowley in public.

He stuffs his feelings and takes a bite of the bread. It's awful, but in his current state, it gets a rating of not terribly bad after all.

In fact, because it allows him Crowley's company, it definitely shot up a few ranks in the grand scheme of bread he's ever had.

As Aziraphale comes to the conclusion that they will need to be separate in the real world right about the same time Crowley does. The wine feels like it isn't strong enough. He doesn't want to like it here, but he does like having Aziraphale as his friend in public, where everyone can see.

"Are you tired?" he asks, leaning his head against his own arm. "Because I'm----I'm really tired. It's strange."

"Exhausted," Aziraphale readily admits, even though he doesn't want to lose any of the time he has with Crowley. But he doesn't know how long his body will hang onto this night, and he gets the sensation that he'd easily fall asleep right on this couch.

"I really don't like this feeling," he says. It's like he's not in control. Of his hunger, his thirst, and what else?

Being moored by human needs was just so tiring.

"I don't remember what sleep is like. Do I just... do I do anything, or just lie there?"

"Come on," he says, reaching out for Aziraphale's arm. "Let's get you to bed. You'll just lay down, close your eyes, breathe normally. You'll fall asleep soon enough."

He moves to his feet.

"Remember when I slept through the whole end of the 14th century? That was a good nap. Sometimes you even get to dream, which is good if you do it."

"Oh, a dream? I've never had a dream before." He lets himself by pulled up by Crowley because it's nice, though due to the drinking and the sleepiness, he does tumble forward a bit and have to brace himself on Crowley's chest. Good thing he's more stable.

"Perhaps we could take the wine with us and just continue upstairs until we want to fall asleep," he says, like a child who wants just five more minutes to finish up a tv show, and then to be read a story, and oh how about a lullaby afterwards?

Crowley should focus on making Aziraphale sleep, he thinks. Get him to rest, maybe try to help him dream about whatever he wants to dream about. Demons usually only cause nightmares, but he's sure with the right concentration he could give Aziraphale a good, happy dream.

He wraps an arm around Aziraphale against his chest.

"Oh, all right," he says. "Just a few more drinks. But then you're definitely going to have to get some sleep."

He takes a few steps towards the stairs.

Aziraphale is grateful for the catch, and follows him upstairs, wine in tow. They'll probably also have to sober up and get rid of the food they consumed before they sleep, lest they wake up having to use the restroom, or get a hangover. That won't be very pleasant, he thinks.

But it'll be much more pleasant than the hangover, since he remembers a particularly nasty one from Rome way back in the day.

He figures he'll do the food bit downstairs, and stuffs all of it back in the can, and then hands the cans to Crowley before he goes back up. Just in case.

Crowley looks down at the cans, then stacks them back on the table right by the couch. He should really sober up and take care of Aziraphale, he thinks. He should pull the food out of his digestive tract and put it back in the cans, but he'll deal with it all later.

He stumbles up the stairs after Aziraphale.

"Do you remember the last time we had so much wine without sobering up?" he says. "Was that...Rome? Or Vienna?"

"I forgot all about Vienna," he says. "I think it would have to be Vienna, but I'm sure the effects were worse in Rome, because I think I can still taste that." Hrk. "Ah, yes, I'm sure I can still taste that."

He's chosen a bedroom at random, though it's the smaller of the two, and he climbs into the bed with the wine, underneath the blankets on the side further from the door. He takes some pillows and puts them behind his back, and then pats next to him. "Sit with me?"

Crowley drops on the bed next to Aziraphale, slouching and leaning onto the angel. He puts his lantern down next to the bed. The room is a lot brighter than the downstairs was, because of its small size.

"Shift over a bit," he says. He gets himself comfortable. The room is smaller than his room, but that's very Aziraphale, isn't it? Offering to give Crowley more? Of course, had Crowley been the first to choose, he'd have probably done the same.

"I think the main problem with Rome was that the wine was so absolutely dreadful," he says. "I'm pretty sure it was still fermenting."

"Don't remind me," Aziraphale admonishes, frowning even as he takes a swig of this aged wine. "Horrible stuff, think it'd turned to vinegar. Not even a good vinegar." He moves over to give Crowley more space, and thinks he ought to get some sort of sleeping clothes if he's going to be doing this regularly.

Actually, he sits up and takes off his coat to hang on the bedpost, and then loosens his bowtie and his belt. There we go, much more comfortable now.

"I don't understand why you like to do this, but I suppose you do like to change clothes a lot." Though, the pillows are comfortable. And he is feeling tired...

