Fanfiction: "Did He Smile His Work To See?" Watchmen/Good Omens crossover
Title: Did He Smile His Work To See?
Author: lady_wormtongue
Fandom: Watchmen/Good Omens crossover
Characters/Pairings: Walter Kovacs, possible Crowley/Aziraphale
Rating: a light PG-13, for Walter being himself
Notes: One-shot. The title comes from Blake's “The Tyger,” speaking of God as the tiger's creator. This is the first time I've written these characters, so I hope I did them justice! Thanks to towie for being my trusty beta! Feedback is appreciated. :)
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The Gunga Diner was hardly Walter's favorite place. The restaurant was run by Indians, jabbering in their native tongue and serving their strange cuisine. It was frequented by all manner of people, from businessmen on lunch breaks to knot-tops pocketing silverware. Walter didn't like sitting amid this rabble - it made him uncomfortable, as though their corruption and delinquency were a disease he might catch if he didn't stomp it out. His fingers itched, watching New York gorge itself on foreign fare, but he was in disguise now, and he had a cover to maintain. So, he stepped further into the diner, fingers clenched tight around the sign he bore. THE END IS NIGH, it read.
These people had no idea.
The diner had two things to its credit. Firstly, it offered an excellent view of his maildrop. And secondly, it boasted the cheapest cup of coffee in Midtown.
Walter propped his sign against the long counter along the window, its grim message still glaring at the restaurant's patrons, and he perched himself on a stool. His maildrop was just across the street, already teeming with refuse that even the trash of this city considered disposable. Would an elderly man with curiously pointed ears make a delivery for him there? It seemed he had been wrong about Moloch being at the center of this mask-killer business, but he still didn't trust the supposed ex-con.
A waitress approached him, her nose slightly wrinkled. If his appearance and hygiene bothered her, then hers disgusted him - eyes heavily made up, cleavage exposed, body sickly with perfume. But Walter ordered his cup of coffee without incident, careful to keep his face blank, even dull, and soon enough she was gone.
Last night's sleep had refreshed him, and now he turned ideas over in his head, trying to make connections out of stray snippets of information. He had only just seen Daniel and Miss Juspeczyk leaving this diner a few minutes ago. Immediately he had thought that the former adventuress might be behind Dr. Manhattan's exile in order to pursue a relationship with Daniel, but now he thought better of it. It was more likely that now that she was no longer Manhattan's kept woman, she was taking advantage of Daniel's hospitality. Typically, Daniel was too soft to say no. But given Juspeczyk's blatant hatred of the Comedian, he would still investigate. Vengeance, he knew, was a powerful motive.
The coffee arrived, steaming and spilling over the edges of the cup. There were two small containers of creamer on the coaster; he peeled back their foil covers and drank them one at a time. He still had some of Daniel's sugar cubes stuffed in his pocket, and he absentmindedly unwrapped and dropped four of them into the coffee, eyes fixed intently on the trash can across the street. Around him, New York came and went. The Gunga Diner was hardly as useful as some of the seedy underground bars for getting information, but he still kept an ear open in case anyone in the diner knew something and was stupid enough to talk about it.
Somewhere behind him, two men settled into a booth. “Honestly, why here?” one of them asked his companion. “You turned down an invitation to the Ritz for this?”
“No griping, angel,” the other said, with a tone caught between crossness and fondness. Walter bristled. Queers, out on what he assumed was some kind of date, blatantly flaunting their deviance for anyone to see. He was glad he had his back to them.
“They've got a mean tandoori chicken here.”
The first man snorted. “If you say so.”
Walter turned his attentions back to the maildrop and his musings. Passers-by deposited coffee cups and newspapers with terrifying headlines. A homeless alcoholic retched into the trash can before trudging off with another swig from his bottle. Walter slurped at his saccharine coffee and frowned. Russia was too obvious. It was just too easy to write the death of the Comedian and the neutralization of Dr. Manhattan off as political. Not everything fit together. He needed more information, needed to ask questions. Perhaps he should pay a visit to Doug Roth that night. The journalist had been very persistent in badgering Dr. Manhattan, from what the New Frontiersman had reported. If Roth was a Communist...
A large purple truck with a triangle logo suddenly drove into his line of vision and stopped. The driver hopped out and began unloading cartons onto the sidewalk. Walter realized, to his distaste, that he was now able to see the couple sitting behind him in the reflection of the glass window. One man was pudgy and blond, the other lean with dark hair, and sunglasses. Strange. Walter chose to busy himself with his coffee, savoring the grainy last sip where the sugar had sunk to the bottom.
