Illustrated fic, part 3 of 4!
THE PHOENIX AND THE TURTLE
part III of IV
Story by vulgarweed, Illustrations by quantum_witch
For general summary, warnings, disclaimer, etc., see Part 1.
Part 2
Rating: R, this part (NC-17 overall)
Warnings: Angst, intimations of violence, unsubtle foreshadowing, bit of suggestion of historical RPS (not just RPF this time...)
Summary: In which Crowley feels a mortal’s charms and an angel’s wrath (among other things), Aziraphale neglects some duties in favour of others, and many beans are spilled.
London, Summer 1583
Aziraphale didn’t see courtiers of such finery in his shop very often, and that was just as well; they clashed, their sweeping cloaks stirred up the dust, and they were generally more interested in keeping attention on themselves than discussing anything of import in the texts. Flash bastards.
This young knight had always been different, though. Perhaps it was his study with Dr. Dee; perhaps it was the sensitive probing nature of the poet; perhaps it was simply that he had the impeccably discreet manners of a spy.
“Good evening,” said Aziraphale absently.
“Good evening,” said Sir Philip Sidney cheerfully. “And Dr. Dee sends his regards and bids me stop by to tell you he’s leaving soon for Poland with Prince Laski.”
“That’s strange,” Aziraphale said. “Did he happen to mention why?”
“Well, I believe it was at Prince Laski’s request, not to be refused. I do find it rather strange he’s packed up so much of his library and his wife and children as well. I doubt it’s mere book-shopping and a few star charts for the Prince.”
“Oh dear,” Aziraphale shook his head, tried to look a little more harmless and befuddled, and peered straight into Sidney’s bright eyes. “Has there been trouble?”
“Not for him directly, but there were rumours of false coining, again…that Kelley is Saturnian in the worst way I’ve ever seen,” said Sidney.
“He’s going too, I take it,” Aziraphale sighed.
“But of course. Joined at the hip, those two.”
“A most unpleasant mental image.”
“My apologies,” said Sidney, cringing.
“Let’s speak of happier matters,” Aziraphale said. “Tell me what you know of this philosopher Giordano Bruno, who dedicated his book to you…”
Sidney laughed a little. “Well, Laski was certainly taken with him. Didn’t go over so well at Oxford, though, did he? Sometimes I wish he would mince words more, but then he would not be Bruno.”
“I thought he was rather harsh on the Calvinists, myself,” said Aziraphale airily. “But he can say what he likes about Aristotle.”
“Really? I didn’t think he was harsh enough. He says Geneva’s a dreadful place now.”
“Worse than France?”
“For him at least. Though he has a knack for wearing out welcomes.”
Aziraphale shrugged. “I’ve known a few with that gift in my day.”
***
Crowley, on the other hand, had been learning much more about the handsome heretic straight from the source.
“I doubt you’ll remember me,” said Crowley, pouring another glass of red, red wine. “But I believe we did meet in Paris, when you were speaking on heroic Eros and the Art of Memory…”
“I remember you well,” Bruno smiled. “In my memory palace, you have a very nice room.”
“A bedchamber, perhaps?” Crowley smirked.
Bruno demurred with a lush grin. The answer was not so much “no” as “later.”
“So what did you think of the lecture tonight?”
“I liked it a lot until I fell asleep. You have soothing cadences. You surprise me, you know. I fucking hate the Dominicans. No offense.”
“Even the defrocked ones?”
“Those, of course, I like a good deal better.”
“Yes, well, I’m no longer so fond of the others myself.”
“I’m sure being defrocked suits you quite well.”
“You sound as if you wish to do the honours yourself.”
Crowley only smiled his snakish smile. And changed the subject. “So…Diana, queen of the nymphs? I suppose maybe, if you got a chance to see her out of those ridiculous gowns, but…”
“Caught that, did you?” said Bruno, glancing around with a theatrical performance of nervousness.
“You don’t seem the Actaeon type, frankly.”
“Really? You’d never know it from all these hounds on my heels. But the Diana I glimpsed unguarded was truly Minerva. Or maybe Sophia. Sapienza. Wisdom, in any case.”
“I can never keep them straight either.”
“That’s because they’re all One, doofus,” said Bruno with a smile. “But in any case, it’s the only way these phantasms can work. The lover becomes that which he loves, that’s why the choice is so crucial, sacred or profane.”
“That’s my only criticism, really,” said Crowley. “I think you underestimate the power of the profane.”
“I was afraid of that. In the wretched monastery too long. Too many monks in my head still.” He shook his head and gave Crowley a piercing look. “You’re not human, are you?”
“Not really, no.”
“Fascinating.” Bruno shrugged. He didn’t seem particularly put out by this disclosure. “Might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb.”
“With an attitude like that, I think you’ll go far.”
“But in which direction? Ah, well, I know life among the fearful didn’t have much to offer. It’s all Ars Notoria to that bunch.”
“You must have been bored shitless.”
“Indeed, and you’ll find yourself getting denounced twice before breakfast if you yawn. Frighteningly sheltered lives, and the profane is exotic to them. Can you imagine getting all excited about a book that claims that spilling yourself on the sheets at night means you might be damned because you had sex with a demon?”
Crowley did a spit-take with his wine, his second that century. “They think that’s enough to damn someone? Ha, if only ‘twere that easy.” (But no, it’s really very fortunate that it isn’t, he thought but did not say.)
Bruno shook his head. “That’s what I thought. The whole lot of them needs desperately to get laid. That’s the least of my heresies. But if burned I must be, sooner or later, I’d rather it be for something more profound and less obvious.”
