PLEASE NOTE: The original text for Books & Brimstone was published first at my other FF account, Ninja Fangirl. I've fixed up a bunch of my mistakes and am reposting it here. I hope you all enjoy it! Remember, this is oooooooold writing, except for the Epilogue, so it's allowed to be craptastic.
DISCLAIMER AND WARNING: The characters Hastur, Crowley, and Aziraphale, as well as the basic plot ideas and setting, belong to the almighty genius that is Terry Pratchett.
This has mild slash, don't be a hater, yadda yadda yadda...
----------------------
It was the last thing Jezebel had been expecting. Here she was, innocently sipping her overpriced beverage and driving almost(1) every male object within a half mile radius wild by crossing and uncrossing her legs at various intervals, when who should appear? That slippery bastard Crawly, that's who! She watched as the demon was led to a nearby table. She watched as he pulled out a chair for his companion, an effeminate man dressed in a white sweater and pair of beige slacks of a sort that had gone out of style fifty years ago. She watched as Crawly sat down opposite the poof, and as he began looking around. Their eyes met. Crawly paled. Jezebel smiled and waved jauntily. She stood, tugged at the hem of her dress to make sure it wasn't bunching unpleasantly anywhere, picked up her wine glass and made her way over to the table occupied by the demon and the angel.
----------------------
"Bless it!" Crowley growled in panic. "She's coming over here! What should I do?"
"Act like your usual suave and charming self, and you should be fine."
"This is no time to be sarcastic, Aziraphale! I could be-" The violently whispered conversation was interrupted by the arrival of the scantily clad female in question. She pulled over a chair from a nearby table (the original occupant had left to use the restroom), and sat down fluidly.
"Crawly," she purred. "This is a pleasant surprise! I'm not up top for a full day and I've already found an old friend! Darling, how have you been?
Aziraphale stared distastefully at the Succubus. Her behavior (and fashion sense) was nothing short of appalling! Just who did she think she was? He waited impatiently for Crowley to tell her off. What the demon actually did was more than slightly less heroic.
"Erm, hullo Jez." The demon said awkwardly. "I'm terrible, as usual. How has your father been doing these days?"
She giggled shamelessly, "Oh, he's the same as always. Pretty much unchanged other than an inexplicable fear of talking on the telephone." This, oddly, caused her to giggled even harder.
Crowley chuckled weakly along with her. "Oh, heh heh, really?"
"Yes, yes." She waved the topic off as it bored her. "Crawly, dear, where are your manners?" She asked in a sickly-sweet reproachful tone. "You haven't yet introduced me to your friend, you big silly head."
Yich, thought Aziraphale.
"Heh heh, er, sorry. I guess I kind of... Forgot." He finished lamely. Truth be told, he hadn't introduced them because he wanted her to leave as quickly as possible. "This is a, erm, business associate of mine. Mr. Fell, allow me to introduce you to Jezebel... Jezebel..." He searched wildly for her current surname.
"Wormwood, darling." She said sweetly, batting her eyelashes at the blonde man. He was unaffected. That's it. He has to be gay. She thought as she smiled plastically at him.
Aziraphale was distracted. Business associate?!?!?! Why he ought to- no, no he technically was merely that. Crowley's business associate. That didn't stop it from feeling terribly impersonal. "Wonderful to meet you, Ms. Wormwood."
He said stiffly. Wormwood. How original.
Jezebel giggled again. "Please, Mr. Fell, call me Jezebel." And with that she lost interest in the angel, turning her slit pupils back onto Crawly. "So what are you handsome gents doing here so late at night?" She asked, leaning forwards and resting a hand on the Tempter's arm.
"We were having dinner." Aziraphale said pointedly, leaning around the succubus.
"Oh, really? I must seem so rude then, barging in like this..." She moved slightly, casually bumping her 65 pound-a-glass(2) wine directly onto Aziraphale's vintage white sweater. "Oh dear, how clumsy of me! What a pity, now you'll have to go home and change. How sad!"
Aziraphale stood up, his back very stiff and his nostrils very white. "It's no problem. I was about to leave anyway. It's terribly late. Must get home. Have a nice evening. Good night." He said this all in an unpleasantly robotic voice. Then he turned and didn't so much storm as walk away very quickly. He was momentarily stopped in a futile effort to pull his way through a push door. Finally he pushed his way through the glass door, disappearing out into the darkness.
Jezebel attempted to look innocent. "Was it something I said?" She asked with a great show of shock.
