First Post: But For the Grace
*Waves shyly* Hi there. I've been lurking for a while, but this is my first GO fanfic and my first post here. It's a crossover; I hope y'all don't mind.
But For the Grace
Fandoms: Good Omens, Hellblazer
Characters/Pairings: John Constantine, implied unrequited Aziraphale/Crowley
Rating: R-ish for language.
A/N: In the Eternal Conflict between Heaven and Hell, some beings inevitably get caught in the middle. How they deal with this conundrum varies as much as the beings themselves.
But For the Grace
"...an' while he's goin' on about poor old Brendan, I wander over to the candles--did I mention that, there were all these candles?"
"Don' think so. Why candles?" Crowley peered unsteadily at his drinking companion over the rims of his sunglasses, displaying his startling yellow eyes to their full effect. This failed to elicit the usual response (1). Though he wasn't surprised, somehow, he wasn't sure whether he liked that or not.
In fact, there was something distinctly off-putting about this mortal, despite his ordinary, slightly disreputable appearance. Something...vaguely ominous.
But he was generous with his cigarettes and spun a Hell of a story, pun very much intended, and so far he'd done nothing more alarming than level some creative insults at the hierarchy (lowerarchy?) Downstairs. So that was all right. Though Crowley wondered how he'd made the personal acquaintance of so many demonic personalities, and walked away seemingly intact.
"Right. Candles. Shitload of bloody candles, see, sitting on a table next to the pool. All lit up nice an' pretty. So he downs his glass, and a right smug bastard he's looking, let me tell you--"
"Oh, don't I know it," Crowley muttered, sinking lower in his chair; he was only too familiar with the Smug Bastard in question.
"--an' then he says, says he, 'By Hell, that's bloody good stout', or words to that effect. And I say to him--now get this, this is the good bit--" The man lowered his voice conspiratorially, and Crowley leaned in to catch the punch line. "I say, 'Yeah, the candles keep the spell going, y'see. Stops the stout from changin' back to holy water.' " He grinned nastily. "An' then I kick over the table..."
Crowley was suddenly, painfully sober. "You said what?" he croaked, setting his own glass down with a thud.
The trenchcoated stranger gave him a long, unreadable look. Crowley glanced around the small pub. He didn't see any lit candles, but the door suddenly looked extremely attractive, and also exceedingly far away...
To his dismay, the other man suddenly broke into a helpless giggle fit. "Oh, Christ. The look on your face--" He leaned back in his chair, laughing so hard his face turned an interesting shade of plum.
"No, it's all right, squire," he said at last, wiping his eyes. "'s only beer. Promise. Had you goin' for a minute there, though, didn't I?"
Crowley smiled coldly, collecting his injured dignity. "Yeah. Yeah, great joke." An appropriate rebuttal was already taking shape in his head, and it wouldn't be anything like as harmless as the joke had been. He'd have a time explaining himself to Aziraphale later, but it was a matter of principle, by Somebody...
"Oh, it wasn't a joke," said his companion mildly. "It really happened. Almost bought me a one-way ticket to your hometown, in fact, but I put one over on him an' his brothers a bit later and managed to squeak out of it." He sighed, staring ruefully into his own glass. "At least for a while..."
Something tickled at the very back of Crowley's mind. He frowned, trying to pin it down. Sometimes having to sift though more than six thousand years' worth of memories to match a story with a name or a face could be a real bitch (2). "What'd you say your name was...?"
---
"Well, you see what happens when you go drinking with strangers," Aziraphale said, mildly reproving, but he patted the demon's shoulder comfortingly as he passed by on his way to fetch the teapot.
"I do that all the time," Crowley protested weakly. "How was I supposed to know he was number one on Hell's Most Wanted list? The drawing they sent 'round looks nothing like him!"
"Hellish efficiency," the angel murmured as he poured. "You'd think they would have invested in a few decent cameras by now."
"Says the angel who still has to lug along a satchel full of glass plates if he wants to take pictures on holiday (3)."
"My camera is still perfectly serviceable," Aziraphale said serenely, "and it's no more anachronistic than your beloved Bentley, my dear. At any rate, it sounds as though you got off easy with just a bit of a scare."
