TITLE: break my cage and spread my wings
SUMMARY: Everyone called the Titanic the 'Ship of Dreams', but for Aziraphale, it was the ship of nightmares, carrying her away from her home in England, and her dreams of freedom, and towards the bleak future of her arranged marriage in America. The only spark of light in the darkness is her new and tentative friendship with the boldly intimate Crowley.
AO3 TAGS: Alternate Universe - Titanic Fusion, Ineffable Wives (Good Omens), POV Aziraphale (Good Omens), Human Aziraphale (Good Omens), Female Aziraphale (Good Omens), Rose Dewitt Bukater Aziraphale (Good Omens), Human Crowley (Good Omens), Female Crowley (Good Omens), Male-Presenting Crowley (Good Omens), Female-Presenting Crowley (Good Omens), Jack Dawson Crowley (Good Omens), Caledon Hockley Gabriel (Good Omens), Ruth Dewitt Bukater Michael (Good Omens), Arranged Marriage, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Flirting, Teasing, Smooth Crowley (Good Omens), Protective Crowley (Good Omens), Hand Holding, Dancing, Touching, Neck Kissing, Light Angst, Temporary Break Up, First Kiss, Kissing, Gentle Kissing, Naked Female Clothed Female, Naked Aziraphale (Good Omens), Insecure Aziraphale (Good Omens), Virgin Aziraphale (Good Omens), First Time, Top Crowley (Good Omens), Bottom Aziraphale (Good Omens), Cunnilingus, Vaginal Fingering, Tribadism, more tags to come (probably), tags only look scary because of all the '(Good Omens)' additives (set by AO3 not me)
Chapter Six: Drunk on You
Chapter Summary: "Or do you just want to know what it's like to be had?"
AN: Bout to play Legend of Zelda for the first time. (It's Ocarina of Time.) That has nothing to do with this chapter, except that I'll start playing after I post. lol
1912 April 13, Saturday - Day 4 (Part Four)
"I feel- like the world- isss still spiiinniiing," Aziraphale gasped, trying to keep her feet and largely failing. She felt positively drunk with happiness and the pleasantly-genuine exhaustion she'd gained from dancing.
Thankfully, Crowley was tall and steady at her side, her arm where it was linked with Aziraphale's was immovable, and her pace across the empty deck was slow and ambling, perfectly accommodating Aziraphale's unsteadiness. The wind was trying its best to shock her awake, the air biting at her skin through her clothes, but the chill only made Aziraphale sleepy and longing for the warm comfort of her bed.
"I'm not an expert," Crowley said, sounding amused, "but I believe the beer is to blame for that."
Aziraphale flopped her hand at her friend. "I've never had any before and I quite liked it. I wanted to have as much as I could in case I never got the chance to have it again."
"We won't dock until next week, angel," Crowley reminded her, but unfortunately, Aziraphale already knew that. She also knew it was only a matter of time before her mother or Gabriel discovered that she was actually enjoying herself for once in her life and called a stop to it.
Humming noncommittally, Aziraphale found herself playing with Crowley's gloved fingers, and it took a long time for something to occur to her.
"Are you a lady?" she asked, fascinated by the slide of her silk gloves over Crowley's. "A proper lady, I mean. Like me. Aaaa…. a Lady."
Crowley laughed, that amused, husky laugh of hers that warmed Aziraphale from the inside out. "I used to be. I was a lot like you, but I wasn't strong enough to stay. Not like you."
"Oh, I'm not strong at all," Aziraphale denied, shaking her head and stumbling because of it. Crowley steadied her and then brushed a thumb across her cheek, silencing her.
"You really are, angel," Crowley murmured. "You have no idea."
Aziraphale stared up at her for a long moment, her vision narrowing until all she saw was Crowley's beautiful eyes. But just as slowly as Crowley had come into focus, she shifted right back out, and Aziraphale had to blink her eyes and shake her head. Perhaps the beer had gotten to her.
"But yes, I was like you, until I got tired of my mother always trying to dictate my life," Crowley continued, and got them walking again. Aziraphale hadn't even realized they'd stopped. "The final straw came a few years ago, when she arranged a marriage, like yours, with someone against my will. I decided it was better to live on the streets than with either my mother or my to-be husband, so I left."
Aziraphale was ashamed to realize that the concept of fleeing had never really occurred to her. She'd always wished to be granted wings, but had never bothered trying to make her own.
"I wonder if we still would have met if you'd never left," Aziraphale mused. Would Crowley have been as she is now? Would they have gotten along? Would Aziraphale's heart still pound in her chest when Crowley looked at her?
