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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Crowley watches Aziraphale sleep for a while. It's relaxing, seeing the angel so quiet, so peaceful. Almost impossible to think of him so still without a book mesmerizing him.

They could have this, he thinks, taking a glance around the dark room, only illuminated by the lanterns. It's not much, but they have it together. It's something they can't have on Earth. The freedom to just be friends. The freedom to have each other.

Is the spite Crowley feels towards Heaven and Hell stronger than his desire to just be with Aziraphale?

He thinks about it a while, and then curls up next to the angel, letting his snore lull him into his own sleep.

Aziraphale dreams. He hadn't realized he could, but it's a nice one. He's back at home in the shop, and he's forgotten that it's gone to him now, probably taken over by the government, ungloved hands all over his books. But no, in this dream he's sitting by the fire on a lovely winter's day, no customers at all. Perfect.

There's a knock at his door and he goes to get it only to find Crowley there with a thermos of cocoa (now that he no longer needed it to house holy water) and suddenly he's being serenaded by the demon. He had been expecting a lullaby, for some reason, but the song he's selected is La Vie En Rose. For some reason, Crowley forgets all the same words that Aziraphale forgets.

Afterwards, they share the hot chocolate, and Aziraphale pulls out an old box containing a board game. It's dreadful fun, but he can't recall anything about it....

It must be very early morning, he thinks, when he wakes up. But then he remembers that it's always night. Somehow, he seems to not be in the position he was in when he fell asleep, and there is something very warm on his back.

Crowley can dream. Sometimes, he has absolutely intense, intricate dreams. Sometimes he has lovely little daydreams that can last decades. Tonight, he dreams of his trial. He dreams of the panic at watching Aziraphale be pulled away from him in the park, at his complete helplessness. At being walked into the room with the bathtub and knowing, without any shadow of a doubt, that he wasn't walking out of it.

Crowley didn't die gracefully. He panicked, he kicked and screamed and was dragged to his death in a fairly undignified manner. He likes to pretend he was so cool about it, so completely full of the energy he usually gives out when he's sauntering about the Earth----but it wasn't there. He was just afraid.

And then he was here.

Snakes are cold blooded. Crowley usually sleeps curled up, under several layers of warmth. There's no warm pashmina afghan here, but there is a warm body next to him, and he curls up tight next to it, throwing a leg over the angel's body and snoring quietly against him, with an exhale that sounds a bit like a hiss.

Crowley snoring in Aziraphale's ear should be alarming, but it's quite comforting to know it's just his friend wrapped up next to him. It'd be a shame to wake him, he supposes, but he does pull up his device to check the time and -- blinds himself, momentarily-- blinking wearily, he places his device back onto the nightstand and then thinks he is in a very odd predicament.

He couldn't possibly get up and wake Crowley while he's sleeping so soundly, so peacefully. Plus, he would never usually allow himself to get so physically close to Crowley, not just because he thinks Heaven is constantly watching, but, deep down, if he is very honest with himself, it's because his heart is rabbit-fast and so are his hopes.

Very carefully, he sets about disentangling himself before his thoughts can get away from him.

Crowley can sleep. He can sleep through a lot of things. He slept through a great deal of the boring 14th century, and part of World War 1 and 2. Bombs and evacuations couldn't stop him from sleeping. But, that was then. He was sleeping for fun, not necessity. This, now, means that he can rouse for reality. Rouse to wake, to eat, and to be, well, alive.

He feels Aziraphale move him, and his eyes flutter open.

"Angel?" he asks, decidedly not moving his limbs to make unentangling easier.

Oh, drats. "Crowley," he answers. "Don't worry, dear, go back to sleep. It's early yet. I just thought I'd... wake up and get a head start on breakfast. What would you like?" He decides to stay a little longer, and turns over to face Crowley.

On second thought, this was possibly a bad idea. He fights not to smile looking at Crowley's soft and well-slept state of bedhead and sleepy features.

"Thank you for-- last night, for staying with me. Yes. Thank you."

"Any time, angel," he says. He considers keeping himself tangled up with the angel. This sort of intimacy, this sort of closeness, it's something he's wanted but----well, Aziraphale said he moved too fast back in the 60's, that wasn't that long ago. There's no way he's changed his mind any time soon. Crowley isn't about to stomp all over the lines they've drawn for each other. No matter how comfortable and warm the angel is.

He moves his leg and shifts a little in the bed, giving the angel room. He looks up at the angel's hair, at his little nightcap. He could get used to this, he thinks. Having a friend to wake up with. Crowley spent so much of his time on Earth alone.

"Breakfast," he says. "Do we have to eat breakfast, too? I thought that was just something you liked in the morning."

"You don't have to, if you're not hungry. But I am." Probably due to the fact that all they really had for dinner was tinned peaches.

"I'll make you a tea at least. You can drink tea, right?" Maybe it'll whet his appetite. Aziraphale is thinking of breaking into the peas next. He could mash them with potatoes and make bubble and squeak.

Except, he hasn't got a pan. Actually, he doesn't really know how to cook. Even Crowley had done shopping once pretending he needed all those things, maybe he'd know.

But Aziraphale is definitely going to put the proverbial fork in the microwave. Just give him a morning.

He considers how he feels, and he thinks he's hungry. It's hard to tell. They didn't eat a great deal the previous night, he supposes, and his body could certainly use more. How frustrating. He would go full centuries between meals when Aziraphale and lunch wasn't involved. Now, it was a multiple-times-a-day affair.

"I could help," he offers. "If you want. I did invent those Tasty videos on Facebook. Didn't learn a great deal about food, but they really do irritate people when the ads split them right before the good bits. I'm sure I picked something."

