We Are the Champions, My Friend || Closed

[sauntered_downward]

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?"

Comments

[sauntered_downward]

"I might, you never know." Crowley doesn't think he'd like the mundane parts of living a human life with Aziraphale. Shopping, tidying up a flat, all of that. But, the more he thinks about it, the less annoying and mundane it seems. Little things are always made more interesting with the angel. He's always made his life more fun, more interesting.

"Remember what's happening to the boat next month," he says under his breath. "That shipment is going one place and one place only."

[lunchbreaks]

"Yes, I know, I know. But I still feel bad that we're leaving them with nothing while they wait for us to return. There's not even anything to hunt or fish!" he protests, as he makes it through the bath products aisle for some reason. "Oh, good thing miracles still work here, can't imagine what it'd be like otherwise. We might have to... actually take showers to stay clean! Imagine that."

He shakes his head and picks up some soap. "For the soldier, I suppose. Or-- oh Crowley, come back. Do you think he's more of a Mountain Spring or a Ocean Air Kiss?"

[sauntered_downward]

Crowley doesn't even look at the soap. "Please don't make me have this conversation with you. I will do literally anything to not have this conversation with you."

[lunchbreaks]

"Fine, Ocean Air Kiss it is, goodness. Didn't know you were so persnickety about scents, dear. Thought you might know him a little better, since you're his handler and all."

He slinks by, going to go check out another aisle.

[sauntered_downward]

"I didn't ask for this, you know," he says. "I just thought we were escaping together, that's all."

All the same, Crowley felt a stupid sense of responsibility for the human soldier person. His handler. Oh, Hell. He was going to have to figure out what to do next, what to do to help the human soldier person with his problems.

"Pity you can't just heal his mind," he says. "Get him what he needs to be...well, whoever he was before they brainwashed him."

[lunchbreaks]

"Yes, I know, but it doesn't work that way, Crowley." But then he stops. "And let me remind you that you are the one who invited him into our house, so yes, we will have to take care of him. And buy him soaps. Possibly something for that beard of his."

"Why are there lubricants and condoms available?" he asks irritably, since they're right next to the shaving supplies, where he picks up a razor. "Seems rather rude to point out they're all dead. We're all dead."

[sauntered_downward]

"Sex still happens when you're dead, I imagine," Crowley says, picking up one of the bottles of lubricant. He gives a sideways glance at his companion through his sunglasses, and then puts it back on the shelf.

"Probably better for the morale around here, anyway. Heaven can't complain about a little sin in the afterlife. Especially because this Purgatory doesn't have any other sort of pleasures around."

[lunchbreaks]

"I am really hoping no one is able to conceive, regardless of contraception. And I'd hope that no one is diseased anymore. Would be awful to be dead and still diseased," he says.

"Not the bit about there being nothing better to do in this town. Honestly I'd be surprised there isn't more of that if we gave anyone the chance to really settle in.

[sauntered_downward]

"Would be something they brought with them," Crowley says, cheekily. "You do get to keep everything you died with. Diseases, I imagine, are a bit like that." Not that Crowley really knows.

"I've always thought of sexually transmitted diseases as one of the crueler of the diseases that's come about with humans," he says. "Put something out there as fun as sex, and then make sure that you could die or go insane from the wrong roll in the hay with the wrong person."

He's going to completely ignore Aziraphale's assurance about giving people in the town a chance. He doesn't want to get to know or like them. That would be unfortunate, considering he isn't planning on sticking around.

[lunchbreaks]

"Does seem rather cruel," he agrees. "But hardly the worst thing when so many diseases are spread through the air or water, and humans can't be like us and stop drinking or breathing, either." Not that they could catch those sorts of diseases, else Aziraphale would've been a rotating door of bodies during the plague. He had, in his free time, gone to sit with the dying and hear their last words. He wasn't allowed to heal them; no, God had plans for them; but, he had been allowed to give them comforts as they died.

He doesn't pick anything up from that section, but he does pick up some bar soap and a loofah. "Oh," he says, disappointed. "No bubble bath."

[sauntered_downward]

"Yeah, but when everyone's getting diseases that are horrible, you can't help but feel pity for them," Crowley says. "People get an STD, or some horrible disease transmitted that way, they tend to die alone, no angels at their side. After all, they did this to themselves by indulging in something that God made feel really good."

Crowley remembers the 80's very well, especially. Lots of time hanging about with the gay community, lots of people he knew----perfectly good people, no way in Heaven they'd end up with his lot---dying completely alone. It made him think a lot about what was fair and what wasn't, and he decided very quickly that some things weren't fair, "preventable" or not.

[lunchbreaks]

"I think you've got no idea whose death beds I've visited, Crowley." The other angels do not, but he does, on occasion, surround himself in death and try to ease the dying into a lulled state. It's a horrible thing to die in pain, and a horrible thing to die alone.

But it doesn't matter anyway, because Aziraphale doesn't think Crowley's talking about that anymore. No, blaming God for things, that seemed to happen whenever Crowley started thinking about his Fall. "You don't have to tell me about it, but I would listen if you'd like to talk about it," he says, frustratingly vaguely not actually explaining what it is he's talking about.