She wondered if Crowley was wondering the same, because the arm linked with Aziraphale's tightened, pulling her closer to Crowley.
"I would like to think so," Crowley said, wistful enough to put heat in Aziraphale's face, "but I also think we might actually have. Do you know of Lady Fell?"
Aziraphale thought about it for a moment, sifting through her foggy memories, and then stopped so suddenly that she almost toppled them both with the resultant wobbling. "You're Lady Fell's daughter?" she exclaimed, so loudly that it echoed through the night air. She slapped a hand over her mouth and looked around, but they were as alone as they'd been when they'd crept up to the deck from the party.
Crowley, however, simply raised an eyebrow, apparently unconcerned by the loud noise. "Oh, so you've heard of me? What is mother saying about me now?"
"She said you died!" Aziraphale was having a hard time modulating either her shock or her voice. Though she thought that was quite fair considering that someone she'd heard had died several years ago was, in fact, very much alive. "We went to your funeral!"
"Really?" Crowley asked, looking intrigued. "I'm sorry I missed that. I always thought it would be fun attending my own funeral."
Aziraphale gaped at her, her mind too sluggish to properly process anything.
"What else?" Crowley prodded, almost excitedly. "If she was angry enough at me to say I died, she must have made a strange request about the funeral."
"She- we weren't to wear black," Aziraphale managed to say.
Despite the years since it had happened, Aziraphale still remembered the day well. She had still been a child then, or rather, she'd not yet had her first blood, when her mother had informed her that the teenage daughter of one of her friends had died. She had the maid force Aziraphale into a dreadful black dress, several years too old and several sizes too small, and only after Aziraphale was bundled into her clothes, bound so tightly that she could hardly move, did Michael burst back in and demand Aziraphale change out of her 'dreary clothes' at once. Aziraphale's maid at the time had been annoyed and less than gentle, stripping Aziraphale back out of her clothes, but Aziraphale had only been glad that she would be able to wear clothes that fit.
"Apparently, you wore too much of it in life, and we weren't to humour you in death."
Suddenly, Crowley's worldly knowledge made more sense - if she was Aziraphale's age when she disappeared, then Crowley was closer to Gabriel's age than Aziraphale's. It came as a bit of a relief, knowing that Aziraphale wasn't missing out on something a woman her age her already done, but that she had plenty of time to still do that. It was more of a comfort than she would have thought.
Crowley laughed, a new laugh, the sound uncomfortably bitter, but it wasn't without amusement. Aziraphale didn't like it at all.
"That sounds like mother," she said, unsurprised, with a nonchalant shrug of a shoulder. "Here," she murmured, pulling open the door that led to the first class rooms.
Aziraphale stepped inside, warmed not just by leaving the cold air behind her, but the hand at the base of her spine as Crowley followed her inside.
The long, narrow hallways carried sound far too easily, and Aziraphale had to make sure she kept her voice down when she spoke - any further outbursts would be noticed, and it would not be pleasant. "Does that mean you also have rooms in first class?" she asked.
For a moment, a split second, she imagined waking in the dead of night, sneaking from her rooms to Crowley's in her nightgown, and crawling between Crowley's sheets, where her friend would welcome her with open arms and warm affection. She shook the thought away, but it still left heat burning in her cheeks.
Crowley laughed again, this time more amused than bitter, and the fan of air it sent against Aziraphale's neck only served to warm her further. "Nah. I left because I was tired of the endless dishonest, disingenuine politeness that plagues the first class. It's all the same and my hatred for everything it is, was, and will be hasn't faded." She paused, looked down at Aziraphale, and then brazenly reached up to tug one of Aziraphale's curls just like she'd done earlier that morning, only this time she brushed the knuckles of her glove against Aziraphale's cheek. Only, this time, both the look on her face and the tug were less a great deal less contemplative and a great deal more flirtatious.
"Well, almost everything," she grinned.
Aziraphale blushed and looked away.
"But no, my rented rooms are in third class where the real fun is," Crowley finished, letting go of Aziraphale's hair.
"I'm afraid I still don't understand why you were at dinner tonight then," Aziraphale admitted. She could see her door ahead, and she desperately wanted to dig her heels in, just to buy a little more time with Crowley. Or worse, sneak back to third class with her - she could even picture it: stealing through the Titanic in her nightgown, sneaking under Crowley's sheets to lay in her warm and welcome embrace. "Or who that man was."