“Why do you think you ‘must be’?” Crowley asked, something in his belly suddenly sinking.
Bruno took a deep breath. “I’m afraid it’s the logical conclusion. Of course one cannot attain the Crown in mortal flesh, but it’s more than that. Alchemy calls for flame often in its transformations-at least I’m afraid my kind of it does. The sooner one knows one’s own chymical nature, the better, and I am of that element.”
“That’s all metaphors!”
Bruno looked at him deeply and calmly. “As one not native to this plane, I can see why you might think so. But what’s true for you may not be true for me…although now that I look at you more closely, I think you’ve-“
“What?”
“Never mind. It’s just the way the phantasm of the beloved possesses and overcomes the lover, that’s all. And my beloved is that transformation itself.”
Crowley shook his head and sat back, taking another deep drink. “I think you’ve lost me there, Philosopher.”
“Well, you haven’t actually read my latest book, have you? It’s all right. I’m working on another lecture about it. Maybe that’ll explain it better to you. I like England a great deal, by the way. The food and the weather may be terrible, but the air is a lot cleaner here.”
“It is, mostly. But more allegories involving seeing the Queen naked might be pushing your luck.”
***
At any rate, Bruno did not ultimately stay too long in England.
And neither did Crowley, for the very soil of the island started to make his feet itch with the desire to see Aziraphale in some more concrete way than through the fog of some sorcerer’s channellings: to report to him, conspire with him, unload it all on him in some delirious drunken orgy of regurgitated human heresies and a litany of accumulated tales of treachery and torture and see if Heaven could come up with anything to match it. Really, the best they could hope for would be to cancel each other out, and then heresy would win out in the end because Crowley would call checkmate by pushing Aziraphale against a wall and kissing him until…
Oh, but Hea-He-Somewhere forbid he should interrupt something. Nowadays his nightmares involved finding himself in one of Bruno’s allegories, or looking up through some erotic haze over Aziraphale’s bare shoulder and seeing the nosy face of the Queen’s pet angel-watcher peering through a glass darkly.
Fine. Try Germany, then?
Krakow, Poland, 1585
All things considered, Aziraphale much preferred visiting this way: honestly, and by the garden gate of the rented house.
Pretty Jane Dee herself opened the door, balancing a tray of food as best she could against her big belly. Aziraphale tried to remember times he had seen her when she wasn’t quite so pregnant, and found it was difficult-it rather seemed to be her default state. Her eyes went wide, and she smiled, banishing the tense weariness from her face almost in time. She was half her husband’s age, but the gap seemed to be narrowing.
“Why, Mr. Fell,” she cried. “What a surprise - John will be so glad to see you!”
“I was in town at a bookdealer’s request, my lady,” he said, doffing his hat. “I thought I would pay you all a visit, if it’s not too much of an imposition.” Jane’s load became lighter, and the toddlers around her feet stood up a little straighter.
John proved more challenging to soothe. For one thing, while he was clearly glad to see his old friend, it rather seemed to Aziraphale that he wasn’t sure at all how glad he should be. Fair enough-one couldn’t expect the man to believe in coincidence, after all.
“I’m not here to spy on you,” he finally had to say, underlining it ever so slightly with a breath of the power of what he was. This may have been a mistake - for John blinked as though briefly, minutely startled, and then put on his fearsome thinking expression-but if so it was one Aziraphale was willing to make, for its ultimate effect was that John sighed, and snapped, and started outpouring a complicated tale of woe and wandering and utter confusion.
Finally, Dee gave up trying to explain it all in any sort of linear narrative, and simply pulled out his copious diaries. “Here,” he said to Aziraphale, throwing up his hands. “I don’t expect you to be able to tell me if I’m a prophet or a madman either. But I hope this at least will help explain why I can’t explain it.”
Indeed, Aziraphale thought, emerging two days later. Several things were clear to him straightaway. One of them was that his celestial colleagues were badly out of practice in communicating directly with humans. Dee was no slouch in the comprehending-the-incomprehensible department-he was about as good at it as one was going to get on Earth-but the obtuse mathematics of what was essentially a very dense technical manual were stretching even him to the breaking point.
Another obvious problem was that aside from the genuine angels sincerely trying to communicate, however elliptically, there were whole other categories of spirits coming through thinking that passing some particularly upsetting message of doom and despair, or making Kelley think his head was falling off, or conjuring up particularly meaningless but colourful hallucinations, or just flat-out lying, was an entertaining prank. No wonder Dee was starting to wonder if he was losing it completely: smattered in among the technical guidelines to angelic communication were prophecies of election and privilege, immediately countered the next day by some horrible warning of his house ransacked, his books stolen, his family dead, Kelley arrested-well, to be fair, the latter was starting to look likelier every day-countered the very next by reassurances that no, everything was fine.
And the third thing was that there was a fair amount in heaven and earth that even Aziraphale found he could not identify with any confidence. Madimi, for example, who had unnerved him from the very beginning-but who had at least been right about getting Kelley out of England in a timely manner. And he wished he had more assurance to offer his friend than a reading of the sincerity of his heart.
“I’m sure you think this is all quite insane,” Dee said. “I seem to remember you trying to dissuade me once, in your gentle way.”
“I suppose I did,” said Aziraphale. “I still can’t say for certain if I should have tried harder. But has anyone ever dissuaded you from something you were determined to do? It seems unlikely.”
“I’m sure I was not meant to be dissuaded,” Dee said. “Still, the risk is on my head alone.”
“Where’s Kelley?”