"No lie," Crowley agreed, shuddering.
"Are you going to report him?"
Crowley, who had just taken a cautious sip of the scalding-hot tea, choked and barely stopped himself spewing it across the table. Aziraphale came around and pounded him on the back.
"Are you off your gourd?" he croaked when he could draw a proper breath. "They'd just send me after him, now wouldn't they! 'Crowley my boy, why don't you just nip off and haul in the bloke who tricked Our Master into imbibing the most poisonous substance in the Universe and then tied the Three up in their own red tape and hung them up to dry? No? Well, that's all right, no hard feelings, in fact you've got some holiday time coming, you can spend it in the Chasm of Unendurable Agony!' " He gestured vehemently for emphasis. "Thank you, but no. I prefer my innards un-roasted, if it's all the same to you."
"Well, it was only a thought," Aziraphale said calmly. "I don't suppose I'll mention him to my superiors, either."
Crowley blinked. "What, your side's after him too? I'd have thought they'd be cheering him on."
"Oh dear me, no. He's just as notorious Upstairs. Rumor has it he was involved in Gabriel's, um, disappearance a few years ago. Nasty sordid business," Aziraphale said with a sigh. "No, he has very few friends even on Earth, from what I'm given to understand. He doesn't care about sides; only the people who have to live between them. And that makes him a side unto himself." He shook his head. "Terribly lonely way to live, I should think."
Crowley had nothing to say to that. He and Aziraphale--he had to stop doing that, thinking of them as a unit; it was a dangerous habit to have fallen into--were not in so different a situation, when you came down to it. One more small step toward metaphysical center, and either one of them could too easily find himself on the wrong sides of both Upstairs and Down. It was a perilous line to walk; that one mortal had managed it so successfully for so long was damned impressive.
But (he resolutely refused to think,) they had one thing going for them that the man in the trench coat did not.
At least they weren't alone.
"Right. So, it officially Never Happened," he said briskly. "What d'you say to a game of backgammon?"
---
Outside the bookshop's back window--unnoticed by angel or demon, a trick few mortals could manage--a lighter flared, and tired blue eyes watched bemusedly as the unlikely pair set up the board.
John Constantine had met a lot of demons. He'd even seen a few gone native, going about their business more or less peaceably. It was more common than even most of them realized. Stood to reason, after all; he'd seen Hell, and Earth at its worst was far and away the better place to be, if you could.
But until tonight, no demon had ever left him with the impression that he, John, was the nastiest piece of work in the room. Usually it didn't take too long for their true nature to surface. He'd expected Crowley to attempt to remove his face after the holy water gag, at the very least, and it hadn't happened. Oh, the thought had been there, right enough; but John would lay money it would never have been acted upon.
Something had happened to change this one, and that had intrigued him sufficiently that he'd followed Crowley when he left the pub. The Bentley had only piqued his curiosity further; it smacked of sentimentality, something distinctly uncharacteristic of demons he'd known.
It hadn't taken him long to peg the other fellow for what he was. Working out why the two of them were meeting for late tea in the back of a rare bookshop was harder. But after watching them together for a while, he thought he'd figured it out, and had almost laughed out loud and given himself away.
It was Ellie and Tali all over again (4). Only these two silly buggers didn't seem to realize it, and what was even funnier, they'd got it right. Carrying on right under the noses of the Powers that Be, and nobody the wiser.
I could use this, the thought came from that cold, dark, slightly mad place inside him, and he hated it even as he considered it. Threaten to tip off the management, and I'd have 'em both over a barrel. A spy on either side...and if either of them got his knickers in a twist, a judicious threat against the other would bring him right back into line.
He stood there and watched and debated, and the angel and the demon played their game and drank tea and bickered companionably like an old married couple. They'd known one another for ages, you could tell; it just shone through in everything they did. Carried on old arguments as though they'd just left off, and straightened each others' collars, and made the tea without having to ask 'how d'you take it'. Most likely they'd be lost without each other.
Lost, like so many other souls who'd crossed the path of a Constantine.
"Well. Good for you, lads," he said finally, very softly, and ground his cigarette out with his heel. "You beat the system. You've won yourselves a free pass." He might be the King of All Bastards, but he wasn't completely heartless.
