This is the first fic I've done in the present tense. I like it, at least for this particular one – present tense gives the story a different tone that I think works well with the subject matter. I'll probably use it again, at some point.
Another thing – I will probably be using this fic as a kind of dumping ground for future "where and when in history" fics. I don't think there will be any discernable plotline or particular order to it; the chapters will end up as they end up, slices of history.
Aziraphale and Crowley do not belong to me; they belong to Pratchett and Gaiman.
Letters in the Sand
May, 1970 C.E.
Ohio, United States of America
Aziraphale finds himself enveloped by the crowd, which has gathered three times in as many days. It has not devolved into riots and tear gas and screams, so far, and he breathes a silent prayer that the demonstrations will remain peaceful.
Prayers aside, he is doubtful that the relative peace will linger much longer. Ill-tempered rumors flit around him, nasty mosquitos whining messages of horrors to come.
He makes his way to the edge of the mass of people. He isn't sure what he's doing here, or what he had hoped to accomplish by going to the Colonies. In England, he might have known what to do, what to say, how to do and say it (he might at least have had an idea), but the culture is different here—and on campus, among so many young and angry people, Aziraphale feels especially out of his depth. He can hardly move among the students without at least one of them looking askance at his clothes, he cannot speak to them without raising eyebrows at his antiquated turns of phrase and accent. He could adopt an American one if he really wanted, but he doesn't want to, and he shouldn't have to.
He finds a tree and leans uneasily against it. He is on the outside looking in, as he has always been.
Nearby, the laughingly tortured wail of a harmonica cuts through the evening. The musician is halfway decent, but Aziraphale flinches on principle (and tries to push away the memory of the smell of blood in burning hair). Thankfully, it's only a little while before a guitar joins the harmonica and adds a bit of balance, and a shorter while before a drum joins in to form a little impromptu trio. They aren't really playing anything in particular, but the beat is steady and the players are actually more than competent, and Aziraphale pulls out of his memory and begins to relax. He turns and sits with the tree at his back so that he can watch them.
The man with the harmonica has dark hair that fluffs out from beneath his cap, and mirrored aviators hide his eyes and alter the shape of his face. He is very tan; his sunburned forearms contrast with the guitarist's pallor—the guitarist plays with his eyes half-closed and his lips parted, curling around his instrument and straightening and moving as if the music plays him instead of the other way around.
Aziraphale does not object to this kind of music when it is played well, and the musicians are enthusiastic, and for a while he watches the guitarist's hands flicker-flick over the strings. It's hypnotic, in a way.
But then the beat changes, very slightly, a twist of the harmonica brings a softer beat on the drum and makes the guitarist bend his head to the strings, and Aziraphale does not so much recognize the tune as he knows it. It falls like a stone in the pit of his stomach, in the back of his throat, and the harmonica player is turning in Aziraphale's direction and the light catches the planes of his face, and oh.
Oh.
Well then. Small wonder Aziraphale didn't know him straight off; he has never seen Crowley like this, all faded blue-jeans and plaid shirt unbuttoned over tight tee-shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His most recent memories of Crowley are of a sharply-dressed gentleman with a sardonic smile. He has never wondered what Crowley would look like as a—well, an American. Crowley does love his stereotypes, he thinks they're funny.
Of course Crowley has recognized him. Aziraphale can tell by the way his eyebrows tweak up at angles, the way the shadows around his sunglasses deepen, that he is laughing. Long brown hands cup around the crying harmonica and hide Crowley's grin, but it is there all the same.
Many are the hearts that are weary tonight, wishing for the war to cease, and Aziraphale leans his head back against the tree and closes his eyes. Many are the hearts that are looking for the right to see the dawn of peace, and he remembers John, who fell at Wilderness, and William, who died afterward of infection from a leg wound gone bad, and Marie. He remembers blood in burning hair.
He sits without moving for nearly four hours, until long after the sun has set, until he feels a tremor near his feet and knows that someone has just lain down next to him. His lips curve to a smile.
"I almost didn't know you."
Crowley huffs amusement through his nose and mouth. "You didn't know me."
"Yes, very well," says Aziraphale, with the same inflection that Crowley uses when he concedes with a good-natured Yeah, okay, and he opens his eyes and looks down. Crowley is stretched full length on his back in the grass with his head on one arm, clutching his cap. A new-lit cigarette rests between the fingers of his free hand. Aziraphale regards him quietly for a moment. "I approve of your sunglasses."
"Thanks. They're new."
"What happened to the old ones?"
"Still have 'em," says Crowley, swallowing his Ls, rounding his Rs. He gives Aziraphale an up-down look that speaks volumes. "See you're not bothering to blend in."
Aziraphale sniffs. "Honestly, I don't see why I should bother."
"You just don't like it here," Crowley tells him, and touches the cigarette to his lips. Smoke trails up from his nose.
Aziraphale glances at him, then lifts the little paper roll from Crowley's hand without asking and drags on it.