Dee rolled his eyes. “At this moment, I’d prefer not to know.”
“You haven’t been getting along?”
Dee just laughed. “Delusions and tantrums and the police at my door. Delightful man. Perhaps the strain is getting to him - he doubts, you know. He doubts terribly, and then all Their wrath comes through him that much harder. I’m sure he knows I no longer trust him entirely. I suspect he knows They don’t either.”
Aziraphale wouldn’t have trusted Kelley with the silverware, much less delicate interdimensional communications that could affect the state of one’s immortal soul, but he also knew that ineffability didn’t get much more blatantly ineffable than in its choice of human vessels sometimes.
Aziraphale merely sighed, he patted John on the shoulder, he gave him a rare book on astronomy from Morocco, and did his best to leave him with a sense of calm. He’d have to go back to England soon, where a Mr. Spenser was getting antsy about his desperately-in-need-of-editing manuscript.
And to where a certain demon could easily find him, should he be so inclined. Aziraphale was growing weary of giving him space for a thirty-year sulk when he knew dam-er-darned well he’d done nothing wrong, and the worrying only made it worse. Sooner or later, he suspected he was going to snap and chase Crowley down. It wouldn’t be difficult. Just follow the trouble.
Prague, Bohemia, 1588
When a laughing demon emerged from the notorious tavern, the Vulture, in the company of two pickpockets, a fortuneteller, a schizophrenic, three prostitutes of four different genders, and a specialist in stolen marbles, he didn’t expect his company to get any better-or worse, depending on your point of view.
But in the dark of a winding alley where the torches shivered out, his crowd dispersed in terror when he was struck painfully down by a flash of Divine light.
“Ouch! Ow! Do you have to be so bloody…” Crowley winced, slipping a tooth back into place.
“I’m sorry,” said Aziraphale, picking him up. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I just need to make you listen!”
“You’re bloody following me. Should have known. Dee was here, wasn’t he? Is there a two-bit conjurer or visionary crazy or babbling philosopher the Emperor hasn’t hired? You should have a chat with him yourself, pick up a little walking-around money. Turn a sort of metaphysical trick, if you like.”
“Leave John alone!”
“Are you still mewling about your mortal? He’s bringing it on himself!”
“He’s not my mortal,” Aziraphale snapped. “Anyway, it’s your mortal bringing it on him!”
“Kelley?” Crowley barked incredulously. “Definitely not mine. I mean, not mine personally…Now, as a representative of Hell, very possibly…Yes, that wife-swapping bit was over the top, wasn’t it? Not my idea, alas. That Madimi kid scares even me: ‘Thus it will be: the illegitimate will be joined with the true son. And the east will be united with the west, and the south with the north.’ Ha, so swive each other’s wives. Bloody brilliant.”
“How on earth do you know about that? And what’s the matter with you?” Aziraphale demanded.
“You’re too involved. You’re too attached. It won’t lead anywhere good,” Crowley shouted, eyes furious. “I don’t know what crap you’ve been whispering to him through those little glass balls of his, but…”
“You think I…” Aziraphale threw up his hands in disgust. “You think I let him invoke me?”
“No, I actually don’t think that. Do you know why I don’t? Because I’ve been there, Aziraphale. I’ve talked to them. That whole line about angels in error and how they fall and that weird business about his kids? Mine! I made it up! I’ve even peered out through the other side of that thing and seen you there floating around behind them all invisible like some cheap ghost. His wards are shit!”
He saw Aziraphale’s hand rising of its own accord to slap him; he caught it by the wrist, and the angel looked utterly shocked, staring at his hand in Crowley’s grip as if he’d never seen it before.
“I want to know why you care so much,” Crowley said quietly.
“He’s one of ours, Crowley. He’s a man of God.”
Crowley snorted. “Why do you say that? Because he’s so obsequious? I know I’ve spent more time on my knees before an angel than he has, and it doesn’t make me holy.” He prepared to grab Aziraphale’s other wrist too, should it be necessary. But it wasn’t; the angel only heaved and seethed and flashed celestial wrath out of his eyes, and it was somehow both terrifyingly sexy and unbearably annoying.
“I want to know why you care so much,” Aziraphale demanded. “I want to know why you can’t stay out of my business. I want to know why you keep running off to the continent with your Nolan babbler and won’t give me a straight answer about anything.”
“Maybe you haven’t asked me the right questions. And leave Giordano out of it.”
“Leave John out of it then. What’s the right question, eh…Let me think.”
“And while you’re thinking…” Crowley let go of Aziraphale’s wrist and turned to walk away. Aziraphale rubbed the imprints of his fingers and thought for just a minute, until he lunged and tackled Crowley to the cobblestones again. For his trouble, he got whacked in the face with wings unfolding at full speed. Crowley wriggled out from under him and took off from a prone position-not an easy feat, but he was motivated.
“You bloody coward!” Aziraphale shrieked, taking flight after him and barely dodging the narrow warren of roof cornices and gables. Prague had not been built with air traffic in mind. “This is so uncivilised.”
“You’re the one who keeps hitting me!” came the shout back. But Crowley wasn’t trying for a repeat of the Jerusalem Incident. He was merely sulking on a rooftop, doing a very unconvincing imitation of a gargoyle. Aziraphale leaned his back against the other gargoyle facing him.
“Do you have any idea how hard this kind of thing is for a being like me to say?” Crowley sighed.
“No, because you haven’t said it yet and I don’t know what it is.”
“I…” Crowley shook his head, apparently feeling that particular “I” inadequate in some way, and tried again. “I…I…don’t want…tossssseeyougethurt.”