--------------------
Aziraphale took a taxi home, walking dazedly into his shop. He cleared the stain away with a wave of his hand and then collapsed in a not-very-graceful manner into the couch in his back room. Suddenly the large bubble of anger that had been building inside of him burst. He grabbed an unfortunate paisley throw cushion and hurled it with all his might in the restaurants general direction. The pillow flew a few feet and then landed with a small 'piff' sound on the floor. Needless to say, this did not improve his temper much. "Screw Crowley!" He screamed at no one in particular.
--------------------
Several blocks away Crowley sneezed. He swerved to miss the truck that was inexplicably coming head on at him and turned on the windshield wipers to remove the water dumped on his car by a very violent and localized thundershower. He hummed in an unconcerned manner, popping a tape labeled "The Best of Pink Floyd" into his cassette player. Soon, familiar music filled the car:
Steve walks warily down the street
With his brim pulled way down low
Ain't no sound but the sound of his feet
Machine guns ready to go...
Crowley sang along with the chorus, "Another one bites the dust"(3) as he casually swerved to avoid an ornamental plum tree that suddenly decided it wanted to grow in the middle of the road.
--------------------
Of course, as a demon Crowley didn't need to sleep, but he liked to. Therefore it was much to his annoyance when his bedroom curtains were flung wide, allowing the unpleasantly bright and cheerful morning sunlight to poke it's head in and say hello. He groaned and rolled over, covering his head with his specially designed Swedish orthopedic pillow. In response to this all of his blankets flew off the bed leaving him shivering in the less than warm air. If that wasn't enough to ruin his sleep, a familiar and recently-back-in-his-life-but-not-really-welcome voice spoke somewhere close to his bed.
"Oh dear, Crawly. You still sleep without clothes, I see. Are you cold or is that how you usually look now?" The voice giggled unpleasantly.
Crowley moaned. "Go- er, someone. What the He- erm, Winchester are you doing in my room? Moreover, what are you doing in my life?"
Jezebel looked hurt, plopping her mini-skirt clad rear onto the edge of his bed. "Now now, that's no way to talk. I'm just here trying to make our relationship as it was before fate cruelly intervened-"
"If I remember correctly," The demon interrupted distastefully. "You dumped me in favor of that other succubus what's-his-name... Er, Leonardo Devinci? Besides, I don't remember you ever waking me up at such an unGo- er, someone-ly hour. Get your arse off my bed."
"Dicaprio." She sighed dramatically. "And it isn't that early. It's nine in the morning." She paused, searching for her train of thought and catching up with it again. "Oh Crawly, why can't we just let by-gones be by-gones?" One of her ruby-taloned hands found it's way onto Crowley's bare hip. "I just can't stop think about you." She said tearfully.
"Well you're going to have to try." He informed her, sitting up, dislodging the hand, and wishing himself into a designer suit. "Because I happen to have someone else on my mind."
The color drained from the succubus' face. "You- You flaming homo!"(4) She screamed at him. She grabbed the expensive Swedish pillow and threw it at him as Crowley stood up and started to walk off. He ducked without turning around. "I'll bet it's that poofty, fashion challenged 'business associate' of yours, isn't it?!?!"
Crowley stopped midstride and turned to face her. "First of all I am bi, equal opportunities and all that rot. Second of all, yes, it is my poofty, fashion challenged business associate. Thank you for asking. Good bye and have a nice life."
"Oh," Snarled the Succubus, forgetting to look beautiful. "You are so going to regret this!" She disappeared in an acrid red cloud of smoke.
"I'm so sure." Crowley told the empty air. He then made a beeline for his well-stocked liquor cabinet. He really needed a drink.
--------------------
A few hours later the phone rang in a little known Soho bookstore. Aziraphale waited a couple of rings before answering. "Hello, this is Fell's Books," He droned. "If you want to place a hold on a book you will have to call back during busi-"
"Damnit angel, it's me!" Came the voice at the other end of the line. "When are you going to get caller ID like the rest of the world?"
"Where would I put it, pray tell?" The angel asked icily. "I have a normal phone, unlike some people. All it has on the front is the wheely, turny thing. Anyway, are you calling to lecture me on my technology and lack thereof, or are you calling to apologize?"
"'Wheely turny thing'?" The voice at the other end of the line sounded dumbstruck, but quickly snapped out of it. "Besides, what do I have to apologize for?"
"Well, last night for example." The angel's voice was cold enough to cause the next ice age.
"I didn't have anything to do with it! I didn't make her knock wine all over you."