"Yeah?" says Crowley, sounding mildly amused.
Aziraphale exhales, more of a sigh than anything else, and hands it back. "Yeah," he murmurs. He sits, feeling Crowley breathe, long and low, in the grass at his side. After a while he notices something, blinks, moves a little, tilts his head. "I smell smoke. Not yours."
"We torched a building a little bit ago." Crowley waves his hand in a vague that-a-way motion. "ROTC."
Shocked, Aziraphale twists around and sees flickering light blazing hot over the tops of the science hall and music center. He turns back, feeling sick, remembering protestors on fire in the streets of Saigon. "Who is we?" he asks, as his stomach turns.
"Me and some of the guys."
Aziraphale is silent.
"No one got hurt," Crowley adds, very very quietly, almost an afterthought, and Aziraphale breathes. He lets his fingers brush against Crowley's hand for the briefest of instants as he takes the cigarette again; he knows better than to actually thank Crowley for something like that, but he means it. Crowley, surprisingly, doesn't seem to mind.
"I don't like this," after a pause. "Why do they?"
Crowley moves a shoulder in a lazy shrug. "They're human," he says, as if it explains everything. It might. "What d'you expect?"
Aziraphale shakes his head. "I don't know. Not this, I think."
Crowley hums agreement. A breeze carries more clouds of smoke past, but under the tree, the chaos of the crowd feels muted and dull. Crowley finishes the cigarette and flicks the butt away. It glows briefly in grass that is already wet with dew. "What time is it?"
Aziraphale checks his watch, puts it back in his vest pocket before he speaks. "Half past."
Crowley nods and rolls to his feet in one smooth movement. The back of his shirt is rumpled. Bits of grass cling to his hair. He reaches down for Aziraphale. "Time to go. Now."
"What—"
"Have you eaten?"
"No, I—"
Crowley grabs his arm and pulls him to his feet. "Good, great, c'mon, we're going to dinner."
Aziraphale lets Crowley drag him away. Long years of experience have taught him not to argue with Crowley when he says 'Time to go' in that particular tone of voice.
The night that they disappear into is quiet, off-campus. Aziraphale is struck, as he is at times, by how apart he and Crowley are from it all—as if they are watching everything in slow motion, from a long way off. Car headlights in the night catch individual globes of spray thrown up by the hiss of tires on wet pavement. There are few people out, but the Pufferbelly is still serving. As if it would dare not serve Crowley in one of his moods.
Fifteen minutes later Aziraphale registers that traffic outside has increased exponentially since he and Crowley went into the restaurant, and that Crowley is looking over Aziraphale's shoulder with a pleased expression on his face during pauses in the conversation. He turns around to look out the window.
"What's out there?"
"National Guard." Crowley's face is twisted in a smile, his tone over-bright.
Aziraphale stares at him. "Surely not," he says, but he isn't really surprised. If anything, he's surprised it took them so long to reach this point, but he has a job to do, and so he says, "Surely they wouldn't call soldiers just for a protest that—got a little out of hand."
Crowley starts to laugh, narrow shoulders shaking. "Aziraphale, they lit a building on fire."
"You lit a building on fire," Aziraphale says, softly accusatory, and reaches for his glass of wine. He looks at it. It tastes different, somehow, or maybe it's just that he feels different, so far away from home, and being away from England has colored his perception of how wine tastes. Of course England is home. Just like Japan had been home, once, just like Israel, once. Just like Heaven, once.
Crowley shrugs, as unrepentant as always. "So I helped a little, so what? It was bound to happen sooner or later."
Aziraphale sighs. "Yes, I suppose it was." He looks at the glass in his hand again, then sets it abruptly back down. He looks up at Crowley.
"I have to go."
Behind his glasses, Crowley blinks. Aziraphale can tell. "What d'you mean? Back to England?"
Aziraphale shakes his head. "Don't ask questions when you already know the answers."
Crowley scowls and attacks the remains of his potatoes. "Don't know why you're bothering, at this point. They've got things well enough in hand over there, seems like."
"I have to do something."
"Don't see why you have to do that."
"I'm not you, Crowley," says Aziraphale. "I can't just sit back and watch from here until I'm ordered. I need to help." He pauses, his eyes on the thin line of Crowley's mouth. "Xin lỗi."
Crowley brushes the apology aside. He knows. He understands the need to do something, anything, but has never understood the angel's need to get involved in the thick of things. Meddling overseas is how Crowley prefers to 'do something.' Sometimes it even works. "Well." His voice is flat. "If you must, you must."
"You know I must," says Aziraphale. He stands. "You'll get the bill, won't you? I'll take care of it next time, I promise."
Crowley won't look at him, looks out the window instead, watches another fire truck scream past. Red flashing lights flail around the restaurant. "Try not to die this time."
Aziraphale half-smiles. "I'll do my best, dear."
Crowley is annoyed, initially, but two days later when the riots pick up and gunfire rattles across the green and everything goes south, he is glad Aziraphale is not around to see it.