“Oh…” said Aziraphale softly, a little awed. And then he got angry again. “Well, I appreciate your concern, but honestly, when I made my mental lists of all the problems one might have to deal with on this plane, I have to say an overprotective demon never crossed my mind.”
“Don’t be such a prat about it.”
“I can handle myself.”
“Never said you couldn’t. Even the best-or worst--of us get in over our heads. And I don’t think you can count on them. Might turn on you when you need them most.”
Aziraphale looked up, watched Crowley’s eyes fix on a dancing flame in a beacon light across two roofs. There was a pale orange reflection on the demon’s hair and feathers. The sky behind him was clear and sharp like polished black glass.
And a revelation cleaved Aziraphale to the heart. It wasn’t a Revelation; it was the kind of revelation humans have-sharp and brief and confusing and agonising; the knees collapse a little and the heart stops for a pulsebeat because one’s brain has momentarily forgotten them.
“Crowley…did you…I thought I saw…it wasn’t the future, it was the past…and it was real…I didn’t trust the vision…I wasn’t there, I’m sorry…”
“Don’t know what was worse - the humiliation of getting stuck there unable to get out, or the pain.”
Aziraphale hugged himself with one arm and reached out to Crowley with another.
“No, I know what was worse,” Crowley decided. “It was definitely the pain. It went on a really long time. It’s not as if I could have repented, not even faking it. The tongue just wouldn’t do that. That’s how they left me-just their little joke. None of the powers and all of the drawbacks. Just glad the fucking barbecue cook didn’t decide to anoint me.”
“Crowley, I’m so sorry…I can’t believe I wasn’t there for you, I…?”
“What could you have done? Some kind of miracle?” Crowley burst out laughing. “And then they’d make me into a saint, wouldn’t that be delicious? Oh, they’d love it Upstairs. Funniest prank since Job. And Downstairs, they’d know there was an angel who’d risk himself for me. That would’ve been hilarious to them, too.”
Laughing at that was a little counter to Aziraphale’s instincts, but it burst out of him anyway. And since he was getting pretty tired of fighting his instincts all the time, he crept up upon Crowley and took the demon in his arms, laying his face on the thin shoulder, hands reaching behind him and stroking his beautiful wings, not entirely sure whom he was trying to reassure.
“Hanging around with the wrong people,” Crowley muttered, “That’s bad news. Don’t you go-“
“It’s served me well so far,” Aziraphale murmured, kissing Crowley’s ear. “Or do you not count?”
“I probably do count.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Aziraphale sighed into Crowley’s neck. The night of her coronation, when Crowley’d been so…oh. Of course. Aziraphale remembered what Crowley had done for him in Constantinople-reminding him a body wasn’t just a trap and the world had redeeming (pardon the expression) qualities, all but literally bringing him back to life by way of each sense, one by one.
If he showed pity, Crowley would shove him clear off the roof and into next Tuesday, and rightly so.
What Aziraphale showed him instead was passion, clenching his hand in the hair at the nape of Crowley’s neck and kissing the demon vehemently. Their teeth clicked together awkwardly and their heads turned strangely, but Aziraphale found a rhythm for his lips and slid the tip of his tongue in and out of Crowley’s mouth most suggestively. He was rewarded with a low groan, vibrating against the heel of his hand that rested along Crowley’s throat.
“Why can’t I get enough of you?” Crowley asked desperately, holding Aziraphale’s face away from his for a moment.
“Because there’s so much of me to get?” Aziraphale smiled.
“I don’t understand. You’re not my type,” Crowley whined and pulled Aziraphale against him hard.
“I didn’t know you had a -Oh!” That was Crowley’s fingers, dropping low to the backs of his thighs, firm and insistent and exploring.
“Mmm,” Crowley said, requesting more of that kiss.
“It’s me, too,” Aziraphale admitted sloppily, tongue awkwardly placed for talking. “I want you so much.”
“Me too. Yes. Want you, I mean, not me. Right here, right now.”
“Here?” Aziraphale gasped, though he shouldn’t’ve been surprised, they were halfway there already. “But it’s a church…doesn’t it bother you?”
“A little. Don’t care.”
“Well, then…” Aziraphale leaned into him, moved against him, slid his hand slowly down, underneath, and grasped…with a tease, drawing back, releasing and then returning…He knew he may never be as gifted as Crowley with his mouth but he thought he was getting rather good with his hands, and this was confirmed by Crowley’s little hitching moan, his knees buckling--and then they were both down on the roof, reeling in wings just in time.
Crowley winced at the full-body touch of the building. “Actually, it’s…”
“Fine, you’re on top then,” said Aziraphale, adjusting them and shimmying under Crowley, who clasped his shoulder with one hand and ripped his tunic open with the other.
“Much better…OH! So good…”
“Yes…Oh. Oh, like that, my lo--mmmmph!” His mouth was suddenly full of tongue, not his own, and his hand was full of Crowley’s velvet shaft, begging, and his own was full of heat and ache safe and tight in Crowley’s skillfully working hand, hips fitting together and thighs entangled, and then they were riding each other somewhere free and wild. The sky above them was full of stars.
He’d wanted to ask why they kept doing this. It was the stupidest question in the cosmos.
Crowley found that he did have mild church burns on his hands and knees in the morning, but it had certainly been worth it.
Far, far away over the sea a wind arose and the Spanish Armada foundered in a storm, sparing England. More than sparing her, in fact. Making her the greatest naval power in the Western world by default, much as Dee had once predicted.
“Come back with me to England,” Aziraphale whispered. “The Continent doesn’t need you.” I do.
