Disclaimer: Good Omens and all the wonderful beings within do not belong to me. They belong to Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, or vice versa... depends on which version of the cover you're looking at. No profit is being made, alas, I'm just having fun.
A/N: This short fic was inspired by the song "Someday You Will Be Loved," by the amazing band Death Cab for Cutie. It's really more the feel of the song rather than the lyrics themselves that relate to this story, but if you've got the song on an mp3 player by you-- by all means, listen while you read.
Thanks for reading... feedback is (as always) wonderful!
Crowley got his fortune told in Babylon, in a dark tent that smelled like stale incense and cheap wine. A greasy stub of a candle was the only source of light in that place, and it cast an orange glow on the shabby interior of the oracle's room. The cloth-covered walls might have been beautiful, once, but the tapestries had grown grimy with age, and most of the tiny glass beads had fallen off, littering the dirty floor like old stars.
Not that he cared, of course. Crowley didn't really mind appearances, save his own. Even the faint moans and drunken laughter coming from the brothel next door didn't bother him. It was sin, pure and simple, and he lived for it.
The fortune-teller, a sharp woman of indeterminate age, long dark hair, and coffee-colored skin, had warmly greeted Crowley when he showed up at that unearthly hour—regardless of the fact that she'd never seen him before. Her ears were ringed with tarnished silver hoops, and they swayed gently as she nodded to him in welcoming.
"Now, you're a handsome one," she said, thin painted lips sliding up into a half-smile. "What brings you to such dark quarters?"
Crowley shrugged, and it was a beautiful, graceful shrug, the dark red ripples of fabric at his shoulders shifting to expose unusually pale skin.
"Curiosity," he said languidly. He normally didn't travel in these parts, and in fact had both the shifting accent that marked him as a wanderer and the clothes of a very important man. Most didn't question him, if they dared speak to him at all.
The candle flickered and flashed as the woman took an old box out from some dark corner of her room. It was made of wood, rough carvings covering its entire surface, and stained with something that gleamed faintly in the reddish light.
"You'd rather get your fortune told than be entertained next door?" the woman asked, easily, as she withdrew a stack of cards and bones from her old box. She began to shuffle the wooden tiles in her bony hands, smoothly sliding them back and forth, a smile still curling around her dark mouth.
"It's all lust," Crowley replied, with the secret smirk of someone who knows exactly what lust is. "Perhaps a little bit of love. But I'm not interested."
"Oh?" the woman replied, flicking the tiles from hand to hand. "Not interested in love?" The quiet slap of worn wood against worn wood matched the drum of Crowley's fingertips against the cracked tabletop.
"It's not my style," Crowley answered, after a moment. The guttering candlelight softened his features, until he looked almost human. Almost.
"I'll need your blood," the woman said suddenly. "For the divining," she explained. Crowley obliged, offering a pale palm for her appraisal. A swift cut with a polished blade and the deed was done, bright blood standing out against the grimy tablecloth. The cut was healed by the time Crowley's hand was back at his side, leaving behind a thin scar the same deep red as his robes.
He half expected the woman to thank him, out of professional courtesy, but apparently oracles operated by different standards.
"Love's not your style," she repeated, giving him a dark-eyed stare. It wasn't a question, though it should have been. The air was stale and heavy with incense and for the first time that night Crowley began to feel uncomfortable.
"No, it's not," he answered, taking a sip of wine that hadn't been in his glass a second ago. "Sorry," he added, though he didn't know why. He had to resist the urge to hiss.
"Well, I'll tell you this for free," the woman said, as she prepared the rest of the ritual, all scented powders and mysterious waxes.
Crowley raised an eyebrow. "Yes?"
"You'd better get used to it, my friend, because someday you will be loved."
- - - - - -
Crowley doesn't remember the actual fortune he received that night, hundreds of years ago. It was something mysteriously phrased and passé, no doubt. Oracles of that time weren't exactly known for their originality or accuracy, though they did know quite a lot about ambience. But Crowley does remember what happened just before the fortune. Someday you will be loved, the woman had told him.