The truck didn't move - the driver had decided to connect the vehicle to a spark hydrant. Walter scowled. If Moloch had something to tell him and he missed the dropoff, it could mean a loss of valuable information. He considered leaving, but the waitress came over to refill his cup.
Free refills - the only American love you could get anymore.
Resignedly, he dropped a few more sugar cubes into the newly filled cup. A few stray words drifted by him and caught his attention.
“...end of the world any day now,” the blond man behind Walter was saying to his companion, “and you bring us to some dumpy diner. Can't even get a good cup of tea here.”
“Quit dwelling on it, will you?” the other man said irritably. “I just thought something a bit more... down to earth would be nice. What with the world about to end, and all.”
“Maybe if your side wasn't quite so persistent at doing its job...”
Walter began listening more intently. Perhaps there was more to this conversation. Could the man be implying that his companion was on the Russians' side?
“Oh, come off it! Your side is always going on about how rapturous the end of the world will be,” the man in sunglasses retorted. “And after it happens and all the people are gone, then what?”
“Crowley, dear...” the blond started.
“Who knows what will happen? Well, yes, He does, but He's not being very helpful about it. What'll He do, start all fresh for a third time? Or just end it all for good?” Walter could practically hear the capitalizations in the man called Crowley's speech. Queers and religious fanatics. Fantastic.
“It's ineffable,” the other man murmured. “Suppose the plan all along was to let Below corrupt humanity enough that they would destroy themselves, so we - I mean, Above - could get our Apocalypse?”
“I don't think Michael's that great of a strategist.” The blond man chuckled softly.
Walter suppressed a smirk. He remembered the name from his religion classes at the Lillian Charlton Home, and these people were talking about archangels as if they knew them personally. And people thought that he was crazy...
“I don't think it'll be over for good,” the blond said gently.
“I don't want this to be over, though. These people, they're... they're jussst...”
“I know. I don't want it to be over either.” The blond man moved his hand across the table to rest on his companion's. Walter looked away from the window quickly, stared intently into his coffee, but kept listening. “I'm glad you thought of coming here,” the blond continued, kindly. “I see what you mean now.”
“Yeah,” said Crowley. “It's just, this is what it all boils down to. People doing what they do. Even if what they do is worse than my side intended... Don't give me that look, Aziraphale. We didn't want anything like this. Even the thing with the kid, that's not supposed to be for a few more years, and I don't even think that's a good idea.”
These men kept speaking in riddles, in strange terms and with frightening implications. Walter glanced back up at the reflection and was relieved to see that the two were no longer touching.
“Heaven's ready for the child, though,” the blond - Aziraphale - said. “It's got to be your side behind what's happening now. My side wants to defeat yours properly, with trumpets and legions of the heavenly host and all those things you hate.”
“I know, I know. I'll tell you what I think, angel. I don't think it's either of our sides. I think it's just them. Sure, they've been influenced from both sides, but when you get right down to it, it's them.”
“Free will's a bugger, isn't it?” Aziraphale said glumly. Crowley's reflection nodded. “It's almost sad, really... to see them all going about their lives as usual, when they might not have lives as usual a week from now.”
“Makes me wish they would do sssomething to stop it. It's like they don't even know.” Was that hissing? Walter could suddenly feel eyes on his back. He slurped his coffee as though it was the only important thing in the world, not wanting to be caught eavesdropping.
“This poor bastard over here knows,” Crowley said, dropping his voice slightly. Walter could hear him anyway - he had made a career, a lifestyle, even, from picking out whispers in a jumble of voices. “But I'll bet no one believes him, not for real. Probably think he's some apocalyptic nut.”
“I wonder what side he'd say is responsible,” Aziraphale said, his voice tinged with sympathy.
Walter was not going to take any more of this - his presence in the diner was attracting the wrong sort of attention. He gulped down the last of the coffee and slid off the stool. Picking up his sign, he was aware that the pair was still looking at him.
“How about it?” Crowley said, a strange look on his face.
Walter thought he could see a glimpse of yellow behind the sunglasses.
“Is God or the Devil behind the end of the world?”
A ridiculous question, even with the sadness laced in the man's smirk. Walter hefted the sign higher on his shoulder. “No God. No Devil. As you said, only us.” And with that, he turned his back, leaving the Gunga Diner and its strange patrons to the ebb and flow of New York. He still had a mystery to solve, and there was precious little time.