"It's nice," he says. "Just sort of closing your eyes and letting time go by. Waking up whenever."

He thinks about his mobile in his pocket and wonders if they should set an alarm. They are, after all, really properly tired. They may oversleep. And they will need to wake up and eat and all that. He can't just sleep until the next ferry arrival, which would be really ideal.

He kicks off his shoes, letting them fall to the floor with a thud, and then reaches out for the bottle of wine.

"So, apparently if you die here, you wake back up in the church, did you hear that?" he says. "What do you think will happen to me? Last time I was in a church my feet burned for three years."

"Three-- three years?!" he asks, suddenly very awake. "You never told me that! Why did you come in? Why didn't you fly? Or say something?"

He asks this panicked because he knows exactly when Crowley was last in a church, and he knows precisely the context. He had been angry, had accused Crowley of setting up the sting and the Nazis, when he should have been helping to protect his feet.

"I'm so sorry, Crowley. I didn't know. I wouldn't have dallied on so long with them if I had." He frowns, deeply. "Never do that again. And don't-- don't die here, I suppose. I don't want to find out what happens to you."

"Consecrated ground, angel," he says, giving his hand a wave as he passes over the bottle. "I knew what I was getting into when I walked in there."

And he'd have done it even if his feet burned for thirty years. It was worth it to protect Aziraphale from embarrassing discorporation, and to save his stupid books from being destroyed. They hadn't seen each other in a hundred years at that point, but he couldn't just let it happen. He couldn't let their city be destroyed by a war he was taking credit for and also let Aziraphale suffer for it.

"I don't want to see what happens to you, either," he says. "We've only just got back to life. Can't start thinking about dying now. Think of it like discorporation, though. As long as our lantern survives, we survive. Whatever that means."

"I'm not really sure what that means but don't just brush over this like it's nothing, Crowley. You never told me." He looks exasperated and then sits back on his pillows when it becomes clear that Crowley won't have any sort of shocked reaction to this.

"Can't believe I never knew. I would've at least helped you put some burn cream on them." Crowley had hid his pain so well, that he'd even remembered to rescue the books. And, well, when he'd handed them to Aziraphale, something awakened in him. And it had always been a pleasant but frustrating memory. It's soiled now.

"Are you really sure you want to go steal a ferry and be out on open water when we need to keep our lanterns lit?"

Crowley bobs his head a bit, looking at Aziraphale, so frustrated as he sits next to him. He hadn't meant to upset him, it was just an idle statement of fact. Nah, he probably shouldn't have gone into the church. Yeah, he would do it all over again if the choice was presented to him.

"I didn't tell you," he says, stuffing a finger in Aziraphale's chest. "It wasn't what was important. You got out of there alive, that was what mattered."

He considers the angel's words. Should they go out into the open water with lanterns if they need to keep them alight? If they're the only way to stay alive?

"It's our best chance of getting back out of here," he says. "Go back out the door we came in."

"I know, but. Crowley, I don't want you to get hurt doing something rash, and." Well, he's always doing something rash.

He crosses his arms over his chest and feels rather sober, so he pulls all of the remaining alcohol out of his system and back into the bottle.

It leaves a horrible taste in his mouth, but not nearly as horrible as how he feels in the moment.

"Never mind. You do what you want." He slides down into the bed and thinks he might try to do that dreaming thing.

Crowley looks down at the half-full bottle with a sudden, dejected look on his face. Weren't they having fun? Weren't they reminiscing? Wasn't this better than just thinking about being dead? What did Crowley say so wrong?

He concentrates, and sobers up immediately. The bottle fills up, and he makes a face. God, he hates that, the sudden sobriety. It feels like being kicked in the gut. Strange, though, the feeling in his gut has nothing to do with the sobriety, it has to do with Aziraphale's sudden change in demeanor.

"Do you want me to go?" he asks, putting the full bottle of wine on the floor.

"No," he says, softening. "Of course not, Crowley." He's lied about that so many times in the last several thousand years that he doesn't know if Crowley might think he actually does ever want him to be gone from his side.

And it wasn't like this was the first time that Crowley had ever done dangerous things on Aziraphale's behalf. No, there was the time he'd been rescued from beheading. There were several other times besides. He could hardly understand why Crowley ever went through all the trouble.

And yet, he guesses, before knowing this, he just assumed it hadn't been that much trouble.

"Unless you'd like to," he says, flicking eyes up at him. He doesn't mean for them to be pleading, but he doesn't really have another choice in the matter.

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