And anyway, he told himself, these two were probably doing their bit to undermine the establishment without any 'help' from him.
Inside, the bespectacled angel--pure affectation, he was certain; no celestial was nearsighted---abruptly sat up straighter and cocked his head, as though he'd heard something.
Shit. Time to go.
---
"What is it?" Crowley asked, and Aziraphale couldn't help but smile at the slight undertone of paranoia to the question. Meeting the notorious hedge wizard had seriously rattled his friend, it seemed.
He raised a hand to forestall further questions, listening intently. "I'm not sure. I thought I heard..."
After a moment, he got up and went to the window. Crowley was at his back an instant later. Three or four thousand years before, that would have been a frightening thought; now the familiar presence was reassuring. Perhaps a little too much so. As always, he automatically pushed that thought aside before it had fully formed, and focused on the matter at hand.
Leaning on the windowsill, he looked out into the darkness. His eyes, which needed very little light, detected nothing out of the ordinary, but an obscure instinct told him that his eyes were wrong. So he shut them and reached out silently with other, more esoteric senses.
"Aziraphale?" Crowley prodded, peering over his shoulder. "Is there something out there?"
A faint echo brushed past Aziraphale's mind; not a stray thought, he realized with some surprise, but an impression deliberately left behind. A message.
Nothing to see here, boys. Nothing you'd want to be mucking about with. Aziraphale shivered as half-formed images of things dark and terrible flitted by, just at the periphery of his mind's eye. Things that made beings like Crowley, and Hastur and Ligur, and even the Horsepersons look bright and innocent by comparison. It's a taste, he realized, he's giving me just a small taste. Just to prove his point.
He shook his head, drawing back inside and quietly, deliberately shutting the window. "Nothing we need concern ourselves with," he said to Crowley.
The demon frowned at him over his sunglasses. "Why do I have the feeling you're trying to pull a me?"
"Not at all, dear boy," Aziraphale said firmly, returning to his seat. "I'm advising you to leave it be. We've been passed over, this time. And I for one am grateful." They'd both been largely sheltered from the uglier aspects of the Eternal Conflict all these years, by luck or by Ineffable design, and it was perhaps not a bad thing to be reminded of it.
Crowley raised his eyebrows, and for a moment Aziraphale thought he was going to argue the point.
"Trust me," he added soberly. Words that rarely passed between them--rarely needed to, anymore (5).
The demon let his breath out in a quiet, exasperated sigh. "All right, angel." With a final glance out the window, he too re-seated himself and turned his attention back to the board. "I hope that wasn't an ill-conceived attempt to distract me from the game. It won't work."
Aziraphale just smiled. Crowley knew him better than that, but it was all part of the larger game they'd been playing for more than six thousand years.
He spared one more moment's thought for the benighted soul whose world had briefly intersected their own, and said a small prayer of thanks (leaving out the specifics, of course.)
There but for the grace of Somebody.
---
Miles away, a young boy yawned and turned over in his bed, relaxing as he felt the sad, cold shadow slip safely past one of the places he kept always just at the edge of his mind.
"That's right," he murmured sleepily. "You go on back where you belong. Don't you be messin' around with those two. You got your work to do an' they got theirs. You just leave 'em alone."
He yawned again, burrowed deeper into his blankets, and went back to sleep...his dreams lit briefly by the faint red glow of a cigarette that faded into darkness, and was gone.
--- End ---
(1) Though truthfully, things just hadn't been the same since the invention of theatrical contact lenses.
(2) Crowley had in fact been the driving force behind the invention of the PDA, which he reported as a rousing success due to the vast ill will it generated over incompatible OS's and ridiculously low battery life; but he'd really done it because his address book was getting too big to carry around conveniently.
(3) This was a slight exaggeration.
(4) Chantinelle and Tali, that is, for those who don't know. A succubus and an angel of John's acquaintance who had the misfortune to fall in love and conceive a child. It all ended...badly.
(5) In fact, if possible, they both avoided ever saying it at all. This no doubt had something to do with an incident in ancient Rome involving a public bath, a very large quantity of wine, and an attractive young woman whose profession was shamefully misrepresented.