Author: lady_wormtongue
Fandom: Watchmen/Good Omens crossover
Characters/Pairings: Walter Kovacs, possible Crowley/Aziraphale
Rating: a light PG-13, for Walter being himself
Notes: One-shot. The title comes from Blake's “The Tyger,” speaking of God as the tiger's creator. This is the first time I've written these characters, so I hope I did them justice! Thanks to towie for being my trusty beta! Feedback is appreciated. :)
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The Gunga Diner was hardly Walter's favorite place. The restaurant was run by Indians, jabbering in their native tongue and serving their strange cuisine. It was frequented by all manner of people, from businessmen on lunch breaks to knot-tops pocketing silverware. Walter didn't like sitting amid this rabble - it made him uncomfortable, as though their corruption and delinquency were a disease he might catch if he didn't stomp it out. His fingers itched, watching New York gorge itself on foreign fare, but he was in disguise now, and he had a cover to maintain. So, he stepped further into the diner, fingers clenched tight around the sign he bore. THE END IS NIGH, it read.
These people had no idea.
The diner had two things to its credit. Firstly, it offered an excellent view of his maildrop. And secondly, it boasted the cheapest cup of coffee in Midtown.
Walter propped his sign against the long counter along the window, its grim message still glaring at the restaurant's patrons, and he perched himself on a stool. His maildrop was just across the street, already teeming with refuse that even the trash of this city considered disposable. Would an elderly man with curiously pointed ears make a delivery for him there? It seemed he had been wrong about Moloch being at the center of this mask-killer business, but he still didn't trust the supposed ex-con.
A waitress approached him, her nose slightly wrinkled. If his appearance and hygiene bothered her, then hers disgusted him - eyes heavily made up, cleavage exposed, body sickly with perfume. But Walter ordered his cup of coffee without incident, careful to keep his face blank, even dull, and soon enough she was gone.
Last night's sleep had refreshed him, and now he turned ideas over in his head, trying to make connections out of stray snippets of information. He had only just seen Daniel and Miss Juspeczyk leaving this diner a few minutes ago. Immediately he had thought that the former adventuress might be behind Dr. Manhattan's exile in order to pursue a relationship with Daniel, but now he thought better of it. It was more likely that now that she was no longer Manhattan's kept woman, she was taking advantage of Daniel's hospitality. Typically, Daniel was too soft to say no. But given Juspeczyk's blatant hatred of the Comedian, he would still investigate. Vengeance, he knew, was a powerful motive.
The coffee arrived, steaming and spilling over the edges of the cup. There were two small containers of creamer on the coaster; he peeled back their foil covers and drank them one at a time. He still had some of Daniel's sugar cubes stuffed in his pocket, and he absentmindedly unwrapped and dropped four of them into the coffee, eyes fixed intently on the trash can across the street. Around him, New York came and went. The Gunga Diner was hardly as useful as some of the seedy underground bars for getting information, but he still kept an ear open in case anyone in the diner knew something and was stupid enough to talk about it.
Somewhere behind him, two men settled into a booth. “Honestly, why here?” one of them asked his companion. “You turned down an invitation to the Ritz for this?”
“No griping, angel,” the other said, with a tone caught between crossness and fondness. Walter bristled. Queers, out on what he assumed was some kind of date, blatantly flaunting their deviance for anyone to see. He was glad he had his back to them.
“They've got a mean tandoori chicken here.”
The first man snorted. “If you say so.”
Walter turned his attentions back to the maildrop and his musings. Passers-by deposited coffee cups and newspapers with terrifying headlines. A homeless alcoholic retched into the trash can before trudging off with another swig from his bottle. Walter slurped at his saccharine coffee and frowned. Russia was too obvious. It was just too easy to write the death of the Comedian and the neutralization of Dr. Manhattan off as political. Not everything fit together. He needed more information, needed to ask questions. Perhaps he should pay a visit to Doug Roth that night. The journalist had been very persistent in badgering Dr. Manhattan, from what the New Frontiersman had reported. If Roth was a Communist...
A large purple truck with a triangle logo suddenly drove into his line of vision and stopped. The driver hopped out and began unloading cartons onto the sidewalk. Walter realized, to his distaste, that he was now able to see the couple sitting behind him in the reflection of the glass window. One man was pudgy and blond, the other lean with dark hair, and sunglasses. Strange. Walter chose to busy himself with his coffee, savoring the grainy last sip where the sugar had sunk to the bottom.