~
Part 4
part III of IV
Story by vulgarweed, Illustrations by quantum_witch
For general summary, warnings, disclaimer, etc., see Part 1.
Part 2
Rating: R, this part (NC-17 overall)
Warnings: Angst, intimations of violence, unsubtle foreshadowing, bit of suggestion of historical RPS (not just RPF this time...)
Summary: In which Crowley feels a mortal’s charms and an angel’s wrath (among other things), Aziraphale neglects some duties in favour of others, and many beans are spilled.
London, Summer 1583
Aziraphale didn’t see courtiers of such finery in his shop very often, and that was just as well; they clashed, their sweeping cloaks stirred up the dust, and they were generally more interested in keeping attention on themselves than discussing anything of import in the texts. Flash bastards.
This young knight had always been different, though. Perhaps it was his study with Dr. Dee; perhaps it was the sensitive probing nature of the poet; perhaps it was simply that he had the impeccably discreet manners of a spy.
“Good evening,” said Aziraphale absently.
“Good evening,” said Sir Philip Sidney cheerfully. “And Dr. Dee sends his regards and bids me stop by to tell you he’s leaving soon for Poland with Prince Laski.”
“That’s strange,” Aziraphale said. “Did he happen to mention why?”
“Well, I believe it was at Prince Laski’s request, not to be refused. I do find it rather strange he’s packed up so much of his library and his wife and children as well. I doubt it’s mere book-shopping and a few star charts for the Prince.”
“Oh dear,” Aziraphale shook his head, tried to look a little more harmless and befuddled, and peered straight into Sidney’s bright eyes. “Has there been trouble?”
“Not for him directly, but there were rumours of false coining, again…that Kelley is Saturnian in the worst way I’ve ever seen,” said Sidney.
“He’s going too, I take it,” Aziraphale sighed.
“But of course. Joined at the hip, those two.”
“A most unpleasant mental image.”
“My apologies,” said Sidney, cringing.
“Let’s speak of happier matters,” Aziraphale said. “Tell me what you know of this philosopher Giordano Bruno, who dedicated his book to you…”
Sidney laughed a little. “Well, Laski was certainly taken with him. Didn’t go over so well at Oxford, though, did he? Sometimes I wish he would mince words more, but then he would not be Bruno.”
“I thought he was rather harsh on the Calvinists, myself,” said Aziraphale airily. “But he can say what he likes about Aristotle.”
“Really? I didn’t think he was harsh enough. He says Geneva’s a dreadful place now.”
“Worse than France?”
“For him at least. Though he has a knack for wearing out welcomes.”
Aziraphale shrugged. “I’ve known a few with that gift in my day.”
***
Crowley, on the other hand, had been learning much more about the handsome heretic straight from the source.
“I doubt you’ll remember me,” said Crowley, pouring another glass of red, red wine. “But I believe we did meet in Paris, when you were speaking on heroic Eros and the Art of Memory…”
“I remember you well,” Bruno smiled. “In my memory palace, you have a very nice room.”
“A bedchamber, perhaps?” Crowley smirked.
Bruno demurred with a lush grin. The answer was not so much “no” as “later.”
“So what did you think of the lecture tonight?”
“I liked it a lot until I fell asleep. You have soothing cadences. You surprise me, you know. I fucking hate the Dominicans. No offense.”
“Even the defrocked ones?”
“Those, of course, I like a good deal better.”
“Yes, well, I’m no longer so fond of the others myself.”
“I’m sure being defrocked suits you quite well.”
“You sound as if you wish to do the honours yourself.”
Crowley only smiled his snakish smile. And changed the subject. “So…Diana, queen of the nymphs? I suppose maybe, if you got a chance to see her out of those ridiculous gowns, but…”
“Caught that, did you?” said Bruno, glancing around with a theatrical performance of nervousness.
“You don’t seem the Actaeon type, frankly.”
“Really? You’d never know it from all these hounds on my heels. But the Diana I glimpsed unguarded was truly Minerva. Or maybe Sophia. Sapienza. Wisdom, in any case.”
“I can never keep them straight either.”
“That’s because they’re all One, doofus,” said Bruno with a smile. “But in any case, it’s the only way these phantasms can work. The lover becomes that which he loves, that’s why the choice is so crucial, sacred or profane.”
“That’s my only criticism, really,” said Crowley. “I think you underestimate the power of the profane.”
“I was afraid of that. In the wretched monastery too long. Too many monks in my head still.” He shook his head and gave Crowley a piercing look. “You’re not human, are you?”
“Not really, no.”
“Fascinating.” Bruno shrugged. He didn’t seem particularly put out by this disclosure. “Might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb.”
“With an attitude like that, I think you’ll go far.”
“But in which direction? Ah, well, I know life among the fearful didn’t have much to offer. It’s all Ars Notoria to that bunch.”
“You must have been bored shitless.”
“Indeed, and you’ll find yourself getting denounced twice before breakfast if you yawn. Frighteningly sheltered lives, and the profane is exotic to them. Can you imagine getting all excited about a book that claims that spilling yourself on the sheets at night means you might be damned because you had sex with a demon?”
Crowley did a spit-take with his wine, his second that century. “They think that’s enough to damn someone? Ha, if only ‘twere that easy.” (But no, it’s really very fortunate that it isn’t, he thought but did not say.)
Bruno shook his head. “That’s what I thought. The whole lot of them needs desperately to get laid. That’s the least of my heresies. But if burned I must be, sooner or later, I’d rather it be for something more profound and less obvious.”