(Cross-posted to my own LJ)
But For the Grace
Fandoms: Good Omens, Hellblazer
Characters/Pairings: John Constantine, implied unrequited Aziraphale/Crowley
Rating: R-ish for language.
A/N: In the Eternal Conflict between Heaven and Hell, some beings inevitably get caught in the middle. How they deal with this conundrum varies as much as the beings themselves.
But For the Grace
"...an' while he's goin' on about poor old Brendan, I wander over to the candles--did I mention that, there were all these candles?"
"Don' think so. Why candles?" Crowley peered unsteadily at his drinking companion over the rims of his sunglasses, displaying his startling yellow eyes to their full effect. This failed to elicit the usual response (1). Though he wasn't surprised, somehow, he wasn't sure whether he liked that or not.
In fact, there was something distinctly off-putting about this mortal, despite his ordinary, slightly disreputable appearance. Something...vaguely ominous.
But he was generous with his cigarettes and spun a Hell of a story, pun very much intended, and so far he'd done nothing more alarming than level some creative insults at the hierarchy (lowerarchy?) Downstairs. So that was all right. Though Crowley wondered how he'd made the personal acquaintance of so many demonic personalities, and walked away seemingly intact.
"Right. Candles. Shitload of bloody candles, see, sitting on a table next to the pool. All lit up nice an' pretty. So he downs his glass, and a right smug bastard he's looking, let me tell you--"
"Oh, don't I know it," Crowley muttered, sinking lower in his chair; he was only too familiar with the Smug Bastard in question.
"--an' then he says, says he, 'By Hell, that's bloody good stout', or words to that effect. And I say to him--now get this, this is the good bit--" The man lowered his voice conspiratorially, and Crowley leaned in to catch the punch line. "I say, 'Yeah, the candles keep the spell going, y'see. Stops the stout from changin' back to holy water.' " He grinned nastily. "An' then I kick over the table..."
Crowley was suddenly, painfully sober. "You said what?" he croaked, setting his own glass down with a thud.
The trenchcoated stranger gave him a long, unreadable look. Crowley glanced around the small pub. He didn't see any lit candles, but the door suddenly looked extremely attractive, and also exceedingly far away...
To his dismay, the other man suddenly broke into a helpless giggle fit. "Oh, Christ. The look on your face--" He leaned back in his chair, laughing so hard his face turned an interesting shade of plum.
"No, it's all right, squire," he said at last, wiping his eyes. "'s only beer. Promise. Had you goin' for a minute there, though, didn't I?"
Crowley smiled coldly, collecting his injured dignity. "Yeah. Yeah, great joke." An appropriate rebuttal was already taking shape in his head, and it wouldn't be anything like as harmless as the joke had been. He'd have a time explaining himself to Aziraphale later, but it was a matter of principle, by Somebody...
"Oh, it wasn't a joke," said his companion mildly. "It really happened. Almost bought me a one-way ticket to your hometown, in fact, but I put one over on him an' his brothers a bit later and managed to squeak out of it." He sighed, staring ruefully into his own glass. "At least for a while..."
Something tickled at the very back of Crowley's mind. He frowned, trying to pin it down. Sometimes having to sift though more than six thousand years' worth of memories to match a story with a name or a face could be a real bitch (2). "What'd you say your name was...?"
---
"Well, you see what happens when you go drinking with strangers," Aziraphale said, mildly reproving, but he patted the demon's shoulder comfortingly as he passed by on his way to fetch the teapot.
"I do that all the time," Crowley protested weakly. "How was I supposed to know he was number one on Hell's Most Wanted list? The drawing they sent 'round looks nothing like him!"
"Hellish efficiency," the angel murmured as he poured. "You'd think they would have invested in a few decent cameras by now."
"Says the angel who still has to lug along a satchel full of glass plates if he wants to take pictures on holiday (3)."
"My camera is still perfectly serviceable," Aziraphale said serenely, "and it's no more anachronistic than your beloved Bentley, my dear. At any rate, it sounds as though you got off easy with just a bit of a scare."
"No lie," Crowley agreed, shuddering.
"Are you going to report him?"