"Well, you could have told her off or something, but no! Instead you were all 'oh yes Jez' and 'anything you say Jez'. It was shameful!"
"Angel, if I didn't know you any better I'd say you were jealous." The demon sounded annoyingly smug.
Aziraphale slammed the receiver back into it's cradle. Jealous? How could he be jealous? The suggestion was utterly ridiculous. Angels didn't get jealous. Envy was a cardinal sin.
Besides, how could Crowley know? The moment that... woman appeared all of his attention had gone down her top. Hellish hussy.
--------------------
Three calls later and Aziraphale answered the phone again. "Honestly, one would think you were desperate or something." He said in his best aloof tones.
Mary Smith (probably not her real name), the cheerful voiced English-as-a-second-language telemarketer(5) working with AT&T, paused. "Queue?" she asked after a second.
"Sorry dear, wrong person. Have a pleasant and productive day." Aziraphale hung up. Five seconds later the phone rang again. "Look, I'm sorry my dear, I don't need any Ah Toy eel Toy!" He said into the receiver, kind but firm of tone.
"Aziraphale you bastard, I've been trying to call you for the past twenty minutes. Why didn't you answer the phone?"
"Honestly, one would think you were desperate or something." The angel replied, feeling idiotic. The good comeback didn't seem as potent the second time he said it.
"Well, I am. Get over it. Look, can you make it down to the park in fifteen minutes? I want to app... App... say I'm sorry." The spoke the last part with much displeasure, almost as though it pained him.
Aziraphale smiled triumphantly. "Oh, I suppose I can make it." He said.
"Good. And do me a favor, angel?"
"Yes?"
"Wipe that smug grin off of your face before you get there." Crowley hung up.
--------------------
The ducks gathered eagerly around the feet of the tweed-clad blonde man, snapping at the stale bread crusts he scattered in their midst. Aziraphale broke up a fight between a pair of ganders and ripped the disputed bread in half, giving a piece to each duck, all the while lecturing them on propriety and the necessity of verbal conflict resolution.
A hand on his shoulder distracted the angel from his benevolent overseeing of the peaceful conversation between avians. Aziraphale spun around to be confronted by a grinning demon. "I come bearing gifts." He said, presenting the angel with a greasy white paper sack. "You're five minutes early."
"I didn't have anything else to do." He said dismissively, blushing never the less. "Hmm, éclairs. So having given up on everything else you've fallen back on trying to tempt me into gluttony, have you?" Aziraphale accepted the bag with a prim smile. "My dear boy, you are going to have to try harder than that. Ooooh! Chocolate filling!"
"One does what one must." Crowley said, settling down on the bench beside his friend, watching as the angel tore one of the pastries into politely bite-sized pieces and popped them into his mouth with poorly-disguised relish. The demon cleared his throat after a few minutes of silence, broken only by the sound of debating reasonably over the éclair crumbs that Aziraphale threw to them. "Well, now that we're face to face I'd like to apologize properly. I'm really sorry for what ever I did to get to angry with me."
Aziraphale paused mid-chew. "'What ever you did to get me angry with you'? I thought it was obvious. Either that or you are so terribly dense that even the simplest concepts fail to drill their way into your brain!" He put the bag down on the bench, stood up, and stalked off down the path.
Crowley jogged to catch up with the incensed angel. "I knew it! You are jealous!"
"My dear boy, you are delusional. I am no such th-" He was interrupted by being kissed both passionately and skillfully by a certain dark-haired demon.
-----------------------
Passersby were treated to the view of a demon kissing an angel, who wasn't really fighting back. They also saw a large brown gander paddling off towards the island in the middle of the lake, a white paper sack full of éclairs clamped tightly in his beak.
-----------------------
"Crowley, why did you kiss me like that?"
"Because you were lying, and, as an angel, I thought you'd appreciate being stopped before you sinned."
-----------------------
(1) Old Mister Archie Neils was saved from this, owing entirely to the fact that he is dumb, deaf, and blind.
(2) For Yanks like me, this is approximately US$115.
(3) Please note that this isn't actually Pink Floyd. It's Queen, as are all cassettes that stay in Crowley's car for over a fortnight.
(4) Heaven and Hell aren't precisely sure as to who created homosexuality, so they both condemn it equally. In truth, it is human nature for some to be homosexual, and so this argument was moot from it's conception.
(5) Telemarketers are a purely Hellish invention. (Ironically) Heaven countered by creating caller ID.
----------------------