“Why do you think you ‘must be’?” Crowley asked, something in his belly suddenly sinking.
Bruno took a deep breath. “I’m afraid it’s the logical conclusion. Of course one cannot attain the Crown in mortal flesh, but it’s more than that. Alchemy calls for flame often in its transformations-at least I’m afraid my kind of it does. The sooner one knows one’s own chymical nature, the better, and I am of that element.”
“That’s all metaphors!”
Bruno looked at him deeply and calmly. “As one not native to this plane, I can see why you might think so. But what’s true for you may not be true for me…although now that I look at you more closely, I think you’ve-“
“What?”
“Never mind. It’s just the way the phantasm of the beloved possesses and overcomes the lover, that’s all. And my beloved is that transformation itself.”
Crowley shook his head and sat back, taking another deep drink. “I think you’ve lost me there, Philosopher.”
“Well, you haven’t actually read my latest book, have you? It’s all right. I’m working on another lecture about it. Maybe that’ll explain it better to you. I like England a great deal, by the way. The food and the weather may be terrible, but the air is a lot cleaner here.”
“It is, mostly. But more allegories involving seeing the Queen naked might be pushing your luck.”
***
At any rate, Bruno did not ultimately stay too long in England.
And neither did Crowley, for the very soil of the island started to make his feet itch with the desire to see Aziraphale in some more concrete way than through the fog of some sorcerer’s channellings: to report to him, conspire with him, unload it all on him in some delirious drunken orgy of regurgitated human heresies and a litany of accumulated tales of treachery and torture and see if Heaven could come up with anything to match it. Really, the best they could hope for would be to cancel each other out, and then heresy would win out in the end because Crowley would call checkmate by pushing Aziraphale against a wall and kissing him until…
Oh, but Hea-He-Somewhere forbid he should interrupt something. Nowadays his nightmares involved finding himself in one of Bruno’s allegories, or looking up through some erotic haze over Aziraphale’s bare shoulder and seeing the nosy face of the Queen’s pet angel-watcher peering through a glass darkly.
Fine. Try Germany, then?
Krakow, Poland, 1585
All things considered, Aziraphale much preferred visiting this way: honestly, and by the garden gate of the rented house.
Pretty Jane Dee herself opened the door, balancing a tray of food as best she could against her big belly. Aziraphale tried to remember times he had seen her when she wasn’t quite so pregnant, and found it was difficult-it rather seemed to be her default state. Her eyes went wide, and she smiled, banishing the tense weariness from her face almost in time. She was half her husband’s age, but the gap seemed to be narrowing.
“Why, Mr. Fell,” she cried. “What a surprise - John will be so glad to see you!”
“I was in town at a bookdealer’s request, my lady,” he said, doffing his hat. “I thought I would pay you all a visit, if it’s not too much of an imposition.” Jane’s load became lighter, and the toddlers around her feet stood up a little straighter.
John proved more challenging to soothe. For one thing, while he was clearly glad to see his old friend, it rather seemed to Aziraphale that he wasn’t sure at all how glad he should be. Fair enough-one couldn’t expect the man to believe in coincidence, after all.
“I’m not here to spy on you,” he finally had to say, underlining it ever so slightly with a breath of the power of what he was. This may have been a mistake - for John blinked as though briefly, minutely startled, and then put on his fearsome thinking expression-but if so it was one Aziraphale was willing to make, for its ultimate effect was that John sighed, and snapped, and started outpouring a complicated tale of woe and wandering and utter confusion.
Finally, Dee gave up trying to explain it all in any sort of linear narrative, and simply pulled out his copious diaries. “Here,” he said to Aziraphale, throwing up his hands. “I don’t expect you to be able to tell me if I’m a prophet or a madman either. But I hope this at least will help explain why I can’t explain it.”
Indeed, Aziraphale thought, emerging two days later. Several things were clear to him straightaway. One of them was that his celestial colleagues were badly out of practice in communicating directly with humans. Dee was no slouch in the comprehending-the-incomprehensible department-he was about as good at it as one was going to get on Earth-but the obtuse mathematics of what was essentially a very dense technical manual were stretching even him to the breaking point.
Another obvious problem was that aside from the genuine angels sincerely trying to communicate, however elliptically, there were whole other categories of spirits coming through thinking that passing some particularly upsetting message of doom and despair, or making Kelley think his head was falling off, or conjuring up particularly meaningless but colourful hallucinations, or just flat-out lying, was an entertaining prank. No wonder Dee was starting to wonder if he was losing it completely: smattered in among the technical guidelines to angelic communication were prophecies of election and privilege, immediately countered the next day by some horrible warning of his house ransacked, his books stolen, his family dead, Kelley arrested-well, to be fair, the latter was starting to look likelier every day-countered the very next by reassurances that no, everything was fine.
And the third thing was that there was a fair amount in heaven and earth that even Aziraphale found he could not identify with any confidence. Madimi, for example, who had unnerved him from the very beginning-but who had at least been right about getting Kelley out of England in a timely manner. And he wished he had more assurance to offer his friend than a reading of the sincerity of his heart.
“I’m sure you think this is all quite insane,” Dee said. “I seem to remember you trying to dissuade me once, in your gentle way.”
“I suppose I did,” said Aziraphale. “I still can’t say for certain if I should have tried harder. But has anyone ever dissuaded you from something you were determined to do? It seems unlikely.”
“I’m sure I was not meant to be dissuaded,” Dee said. “Still, the risk is on my head alone.”
“Where’s Kelley?”
Dee rolled his eyes. “At this moment, I’d prefer not to know.”