The truck didn't move - the driver had decided to connect the vehicle to a spark hydrant. Walter scowled. If Moloch had something to tell him and he missed the dropoff, it could mean a loss of valuable information. He considered leaving, but the waitress came over to refill his cup.
Free refills - the only American love you could get anymore.
Resignedly, he dropped a few more sugar cubes into the newly filled cup. A few stray words drifted by him and caught his attention.
“...end of the world any day now,” the blond man behind Walter was saying to his companion, “and you bring us to some dumpy diner. Can't even get a good cup of tea here.”
“Quit dwelling on it, will you?” the other man said irritably. “I just thought something a bit more... down to earth would be nice. What with the world about to end, and all.”
“Maybe if your side wasn't quite so persistent at doing its job...”
Walter began listening more intently. Perhaps there was more to this conversation. Could the man be implying that his companion was on the Russians' side?
“Oh, come off it! Your side is always going on about how rapturous the end of the world will be,” the man in sunglasses retorted. “And after it happens and all the people are gone, then what?”
“Crowley, dear...” the blond started.
“Who knows what will happen? Well, yes, He does, but He's not being very helpful about it. What'll He do, start all fresh for a third time? Or just end it all for good?” Walter could practically hear the capitalizations in the man called Crowley's speech. Queers and religious fanatics. Fantastic.
“It's ineffable,” the other man murmured. “Suppose the plan all along was to let Below corrupt humanity enough that they would destroy themselves, so we - I mean, Above - could get our Apocalypse?”
“I don't think Michael's that great of a strategist.” The blond man chuckled softly.
Walter suppressed a smirk. He remembered the name from his religion classes at the Lillian Charlton Home, and these people were talking about archangels as if they knew them personally. And people thought that he was crazy...
“I don't think it'll be over for good,” the blond said gently.
“I don't want this to be over, though. These people, they're... they're jussst...”
“I know. I don't want it to be over either.” The blond man moved his hand across the table to rest on his companion's. Walter looked away from the window quickly, stared intently into his coffee, but kept listening. “I'm glad you thought of coming here,” the blond continued, kindly. “I see what you mean now.”
“Yeah,” said Crowley. “It's just, this is what it all boils down to. People doing what they do. Even if what they do is worse than my side intended... Don't give me that look, Aziraphale. We didn't want anything like this. Even the thing with the kid, that's not supposed to be for a few more years, and I don't even think that's a good idea.”
These men kept speaking in riddles, in strange terms and with frightening implications. Walter glanced back up at the reflection and was relieved to see that the two were no longer touching.
“Heaven's ready for the child, though,” the blond - Aziraphale - said. “It's got to be your side behind what's happening now. My side wants to defeat yours properly, with trumpets and legions of the heavenly host and all those things you hate.”
“I know, I know. I'll tell you what I think, angel. I don't think it's either of our sides. I think it's just them. Sure, they've been influenced from both sides, but when you get right down to it, it's them.”
“Free will's a bugger, isn't it?” Aziraphale said glumly. Crowley's reflection nodded. “It's almost sad, really... to see them all going about their lives as usual, when they might not have lives as usual a week from now.”
“Makes me wish they would do sssomething to stop it. It's like they don't even know.” Was that hissing? Walter could suddenly feel eyes on his back. He slurped his coffee as though it was the only important thing in the world, not wanting to be caught eavesdropping.
“This poor bastard over here knows,” Crowley said, dropping his voice slightly. Walter could hear him anyway - he had made a career, a lifestyle, even, from picking out whispers in a jumble of voices. “But I'll bet no one believes him, not for real. Probably think he's some apocalyptic nut.”
“I wonder what side he'd say is responsible,” Aziraphale said, his voice tinged with sympathy.
Walter was not going to take any more of this - his presence in the diner was attracting the wrong sort of attention. He gulped down the last of the coffee and slid off the stool. Picking up his sign, he was aware that the pair was still looking at him.
“How about it?” Crowley said, a strange look on his face.
Walter thought he could see a glimpse of yellow behind the sunglasses.
“Is God or the Devil behind the end of the world?”
A ridiculous question, even with the sadness laced in the man's smirk. Walter hefted the sign higher on his shoulder. “No God. No Devil. As you said, only us.” And with that, he turned his back, leaving the Gunga Diner and its strange patrons to the ebb and flow of New York. He still had a mystery to solve, and there was precious little time.