Crowley, who had just taken a cautious sip of the scalding-hot tea, choked and barely stopped himself spewing it across the table. Aziraphale came around and pounded him on the back.
"Are you off your gourd?" he croaked when he could draw a proper breath. "They'd just send me after him, now wouldn't they! 'Crowley my boy, why don't you just nip off and haul in the bloke who tricked Our Master into imbibing the most poisonous substance in the Universe and then tied the Three up in their own red tape and hung them up to dry? No? Well, that's all right, no hard feelings, in fact you've got some holiday time coming, you can spend it in the Chasm of Unendurable Agony!' " He gestured vehemently for emphasis. "Thank you, but no. I prefer my innards un-roasted, if it's all the same to you."
"Well, it was only a thought," Aziraphale said calmly. "I don't suppose I'll mention him to my superiors, either."
Crowley blinked. "What, your side's after him too? I'd have thought they'd be cheering him on."
"Oh dear me, no. He's just as notorious Upstairs. Rumor has it he was involved in Gabriel's, um, disappearance a few years ago. Nasty sordid business," Aziraphale said with a sigh. "No, he has very few friends even on Earth, from what I'm given to understand. He doesn't care about sides; only the people who have to live between them. And that makes him a side unto himself." He shook his head. "Terribly lonely way to live, I should think."
Crowley had nothing to say to that. He and Aziraphale--he had to stop doing that, thinking of them as a unit; it was a dangerous habit to have fallen into--were not in so different a situation, when you came down to it. One more small step toward metaphysical center, and either one of them could too easily find himself on the wrong sides of both Upstairs and Down. It was a perilous line to walk; that one mortal had managed it so successfully for so long was damned impressive.
But (he resolutely refused to think,) they had one thing going for them that the man in the trench coat did not.
At least they weren't alone.
"Right. So, it officially Never Happened," he said briskly. "What d'you say to a game of backgammon?"
---
Outside the bookshop's back window--unnoticed by angel or demon, a trick few mortals could manage--a lighter flared, and tired blue eyes watched bemusedly as the unlikely pair set up the board.
John Constantine had met a lot of demons. He'd even seen a few gone native, going about their business more or less peaceably. It was more common than even most of them realized. Stood to reason, after all; he'd seen Hell, and Earth at its worst was far and away the better place to be, if you could.
But until tonight, no demon had ever left him with the impression that he, John, was the nastiest piece of work in the room. Usually it didn't take too long for their true nature to surface. He'd expected Crowley to attempt to remove his face after the holy water gag, at the very least, and it hadn't happened. Oh, the thought had been there, right enough; but John would lay money it would never have been acted upon.
Something had happened to change this one, and that had intrigued him sufficiently that he'd followed Crowley when he left the pub. The Bentley had only piqued his curiosity further; it smacked of sentimentality, something distinctly uncharacteristic of demons he'd known.
It hadn't taken him long to peg the other fellow for what he was. Working out why the two of them were meeting for late tea in the back of a rare bookshop was harder. But after watching them together for a while, he thought he'd figured it out, and had almost laughed out loud and given himself away.
It was Ellie and Tali all over again (4). Only these two silly buggers didn't seem to realize it, and what was even funnier, they'd got it right. Carrying on right under the noses of the Powers that Be, and nobody the wiser.
I could use this, the thought came from that cold, dark, slightly mad place inside him, and he hated it even as he considered it. Threaten to tip off the management, and I'd have 'em both over a barrel. A spy on either side...and if either of them got his knickers in a twist, a judicious threat against the other would bring him right back into line.
He stood there and watched and debated, and the angel and the demon played their game and drank tea and bickered companionably like an old married couple. They'd known one another for ages, you could tell; it just shone through in everything they did. Carried on old arguments as though they'd just left off, and straightened each others' collars, and made the tea without having to ask 'how d'you take it'. Most likely they'd be lost without each other.
Lost, like so many other souls who'd crossed the path of a Constantine.
"Well. Good for you, lads," he said finally, very softly, and ground his cigarette out with his heel. "You beat the system. You've won yourselves a free pass." He might be the King of All Bastards, but he wasn't completely heartless.