She'd said it with such assertion, such confidence. Crowley's certain she wasn't aware of his otherworldly nature, and perhaps she merely assumed that sooner or later, all human beings fell in love. Except even that isn't true. Crowley has seen hundreds— maybe even thousands—of humans go their entire lives without love, because of one stupid decision or another. An affair here, a lie there, and everything ends in anger or lust. It's generally fine with Crowley; after all, he is a demon. He doesn't do love.
He thinks it's worthless, a waste of time. Only idiocies have been done in the name of love, and though he's all for suffering and remorse, the trite poems and prose that have issued from centuries of spurned lovers quite frankly drive him insane. Furthermore, not only is a hatred of love ingrained into his beliefs, but Crowley is not a person of halves. Never is never, and forever is forever in his book. What's the use of loving someone if they're just going to leave you when they die? No use, that's what. Better to go without.
Crowley's a demon. He doesn't do love. Angels do love. Aziraphale does love.
- - - - - -
The first time that the angel had tried to befriend him, Crowley had hissed and slithered away. Or maybe he showed his fangs first; he doesn't remember. Granted, that was six thousand years ago, and his manners had been far from the slick, slightly unsettling things they are now. Regardless, by the time Adam and Eve had been kicked out of the garden, the two had formed an uneasy sort of an alliance. A Pre-Arrangement, perhaps. The first incarnation of Crowley-and-Aziraphale. They weren't friends. But they weren't enemies, either.
- - - - - -
It was maybe a few centuries later that they got to talking again. Somewhere in Greece, where Crowley was happily encouraging lust and drunken same-sex escapades, and Aziraphale was frantically preaching a message of brotherly love and the light of knowledge. They shared a few jugs of wine in dim bars that hid Aziraphale's golden hair and Crowley's golden eyes, and at one point they shared a room, too. Though Crowley suddenly turned nocturnal during that short period of time, and Aziraphale was careful to stay out all day and, once night fell, bury himself in his books. Their being in the same room was rare, and when it happened, tense.
- - - - - -
The actual Arrangement came about during the first millennia, when the two men-shaped beings decided that the men-shaped-men were a bit too much to handle individually. Aziraphale reluctantly agreed to allow the existence of legal loopholes and warfare (among other things), and in return, Crowley agreed to not stomp out education or the first beginnings of what would become literature (among other things.)
They set limits to what the other could do, and promised not to meddle in the other's affairs—within reason. The agreement reached and stability (kind of) ensured, each decided that the other's company was actually rather bearable, and they spent the next few centuries in various bars, talking occasionally but mostly drinking. Conversation had been difficult since the Babel incident, not to mention that blasted ark. Alcohol, however, was forever.
- - - - - -
These days, they talk almost as much as they drink, if not more. And they drink a lot. Lunching at the Ritz is a weekly ritual, now, and Crowley almost looks forward to the sleepy Saturdays they spend together in St James Park. Almost. He's not supposed to enjoy that sort of thing, fraternizing with the enemy and whatnot, but it's a very small Almost. It could even be an Always, though he doesn't want to admit that.
- - - - - -
However, today will not be spent at the park, and dinner will not be at the Ritz. Crowley is painfully aware of this, mostly because he feels as though his entire body is simultaneously on fire and covered in liquid nitrogen; his head also aches as if it's been bashed in by Ligur's favorite cast-iron flog club. He has a fever of a hundred and twenty-four (it's no human fever), his skin is unappealingly ashy and clammy with demonic sweat, and he is aching for a stiff drink. Which Aziraphale won't let him have.
"Dear boy," the angel murmurs, dabbing Crowley's forehead with a damp cloth. The compress is cool against the demon's burning skin, and it cuts through the pain in his head a little. "Just breathe. In and out, in and out."