[sauntered_downward]

"No, not you, angel, I meant---" He gestures, vaguely rotating his wrist around. "You know, them."

No, Crowley is only sort of talking about what he's talking about. He has so much he wants to talk about, so much he wants to question and blither on about, but there isn't enough good wine in this place for that sort of a conversation. Those sort of conversations are saved for when he and Aziraphale are well and truly pissed, and he can go on and on, and forget that by making Aziraphale question things he could be dooming the angel to the same fate as himself.

Because, in Crowley's mind, Aziraphale could never Fall. No, not Aziraphale. The angel was too good.

"You could use body wash as a bubble bath," he suggests. "Creates about the same number of bubbles."

[lunchbreaks]

Aziraphale still thinks that's a distinct possibility, and he isn't sure how he hasn't Fallen already, what with everything he's done. Hasn't he done enough questioning of the Plan? Hasn't he done enough thwarting of things that are supposed to be Good and Holy?

Anyway, he picks up a body wash. Lavender scented, though he uncaps to smell and puts it right back, selecting the strawberry scented one next to it. On second thought, nevermind to that one as well.

"Ah, yes, I don't have my cologne anymore, Crowley, is this cologne?" he asks, picking up a bottle of Axe. "Says it's... body spray, so I assume it's something of the sort."

[sauntered_downward]

Crowley reaches out and takes the bottle, putting it back on the shelves.

"No, angel, that's one of mine. You don't want it."

[lunchbreaks]

"Oh, do you? Oh-- one of your inventions. Crowley, honestly, what have you done?" He unscrews the top and gives it a whiff. "Awful. Truly awful, this is the worst-- Crowley, who is buying this?"

With a huff he opens up a few more bottles and selects a very cheap but passable aftershave-scented one.

[sauntered_downward]

"Mostly teenage boys," Crowley replies. "And the goal was more to create a sort of aroma that would keep women away from them at a careful distance...."

It works well, for the most part. But locker rooms will never be the same.

"Where do you think they get this from? From the ferry? Bulk shipping for Purgatory and all that?"

[lunchbreaks]

"Possibly. Ugh, awful," he says, putting it back on the shelf as if it might have been bat wings or other things to find in a cauldron.

"Well now, I can't possibly shave without aftershave." Technically, he doesn't have to shave at all, he just likes it. They don't even have a straight razor in the grocery, just a bunch of metal ones covered in plastic. Ugh.

He looks very off-put by all this. "Forget it, let's just get what we came for and leave." Infuriating.

[sauntered_downward]

"How do you think I feel? They don't even have the product I like for my hair." He could, technically just miracle it the way he likes it, but it never falls the same.

"Besides, we need to find cookbooks----did you say we can find them here? Or is there somewhere else?"

Do they have kerosene here, he wonders. Cause that could be very useful.

[lunchbreaks]

"Oh that's right, the cookbooks. I'm sure they have some at the library, but--" he starts wandering before he picks up a jar of something. "Honestly Crowley, what's wrong with vaseline?" He walks back over to Crowley with the jar, and surveys him, running fingers through his hair. "Well, alright, maybe not.

"But it still could be useful for other applications, like lubricant." A pause. "I'm sure Soldier's arm gets very creaky without some form of grease."

[sauntered_downward]

"So you're going to tell him to lube it up with vaseline?" Crowley says, raising an eyebrow.

"Might do better with a bit of mechanical grease----why do you think they gave him that arm, anyway? Seems completely impractical. If they were going for metal bits, couldn't they have made it his whole torso? Or just built a robot? Rather than attaching it to a man who they have to torture to keep compliant."

[lunchbreaks]

"I don't know. Wonder what happened to the arm he was born with. Or-- oh, maybe he wasn't born with one. And - I don't know, haven't you noticed a distinct lack of cars or engines or really, any machinery around here? Doubt there's any of the grease he needs. And besides, who really wants to cover their arm in that! He still needs to use it, you know. For things like eating and showering."

He places the vaseline in the basket. Actually, he goes and gets the biggest jar they have. It's a big arm.

"Now, I believe we were going to find a cookbook."

[sauntered_downward]

Crowley makes a distinctly pout-like face, the sort that one makes when one's parent has made the decision to treat one's pet in a manner differently than the child would. That is not, Crowley would tell you, because he is a child, the human soldier person is a pet, or because Aziraphale is a parent.

"We could at least try," he mutters. "Did we get him shampoo?"

[lunchbreaks]

"Ah, right, he can't just use soap. Yes, wolf berry shampoo, that sounds right for the soldier, perfect." He just tosses that in the cart as well. "Hopefully he likes it better than the Axe."

Otherwise, Aziraphale might be embarrassed for him.

[sauntered_downward]

Crowley mouths 'wolf berry' and then just shakes his head. They would have to accept it, it was what they had.

"Is there anything you can do with his memory?" he asks. "I know I can't----I could probably access some of his unpleasant memories, but I don't think he wants any of those."