"Ah. Well, Duke Hastur is a proper duke, true enough," Crowley said, her voice light but her expression wrinkled with distaste. "I hate to tell you this angel, but there are men in this world who will pay for the company of a woman." It was knowledge Aziraphale already had, and she knew and understood what these men paid for, and her throat when tight at the thought that Crowley had submitted to such a man. "Hastur in particularly can't keep a wife - either because he kills them or because they run away. So he must pay for company in places such as this. These clothes are actually his, though I'm very tempted to steal them just to burn them. I'm tempted to steal everything of his and burn it."
Crowley's sudden darkness made Aziraphale halt, and she wavered at the sudden loss of momentum. Crowley stopped and looked at her, brows pinched in confusion before they cleared with understanding.
"I don't mean to frighten you, angel," she said softly, turning to face Aziraphale completely. It pulled their arms apart, and Crowley made no move to touch her again, and Aziraphale hoped it was only because Crowley thought that she might need the distance. "Your world, the world that used to be mine too, is sheltered. There's a lot of darkness in the world, and sometimes you have to cultivate some within yourself just to make sure the rest doesn't swallow you up."
Aziraphale swallowed and nodded, and then tentatively reached for Crowley's hands. Crowley gave them easily, her face softening as she moved back into Aziraphale's space. "I know. And I know that reading about things in books is nothing like experiencing them, but I just… I wish the world was a better place." Crowley squeezed her hands gently and Aziraphale squeezed back. "And I didn't mean to make you think that I was… rejecting you, you just surprised me is all."
Crowley's lips quirked, her expression relieved, and she raised both of Aziraphale's hands to press a kiss across her gloved index fingers. "Told you, angel, you don't have to apologize to me," she said warmly before stepping backwards, pulling Aziraphale the few feet forward towards her door.
Aziraphale went without protest, but a question was burning her tongue, and her mouth opened to release it before she could choke on it. "Have you?" she asked thickly, the question half-formed and without a foundation. Crowley looked at her questioningly and Aziraphale's face burned as she clarified. "Have you been paid to be Duke Hastur's company?"
Crowley stopped walking and Aziraphale followed suit, wary about the slow grin blooming on Crowley's face.
"What are you asking, angel?" she practically purred, stepping forward into Aziraphale's space. Aziraphale backed away without a thought, like they were dancing again, only Crowley kept coming towards her and Aziraphale kept backing away. Until she bumped into a wall and was forced into a standstill. Crowley stepped forward again, right into Aziraphale's body, and the almost-too-sharp points of her hips settled against Aziraphale.
The contact was gentle but unexpected, and so painfully intimate, despite the layers of skirts between them, that it made Aziraphale's breath shudder in her chest. She was frozen, almost like she was whenever Gabriel attempted to display his... 'affection' (possession), but for once, it wasn't because she had no wings with which to fly away. No, she was frozen by the utterly unfamiliar desire for more.
A desire that only flamed brighter when Crowley brazenly set her hands to Aziraphale's waist.
"Are you asking if Duke Hasture has ever had me?" Crowley asked, her face drawing painfully slowly nearer. Aziraphale swallowed hard and her lips parted, pulling in shallow breaths.
"Or are you asking if I've ever been had by a man?"
Closer and closer that red mouth drew, and Aziraphale was helpless in the face of its imminent touch. She didn't think she wanted it any other way.
"Or maybe you're asking what it's like to be had by a man?"
No, Aziraphale had never wanted to know that, but there was a curious throbbing between her legs, right where a man would take her. Only, it wasn't a man making her ache so fiercely, it was Crowley. It was an unfamiliar want, an unfamiliar need, stronger than any hunger she'd ever had for food or rare books.
"Or do you just want to know-"
- Crowley was so close that Aziraphale could taste her breath on her tongue -
"-what it's like-"
- Aziraphale's breath hitched when Crowley's mouth bypassed hers to breathe words-turned-air along Aziraphale's jaw to her neck-
"-to be had?"
The tacky but soft press of a lipsticked kiss to the sensitive, tender flesh of Aziraphale's neck stole the breath right from her lungs. Hot breath fanned over Aziraphale's shoulder and it spread through her like wildfire, sparking a strange little sound from her mouth. Her legs trembled from the overwhelming heat of it all, and she would have collapsed if Crowley's hips weren't pinning her in place. She'd never felt so weak or so desperate in all her life, and she… she couldn't put any words to why. No words, only a name.