“You haven’t been getting along?”
Dee just laughed. “Delusions and tantrums and the police at my door. Delightful man. Perhaps the strain is getting to him - he doubts, you know. He doubts terribly, and then all Their wrath comes through him that much harder. I’m sure he knows I no longer trust him entirely. I suspect he knows They don’t either.”
Aziraphale wouldn’t have trusted Kelley with the silverware, much less delicate interdimensional communications that could affect the state of one’s immortal soul, but he also knew that ineffability didn’t get much more blatantly ineffable than in its choice of human vessels sometimes.
Aziraphale merely sighed, he patted John on the shoulder, he gave him a rare book on astronomy from Morocco, and did his best to leave him with a sense of calm. He’d have to go back to England soon, where a Mr. Spenser was getting antsy about his desperately-in-need-of-editing manuscript.
And to where a certain demon could easily find him, should he be so inclined. Aziraphale was growing weary of giving him space for a thirty-year sulk when he knew dam-er-darned well he’d done nothing wrong, and the worrying only made it worse. Sooner or later, he suspected he was going to snap and chase Crowley down. It wouldn’t be difficult. Just follow the trouble.
Prague, Bohemia, 1588
When a laughing demon emerged from the notorious tavern, the Vulture, in the company of two pickpockets, a fortuneteller, a schizophrenic, three prostitutes of four different genders, and a specialist in stolen marbles, he didn’t expect his company to get any better-or worse, depending on your point of view.
But in the dark of a winding alley where the torches shivered out, his crowd dispersed in terror when he was struck painfully down by a flash of Divine light.
“Ouch! Ow! Do you have to be so bloody…” Crowley winced, slipping a tooth back into place.
“I’m sorry,” said Aziraphale, picking him up. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I just need to make you listen!”
“You’re bloody following me. Should have known. Dee was here, wasn’t he? Is there a two-bit conjurer or visionary crazy or babbling philosopher the Emperor hasn’t hired? You should have a chat with him yourself, pick up a little walking-around money. Turn a sort of metaphysical trick, if you like.”
“Leave John alone!”
“Are you still mewling about your mortal? He’s bringing it on himself!”
“He’s not my mortal,” Aziraphale snapped. “Anyway, it’s your mortal bringing it on him!”
“Kelley?” Crowley barked incredulously. “Definitely not mine. I mean, not mine personally…Now, as a representative of Hell, very possibly…Yes, that wife-swapping bit was over the top, wasn’t it? Not my idea, alas. That Madimi kid scares even me: ‘Thus it will be: the illegitimate will be joined with the true son. And the east will be united with the west, and the south with the north.’ Ha, so swive each other’s wives. Bloody brilliant.”
“How on earth do you know about that? And what’s the matter with you?” Aziraphale demanded.
“You’re too involved. You’re too attached. It won’t lead anywhere good,” Crowley shouted, eyes furious. “I don’t know what crap you’ve been whispering to him through those little glass balls of his, but…”
“You think I…” Aziraphale threw up his hands in disgust. “You think I let him invoke me?”
“No, I actually don’t think that. Do you know why I don’t? Because I’ve been there, Aziraphale. I’ve talked to them. That whole line about angels in error and how they fall and that weird business about his kids? Mine! I made it up! I’ve even peered out through the other side of that thing and seen you there floating around behind them all invisible like some cheap ghost. His wards are shit!”
He saw Aziraphale’s hand rising of its own accord to slap him; he caught it by the wrist, and the angel looked utterly shocked, staring at his hand in Crowley’s grip as if he’d never seen it before.
“I want to know why you care so much,” Crowley said quietly.
“He’s one of ours, Crowley. He’s a man of God.”
Crowley snorted. “Why do you say that? Because he’s so obsequious? I know I’ve spent more time on my knees before an angel than he has, and it doesn’t make me holy.” He prepared to grab Aziraphale’s other wrist too, should it be necessary. But it wasn’t; the angel only heaved and seethed and flashed celestial wrath out of his eyes, and it was somehow both terrifyingly sexy and unbearably annoying.
“I want to know why you care so much,” Aziraphale demanded. “I want to know why you can’t stay out of my business. I want to know why you keep running off to the continent with your Nolan babbler and won’t give me a straight answer about anything.”
“Maybe you haven’t asked me the right questions. And leave Giordano out of it.”
“Leave John out of it then. What’s the right question, eh…Let me think.”
“And while you’re thinking…” Crowley let go of Aziraphale’s wrist and turned to walk away. Aziraphale rubbed the imprints of his fingers and thought for just a minute, until he lunged and tackled Crowley to the cobblestones again. For his trouble, he got whacked in the face with wings unfolding at full speed. Crowley wriggled out from under him and took off from a prone position-not an easy feat, but he was motivated.
“You bloody coward!” Aziraphale shrieked, taking flight after him and barely dodging the narrow warren of roof cornices and gables. Prague had not been built with air traffic in mind. “This is so uncivilised.”
“You’re the one who keeps hitting me!” came the shout back. But Crowley wasn’t trying for a repeat of the Jerusalem Incident. He was merely sulking on a rooftop, doing a very unconvincing imitation of a gargoyle. Aziraphale leaned his back against the other gargoyle facing him.
“Do you have any idea how hard this kind of thing is for a being like me to say?” Crowley sighed.
“No, because you haven’t said it yet and I don’t know what it is.”
“I…” Crowley shook his head, apparently feeling that particular “I” inadequate in some way, and tried again. “I…I…don’t want…tossssseeyougethurt.”
