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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"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.

It's nice, actually, being told that Aziraphale doesn't want him gone. They've played that game often, of Crowley trying to stay, of tempting Aziraphale into another glass of wine or another few minutes up and away from their duties, but always there was this line between them. The lines of what sides they were truly on. Now, it appears, the only side they're on is their own.

He slides down in the bed, resting himself next to the angel. He should probably go, he thinks. Probably go, go back to his own bed and actually try to rest. Crowley could sleep for years, but it was never like how humans slept, he imagines this will be different no matter what he does. Then he looks at Aziraphale's eyes, at the slightly pleading look.

He's never been one who could turn down Aziraphale.

"I'll stay," he says.

Yes, he could never turn Aziraphale down and it's something the angel took advantage of again and again. It's shameless, but effective. He smiles, and then, in the quiet, he says: "I'm not mad at you."

"I'm-- I'm mad I didn't know how much of a pain I caused you. Sometimes, I wonder, if I don't make it well-enough known to you, but you are my best friend too, you know." He'd said those things, he'd lied, in a bid to keep Crowley out of it. Perhaps if Heaven came for him, they would leave Crowley alone.

They were more unscrupulous than he had thought, but that's what happens when you place your faith in people you shouldn't have trusted.

He can only hope Crowley believes him now.

"It was only three years, angel," he says. "Practically a drop in the bucket in comparison to the look on those Nazis faces, eh?"

But that wasn't why Crowley had done it. He worked with a lot of Nazis---it was his job---and while he got enjoyment out of watching them get what they had coming to them, he was really there for Aziraphale. There to protect the angel. After all, it wasn't as if the angel was going to protect himself very well, now, was he?

"We're in the first place we've ever been able to be best friends in public," he says. "I'll miss that about this place, when we've gone. Gotten you back to your bookshop."

"Yes," he responds, though he's still angry about how easily he brushes off a three-year burn, but it doesn't seem like the time to argue with him about it. He just worries that Crowley might do something equally as stupid in the future.

"But we... we'll work something out. They'll have to leave us alone eventually, maybe all of Earth. And then... we could be like this all the time." He finds his voice breaking as he says it, and he can't even blame it on the alcohol.

Crowley wants to just tell Aziraphale that he's right. That of course they'll figure it out. That they'll be able to go dine at the Ritz and have picnics at St. James, and walk hand-in-hand down the street like they've always wanted. One day, he wants to say, they'll be able to do something ridiculous like get a retirement cottage out of London together and just tell the whole world to bugger off and take care of itself.

But that would be lying. And Crowley doesn't lie to Aziraphale.

"They'll always come after us, angel," he says. "We just have to stop them before they destroy the Earth again. We have to make sure they never do this again."

"You mean like fight all of Heaven and Hell? Together?" He looks at Crowley as if he's gone mad, but knows in his heart that they won't let them rest. "If you think we could, I suppose... there's no other choice." He hates making a choice when he doesn't have another one, but he does want to go back to the shop. It's where he belongs. And Crowley, with his car. He loves that car.

And yet, looking over, he wonders if it's so bad at all, being here. "But we won't do any of it before we have our picnic. Yes?"

Crowley tilts his head a bit more into the pillow, looking at Aziraphale's face. His best friend. He's never cared for anything or anyone like he's cared for Aziraphale, and he's pretty sure he never will. He thinks about reaching out and touching Aziraphale's face----but decides against it. No, they're going through far too much here for him to start stomping all over the lines that they've drawn for themselves.

"Definitely have to have a picnic," he says. "Before we steal the ferry. Which, by the way, you can't tell anyone about. I don't want the forest spirits hearing about our plans."

"Fine. Who was I going to tell anyway?" Yes, now would probably not be a good moment for face holding now that they've gone back to bickering a bit at each other.

"I really do hope it works, Crowley. I'd like to go back, I just... we don't know the first thing about seafaring."

He squints.

"There was a long time I didn't see you. You wouldn't happen to have been involved in any piracy during the 1600s, had you?"

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