"You didn't tell me you invented something called Tasty or Facebook." He smiles proudly at his friend, and considers getting up out of bed. Except it's so comfortable here, nice and warm with Crowley.

But his stomach does a grumble, so he quickly extricates himself from bed and miracles himself into his regular clothes. "I'll probably need your assistance, yes."

Then he huffs his breath into his hand and wrinkles his nose in disgust at the state of his breath. "Have you done something or was that just the sleep?"

Aziraphale stands and Crowley doesn't bother to suppress a groan of disappointment. Sloth really is his favorite of the sins. Well, on of his favorites, anyway. And here Aziraphale is, getting up early to make breakfast.

Crowley tastes the inside of his own mouth and grimaces. "I think that's just sleep," he says. "Give your mouth a clean, it'll be all right."

He stands, stretches, and saunters over to the stairs still in his pajamas. He'll change when he's good and ready to, unlike Aziraphale. Besides, if he could reside in just silk all of the time, he probably would.

"What have we got in?"

Aziraphale throws opens their cupboards and then--

--frowns, deeply.

"Well, we've got powdered eggs. And tinned peas. I'm sorry, canned peas, and look," he says, taking out a packet. "Real chocolate chip cookies."

Then he takes a look in the fridge. "Ah, milk. Oh, Crowley. I could make crepes!"

"How?" Crowley says, opening up the packet of chocolate chip cookies. "With powdered eggs and milk?"

He pops one of the cookies in his mouth, ever ready to spoil his own appetite, and offers one to the angel.

"I wonder why they only have survival food out here. You'd think, after death, they'd at least have either excellent food or terrible food. Every day in Hell is a day at Denny's----so there's that going for it, but you come to expect it."

"Who is Denny?" He takes the chocolate chip cookie and bites into it, wrinkling his nose. "Dry. And no, I'll make it with flour and sugar, I'm sure we have some... yes, that'll do nicely." He opens up the sugar and a spider crawls out. He drops the bag.

"Oh no, no no." He holds his head in his hands and then miracles the floor clean, depositing the sugar in the trash. "Alright, I suppose we'll have to make a trip tot he store."

"Is that what humans do every day?" Crowley says. "Shop at the store. That's----monotonous."

He doesn't answer about Denny's. It's really better the angel doesn't know.

He waves his hand and dresses himself, then moves a foot to crush the offending spider beneath his toe.

"Do you think they have recipe books?" he asks.

"Possibly. I hope so, otherwise how are we going to know what to do with the ingredients? I guess I could just figure it out. Can't be that hard, right?"

He goes and gets their umbrella, just in case it decides to rain.

"How much money do you think we'll need?"

Crowley pulls out his mobile and holds it up. It never needs a charge, but the little bars on the side confirm what he suspected.

"No signal," he says. "Guess those cooking videos are a bit out of reach for us."

He looks from his mobile over to the angel. He chews on the inside of his lip.

"I don't know. A hundred pounds?"

"A hundred pounds? Alright, I hope I have enough." He frowns deeply, because inflation has gone so high.

"Is that a hundred pounds with or without the cookbook? Books are expensive, dear, it might be two hundred."

He has no idea how much a new book costs. All his books cost in the neighborhood of several thousand to more. A hundred pounds for a book? Sounds like a steal.

"I don't know, angel, I'm sure we can just make some more money when we get there," he says, slipping on his sunglasses. "Or were you worried about actually having enough money? Because I didn't have my wallet on me in Hell."

He leans against the door, looking at the angel expectantly. "There have to be other ways to get things around here. Nobody here has a job or anything. And I am not getting a job."

"What do you mean? We might have to work! It's not so bad. I do like running the book shop. You could garden. You're very good with plants, I'm sure people would pay you loads of money to take care of their plants."

He locks up the house as they make their way outside. "Honestly Crowley, it's nice. You get hours, you get paid, you get little breaks to take!"

"I had a job for six thousand years, angel, and then they killed me for it," he says, walking next to Aziraphale. "I've decided that's probably the end of working for me for the forseeable future."

He could garden. He could do that. But why would he? He's not going to stay here long. They're going to get out of here, get Aziraphale back to his bookshop.

"How did you get paid at the bookshop, anyway? Did you ever actually sell any of your books?"

"Oh yes, one or two. Only when I needed to, you know. Horrible thing, I parted with a first-edition Tale of Two Cities only to later discover they had completely destroyed it. Let it get wet! Awful."

They would get back to Earth soon, but then Crowley would need a job then, too. After they dispatched Heaven and Hell for the second time. He'd have to eventually! But that was at least a month off.

"Oh, should we have brought a basket?"

This feels particularly domestic. Crowley's never been a domestic sort, except with Aziraphale. Going out to dinners, out to plays. It's always felt particularly natural to them. Even this, going out grocery shopping. It's like they've always been a pair, always done this.

"Nah, we'll be all right," he says. "I doubt we'll be able to cook anything like what you're used to, though."

Though Crowley will certainly try. Aziraphale can't live on tinned food alone. The angel has discerning tastes.

Domestic is a good word for it, but domestic is something that Aziraphale does well. "If you say so, you're the expert." Isn't that a scary thought?

"We'll need a pan, I think. And a knife. You need a knife to crack an egg, correct? But it's so round, how do you stand it up?"

They are doomed.

"Why do you need a knife to crack an egg?" Crowley asks, looking at Aziraphale as though the angel has grown three heads. "Did you see that at a show or something?"

He considers just eating eggs a thing that should be done, but he's spent part of his life as a snake, so that makes perfect sense to him.

"Let's walk the long way, past the bonfire," he suggests.

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