“Oh…” said Aziraphale softly, a little awed. And then he got angry again. “Well, I appreciate your concern, but honestly, when I made my mental lists of all the problems one might have to deal with on this plane, I have to say an overprotective demon never crossed my mind.”
“Don’t be such a prat about it.”
“I can handle myself.”
“Never said you couldn’t. Even the best-or worst--of us get in over our heads. And I don’t think you can count on them. Might turn on you when you need them most.”
Aziraphale looked up, watched Crowley’s eyes fix on a dancing flame in a beacon light across two roofs. There was a pale orange reflection on the demon’s hair and feathers. The sky behind him was clear and sharp like polished black glass.
And a revelation cleaved Aziraphale to the heart. It wasn’t a Revelation; it was the kind of revelation humans have-sharp and brief and confusing and agonising; the knees collapse a little and the heart stops for a pulsebeat because one’s brain has momentarily forgotten them.
“Crowley…did you…I thought I saw…it wasn’t the future, it was the past…and it was real…I didn’t trust the vision…I wasn’t there, I’m sorry…”
“Don’t know what was worse - the humiliation of getting stuck there unable to get out, or the pain.”
Aziraphale hugged himself with one arm and reached out to Crowley with another.
“No, I know what was worse,” Crowley decided. “It was definitely the pain. It went on a really long time. It’s not as if I could have repented, not even faking it. The tongue just wouldn’t do that. That’s how they left me-just their little joke. None of the powers and all of the drawbacks. Just glad the fucking barbecue cook didn’t decide to anoint me.”
“Crowley, I’m so sorry…I can’t believe I wasn’t there for you, I…?”
“What could you have done? Some kind of miracle?” Crowley burst out laughing. “And then they’d make me into a saint, wouldn’t that be delicious? Oh, they’d love it Upstairs. Funniest prank since Job. And Downstairs, they’d know there was an angel who’d risk himself for me. That would’ve been hilarious to them, too.”
Laughing at that was a little counter to Aziraphale’s instincts, but it burst out of him anyway. And since he was getting pretty tired of fighting his instincts all the time, he crept up upon Crowley and took the demon in his arms, laying his face on the thin shoulder, hands reaching behind him and stroking his beautiful wings, not entirely sure whom he was trying to reassure.
“Hanging around with the wrong people,” Crowley muttered, “That’s bad news. Don’t you go-“
“It’s served me well so far,” Aziraphale murmured, kissing Crowley’s ear. “Or do you not count?”
“I probably do count.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Aziraphale sighed into Crowley’s neck. The night of her coronation, when Crowley’d been so…oh. Of course. Aziraphale remembered what Crowley had done for him in Constantinople-reminding him a body wasn’t just a trap and the world had redeeming (pardon the expression) qualities, all but literally bringing him back to life by way of each sense, one by one.
If he showed pity, Crowley would shove him clear off the roof and into next Tuesday, and rightly so.
What Aziraphale showed him instead was passion, clenching his hand in the hair at the nape of Crowley’s neck and kissing the demon vehemently. Their teeth clicked together awkwardly and their heads turned strangely, but Aziraphale found a rhythm for his lips and slid the tip of his tongue in and out of Crowley’s mouth most suggestively. He was rewarded with a low groan, vibrating against the heel of his hand that rested along Crowley’s throat.
“Why can’t I get enough of you?” Crowley asked desperately, holding Aziraphale’s face away from his for a moment.
“Because there’s so much of me to get?” Aziraphale smiled.
“I don’t understand. You’re not my type,” Crowley whined and pulled Aziraphale against him hard.
“I didn’t know you had a -Oh!” That was Crowley’s fingers, dropping low to the backs of his thighs, firm and insistent and exploring.
“Mmm,” Crowley said, requesting more of that kiss.
“It’s me, too,” Aziraphale admitted sloppily, tongue awkwardly placed for talking. “I want you so much.”
“Me too. Yes. Want you, I mean, not me. Right here, right now.”
“Here?” Aziraphale gasped, though he shouldn’t’ve been surprised, they were halfway there already. “But it’s a church…doesn’t it bother you?”
“A little. Don’t care.”
“Well, then…” Aziraphale leaned into him, moved against him, slid his hand slowly down, underneath, and grasped…with a tease, drawing back, releasing and then returning…He knew he may never be as gifted as Crowley with his mouth but he thought he was getting rather good with his hands, and this was confirmed by Crowley’s little hitching moan, his knees buckling--and then they were both down on the roof, reeling in wings just in time.
Crowley winced at the full-body touch of the building. “Actually, it’s…”
“Fine, you’re on top then,” said Aziraphale, adjusting them and shimmying under Crowley, who clasped his shoulder with one hand and ripped his tunic open with the other.
“Much better…OH! So good…”
“Yes…Oh. Oh, like that, my lo--mmmmph!” His mouth was suddenly full of tongue, not his own, and his hand was full of Crowley’s velvet shaft, begging, and his own was full of heat and ache safe and tight in Crowley’s skillfully working hand, hips fitting together and thighs entangled, and then they were riding each other somewhere free and wild. The sky above them was full of stars.
He’d wanted to ask why they kept doing this. It was the stupidest question in the cosmos.
Crowley found that he did have mild church burns on his hands and knees in the morning, but it had certainly been worth it.
Far, far away over the sea a wind arose and the Spanish Armada foundered in a storm, sparing England. More than sparing her, in fact. Making her the greatest naval power in the Western world by default, much as Dee had once predicted.
“Come back with me to England,” Aziraphale whispered. “The Continent doesn’t need you.” I do.
~
Part 4