Crowley lingered at her neck, for a moment that seemed to last for far too long and yet somehow not long enough, before she slowly straightened, taking the heat of her mouth from the vulnerable curve of Aziraphale's neck, leaving behind a memory of a kiss that burned like a brand. All Aziraphale could do was stare up at her with wide eyes with her fingers tangled hopelessly in her own skirts - she couldn't even remember how her hands had gotten there, but neither could she convince her fingers to let go.
In stark contrast to her desperation, her confusion, her need, Crowley's smile down at her was soft, warm, indulgent. It was a smile that made Aziraphale feel like… like she actually mattered to someone. With sudden clarity, Aziraphale knew that she would not be able to bear parting ways with Crowley once they reached New York. Her life would be empty, if Crowley wasn't in it, even if it was only in some small way.
"Crowley," she gasped, and the sound shocked her. It was hoarse, and her throat was tight, like she was sick. She felt fever-hot too, but she knew it was no sickness. Only Crowley.
Crowley's smile turned sharp, turned… turned hungry, and her eyes went dark. "You wanted to know why I came to dinner tonight?" Her voice hoarse too, like Aziraphale's, only darker, smokier. Aziraphale wanted to wrap herself in it. "Isn't it obvious, angel?" she asked as if she wasn't expecting an answer. Which was good because Aziraphale had none. She had no words at all.
Crowley leaned in again, this time to brush her lips against Aziraphale's ear instead of her neck, but the contact still sent a paralyzing tremor down Aziraphale's spine. Crowley answered her own question with a warm whisper that set Aziraphale on fire: "I came for you, angel."
The kiss that followed Crowley's confession was a soft, gentle pressure to Aziraphale's cheek, but it made Aziraphale feel like a volcano, like the surface of the sun, and the throbbing between her legs was so dreadful now that it ached. Crowley could alleviate it, Aziraphale knew she could, but she couldn't speak, couldn't move, she was paralysed by her heat, by her unfamiliar need.
She was helpless to stop Crowley stepping away, taking the heat of her body, the comfort of her touch.
"Please," Aziraphale whimpered, her hands tightening in her skirts so fiercely that it hurt her fingers. She wanted Crowley to come back against her, she needed her to come back. Aziraphale just... needed her.
But Crowley just kept moving away, walking backwards towards the door back to the deck, smiling that hungry smile. "Good night, angel," she murmured, her voice carrying easily down the long hallway.
And then she was gone, disappeared out the door into the night beyond.
Aziraphale couldn't have said how long she stood there with that awful throbbing between her legs, trying to pull together enough strength to turn and let herself into their suites. When she finally made it through the door, she was surprised to find the sitting room empty, that no one was up waiting for her, demanding to know where she'd been. Surprised, but so very grateful. Especially because her legs were still weak, even though that throbbing was slowly fading, and her steps were unsteady, and she had to rely heavily on the wall to get to her room. All the while, her heart pounded out a rhythm against her ribcage fit to wake the dead, and Aziraphale was terrified that it would wake Gabriel. Or worse, her mother. But no one came running, and she finally slipped into her bedroom, alone and unobserved.
The trembling in her fingers made undressing a greater task than it had ever been, and by the time Aziraphale collapsed into the seat at her vanity to brush out her hair, she was exhausted. She couldn't even bring herself to put away her pins as she pulled them from her hair, just left them scattered across the wood for the morning. It wasn't until she raised her brush though that she noticed them: two clear lipstick prints stark red against her pale skin, one on her neck and the other on her cheek.
Crowley had marked her. Like a cattle brand. And Aziraphale felt owned.
Heat flooded her like the incoming tide, burning under her skin, reigniting that wicked throb between her thighs. Her hairbrush fell from numb fingers and her reflection turned red, and Aziraphale fled from the sight of it. She dove into bed and pulled the covers over her head, pressing her thighs together so hard it hurt, wishing the throbbing would stop. Wishing that Crowley was there to make it stop.
That night, Aziraphale dreamed that the sun was an amorphous mare that rode down from the sky to the deck of the Titanic. It shone so golden-bright that she couldn't even look at it as she mounted it, yet the red fire of its mane was somehow so very clear when Aziraphale tangled her fingers in it. The wavy red strands were all that kept her on the gentle beast's back as it leapt back into the sky, galloping full tilt between her legs on the waves and against the wind. The fire of it burned where she was most vulnerable, but the thought of diving into the sea to relieve the ache was even more unbearable than the possibility that it might burn her alive.
TBC
Update next Saturday and don't forget to toss rebloga to your Writer (themadkatter13fanfiction tumblr, post / 190591686323)~