"I know how to breathe, thanks," Crowley replies acidly, instantly regretting it as twin tendrils of pain and guilt find their place in his body. One in the head, one in the heart. Or whatever Crowley has that passes for one—it certainly doesn't pump blood half the time.
"I know you know," Aziraphale retorts, miracling the cloth again. Some of the water drips down into the hollow at the bottom of Crowley's neck and thinks about evaporating. "But I also know you don't breathe unless your emotions are running high. I just thought it would have been a while since you'd used your lungs."
The angel has a point. Crowley almost never breathes; it's hard to faze him. And there's been practically nothing exciting or important enough to warrant breathing in recent memory, save the Armageddon that wasn't. There's been nothing at all. Just Aziraphale.
"Well, I've been breathing," Crowley says. His stomach feels worryingly squishy. He wonders if it's another side effect of this monstrous occult fever.
"Since when?" Aziraphale asks mildly, out of pure curiosity.
Crowley honestly can't remember. Before Tadfield, he knows, but he doesn't know how much before. He says as much, and Aziraphale nods as if he gets it anyway. Which he probably does, being Aziraphale and all.
"How are you feeling?" the angel asks, then.
Crowley shrugs, which is a rather tricky thing to do when lying down and incapacitated and consequently sends a wave of pain shooting into his temples. "Fine." Which isn't the truth at all, but he's never been one to complain.
Aziraphale purses his lips and sets aside the cloth. He places a hand on Crowley's forehead, his light eyes looking at him with concern. The angel's skin is cool and smooth, like water, or maybe silk. For a brief moment Crowley wishes that Aziraphale would keep his hand there, instead of the little compress that he's been using before, and then the idiocy of the idea—Aziraphale's angelic hand on his demonic skin for longer than an instant, really—occurs to him, and he doesn't say anything.
"That temperature doesn't feel fine," Aziraphale says, looking worried. "I do wish I knew how to treat these kinds of illnesses. We…angels just don't get sick."
"Really," Crowley protests, trying to get up. A wave of dizziness hits him and ultra-blackness creeps in around the edges of his vision. He lies back down, quickly. "I'm okay," he insists, closing his eyes, rolling to turn his back on the angel. But it's no use, because even when his eyes are shut all he sees is blue and gold. "You can leave now," he mumbles, suddenly embarrassed.
"I'm staying until you get better," Aziraphale replies mildly.
"No, it's okay. I'll be all right. I'm actually feeling better already." Crowley keeps his eyes closed, and tries to appear normal and healthy, or at the very least, not inches away from discorporation.
"You have a fever of a hundred and twenty," Aziraphale reminds him.
Damn. "I think I'm going to sleep now," Crowley says desperately, a last resort to get the angel to leave. He can't handle this strange closeness; he's not used to it. Not at all. He never thought he'd have to get used to it.
"It'll be good for you," Aziraphale agrees, but he doesn't move to leave.
"You're not going to go back to the bookstore?" Crowley cracks open his eyes cautiously to find the angel looking at him, a curious look on his divine countenance.
"And leave you here? I don't think so."
There's a long pause, in which only the slow breaths of two men-shaped beings can be heard. Aziraphale's breathing too, Crowley realizes. Aziraphale never breathes.
"Oh. Well." Crowley isn't quite sure what to do now. No one's ever done this for him before.
"Yes," Aziraphale replies, though the demon doesn't remember ever asking a question.
"Thank you," Crowley finally says, a little unsure. He's not used to thanking people, even after all these years. His eyes slide shut again, and he thinks that perhaps he actually will go to sleep.
"Of course," Aziraphale replies, his voice warm. The demon knows that if he were to look up, he'd see a smile.
Just before he drifts off into unconsciousness, Crowley feels something soft and light against his temple, like an angel's kiss, though he can't be certain. His eyes are still closed, but the pain begins to recede, until it's gone entirely.
Someday you will be loved.
He thinks that perhaps he could begin to love back.
(After all, he does have all of eternity to do so.)