And anyway, he told himself, these two were probably doing their bit to undermine the establishment without any 'help' from him.
Inside, the bespectacled angel--pure affectation, he was certain; no celestial was nearsighted---abruptly sat up straighter and cocked his head, as though he'd heard something.
Shit. Time to go.
---
"What is it?" Crowley asked, and Aziraphale couldn't help but smile at the slight undertone of paranoia to the question. Meeting the notorious hedge wizard had seriously rattled his friend, it seemed.
He raised a hand to forestall further questions, listening intently. "I'm not sure. I thought I heard..."
After a moment, he got up and went to the window. Crowley was at his back an instant later. Three or four thousand years before, that would have been a frightening thought; now the familiar presence was reassuring. Perhaps a little too much so. As always, he automatically pushed that thought aside before it had fully formed, and focused on the matter at hand.
Leaning on the windowsill, he looked out into the darkness. His eyes, which needed very little light, detected nothing out of the ordinary, but an obscure instinct told him that his eyes were wrong. So he shut them and reached out silently with other, more esoteric senses.
"Aziraphale?" Crowley prodded, peering over his shoulder. "Is there something out there?"
A faint echo brushed past Aziraphale's mind; not a stray thought, he realized with some surprise, but an impression deliberately left behind. A message.
Nothing to see here, boys. Nothing you'd want to be mucking about with. Aziraphale shivered as half-formed images of things dark and terrible flitted by, just at the periphery of his mind's eye. Things that made beings like Crowley, and Hastur and Ligur, and even the Horsepersons look bright and innocent by comparison. It's a taste, he realized, he's giving me just a small taste. Just to prove his point.
He shook his head, drawing back inside and quietly, deliberately shutting the window. "Nothing we need concern ourselves with," he said to Crowley.
The demon frowned at him over his sunglasses. "Why do I have the feeling you're trying to pull a me?"
"Not at all, dear boy," Aziraphale said firmly, returning to his seat. "I'm advising you to leave it be. We've been passed over, this time. And I for one am grateful." They'd both been largely sheltered from the uglier aspects of the Eternal Conflict all these years, by luck or by Ineffable design, and it was perhaps not a bad thing to be reminded of it.
Crowley raised his eyebrows, and for a moment Aziraphale thought he was going to argue the point.
"Trust me," he added soberly. Words that rarely passed between them--rarely needed to, anymore (5).
The demon let his breath out in a quiet, exasperated sigh. "All right, angel." With a final glance out the window, he too re-seated himself and turned his attention back to the board. "I hope that wasn't an ill-conceived attempt to distract me from the game. It won't work."
Aziraphale just smiled. Crowley knew him better than that, but it was all part of the larger game they'd been playing for more than six thousand years.
He spared one more moment's thought for the benighted soul whose world had briefly intersected their own, and said a small prayer of thanks (leaving out the specifics, of course.)
There but for the grace of Somebody.
---
Miles away, a young boy yawned and turned over in his bed, relaxing as he felt the sad, cold shadow slip safely past one of the places he kept always just at the edge of his mind.
"That's right," he murmured sleepily. "You go on back where you belong. Don't you be messin' around with those two. You got your work to do an' they got theirs. You just leave 'em alone."
He yawned again, burrowed deeper into his blankets, and went back to sleep...his dreams lit briefly by the faint red glow of a cigarette that faded into darkness, and was gone.
--- End ---
(1) Though truthfully, things just hadn't been the same since the invention of theatrical contact lenses.
(2) Crowley had in fact been the driving force behind the invention of the PDA, which he reported as a rousing success due to the vast ill will it generated over incompatible OS's and ridiculously low battery life; but he'd really done it because his address book was getting too big to carry around conveniently.
(3) This was a slight exaggeration.
(4) Chantinelle and Tali, that is, for those who don't know. A succubus and an angel of John's acquaintance who had the misfortune to fall in love and conceive a child. It all ended...badly.
(5) In fact, if possible, they both avoided ever saying it at all. This no doubt had something to do with an incident in ancient Rome involving a public bath, a very large quantity of wine, and an attractive young woman whose profession was shamefully misrepresented.
(Cross-posted to my own LJ)